By following custom or the tendency of mind whereof he speaks. Hume is not
denying that he and everyone else uses induction, only that one cannot
justify it in the way that some philosophers believe. The best we can do is
explain it.
It is hardly a "sceptical solution" but an explanation that shows that
reason is the slave of passion. Reason is not capable of really questioning
induction since reason is powerless against such a natural instinct. I think
Wittgenstein says somewhere that to say "I doubt x" does mean that one does
or even can doubt x.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message -----
From: Ted Winslow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2000 9:41 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:1542] Re: Re: Hume & the Postmodern Grin without a Cat(was
Re: pomoistas)
> Michael Hoover quotes Louse Antony on Hume:
>
> > Hume's 'skeptical solution' to his own problem amounted to an
abandonment
> > of the externalist hopes of his time. Belief in induction, he
concluded,
> > was a custom, a tendency of mind ingrained by nature, one of a 'species
> > of natural instincts, which no reasoning or process of the thought and
> > understanding is able, either to produce or to prevent [_An Enquiry
> > Concerning Human Understanding_, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977, p. 30.]
> > For better or worse, Hume contended, we're stuck with belief in
> > induction - we are constituionally incapable of doubting it and
> > conceptually barred from justifying it. The best we can do is to
> > explain it.
>
> How could Hume reach this conclusion without employing induction?
>
> Ted Winslow
> --
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