Justin writes:
>
> I don't see the problem. Hume thought that I could be forced by raesoning to
> accept a proposition in which I could not, in any practical sense, believe or
> act on. This may be odd, but is not a pragmatic self-contradiction. --jks
By means of what argument could he show that you "could not, in any
practical sense, believe or act on" the proposition?
Hume thought that we could be led by argument to accept (that the "sceptic"
"justly insists") "that nothing leads us to [inductive] inference but custom
or a certain instinct of our nature" - "that after a repetition of similar
instances, the mind is carried by habit, upon the appearance of one event,
to expect its usual attendance, and to believe, that it will exist." But on
his premises this must be an inductive inference for which "we have no
arguments to convince us".
"The sceptic, therefore, had better keep in his proper sphere, and display
those philosophical objections, which arise from more profound researches.
Here he seems to have ample matter of triumph; while he justly insists, that
all our evidence for any matter of fact, which lies beyond the testimony of
sense or memory, is derived entirely from the relation of cause and effect;
that we have no other idea of this relation than that of two objects, which
have been frequently conjoin'd together; that we have no arguments to
convince us, that objects, which have, in our experience, been frequently
conjoin'd, will likewise, in other instances, be conjoined in the same
manner; and that nothing leads us to this inference but custom or a certain
instinct of our nature; which it is indeed difficult to resist, but which,
like other instincts, may be fallacious or deceitful." (Essay XII, of the
*Academic or Sceptical Philosophy*)
Ted
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