Hi, Robert is asking about how inductive inferences are justified in light of Hume's skeptical arguments. As you would expect, there is a large literature about this in philosophy that goes back centuries. A reasonable, accessible place to start is Wesley Salmon's "The Foundations of Scientific Inference", Pittsburgh University Press 1967. There's been much progess since 1967 but Salmon gives you a good idea of the basic philosophical issues. Note that Bayesianism is not the only game in town: Classical Statistics is a systematic response to Hume's problem of induction, and so is Computational Learning Theory (with both of its paradigms, Gold and PAC). You may also want to look at the articles in Perry and Bratman's Anthology, "Introduction to Philosophy", 3rd edition, Oxford. They have a section on induction. In general, Perry and Bratman is a great source for those who want to know a bit about the philosophical literature on anything, but don't have time to take a full course. They have classic pieces on just about any philosophical topic, and each section has an introduction to gives you a quick intro to the subject. Regards, Oliver ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Oliver Schulte Phone: (780) 492-8667 Dep. of Philosophy Fax: (780) 492-9160 University of Alberta E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 4-89 Humanities Centre Web Page: http://www.ualberta.ca/~oschulte Edmonton, AB T6G 2E5 Canada
