>It sounds like we are back to Pascal's Wager, but now we have induction
>starring in the role formerly played by God!
A good observation. The primary difference is that I am being careful
to make a distinction between a working assumption and a belief.
I can get away with this because, unlike God, the universe doesn't care
if I'm only pretending to believe.
>I enjoy philosophy as a spectator sport as much as the next person, and I
>remain in awe of those such as Ron Parr who continue to follow Hume in their
>extreme skepticism about induction. They display true courage of their lack
>of convictions -- in the face of what seems so overwhemingly obvious to the
>rest of us, that induction works often but not always. The same is true of
>my car, and I'm quite happy with it.
:-) :-) :-)
I think the point that I was trying to make is that at the end of the
day, we have little choice but to carry on as if induction were
justified. This seems to happen in many places in philosophy (places
that I will not mention for fear of the consequences to this mailing
list). You realize that something which initially seemed obvious is
just castle built in the air, then you realize that you are living in
the castle, and finally you realize that it is the only home you have.
>In a practical sense, we cannot put greater trust in _deduction_, because of
>our fallible premises and rules, not to mention our fallible inferencing. As
>I understand it, the rationale for induction is just about as weak and
>circular as the rationale for deduction:
[Goodman...]
I certainly agree that one cannot justify any of these things ex nihilo.
I do think that there is a qualitative difference between the way
deduction is forced upon us and the way induction is forced upon us.
However, I believe this difference is of little consequence unless we
come to believe that the world will suddenly start behaving chaotically.
--
Ron Parr email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Home Page: http://robotics.stanford.edu/~parr
