Mike,
Hume also had quite a problem with Induction; you know, the matter of claiming,
essentially, that, in some respects the future will be the same as the past.
For example, the sun has "risen" every day, so far as we know: will it rise
tomorrow? Induction is the force that "impels" us to say, "Yes". There may be
other ways to express this, and I am not trying to be academic, here, nor even
to be correct, but just to give a flavor. If we're not careful, this can lead
to a Philosophical discussion of Probability, but I'll be careful.
In the 2nd half of the 20th Century the philosopher Karl Popper took up what he
called "Hume's Problem of Induction", and claims to have solved it in an essay
in his book, OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE, a book I enjoyed as a Philosophy major in
college (also double-majored in Astronomy, no accounting for taste). Another
book of Popper's we enjoyed was his LOGIC OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY, which we all
-- including the professor -- referred to succinctly and unabashedly as "LSD".
Popper borders on the megalomaniacal, though, and I find his writing
challenging but entertaining, perhaps not in ways he intended.
Did he really "solve" Hume's Problem of Induction? To borrow a stance and
words from a famous Zen story: "I won't say!" Personally, I think Hume solved
it. And this is where Popper's megalomania shows, too, not in picking up the
problem again, but in his claim of solving it. I'll say for him though that he
sheds further light on the psychological factors that make us trust Induction.
But Popper had the benefit of living later than Hume, and so had more
revelations from psychologists than Hume ever did.
I think Popper mainly updates the language of our appreciation of Induction,
and he doesn't add much to the understanding, but a little. Still, important,
I think. A link in the chain. Like Causality. ;-)
--Joe
> mike brown <uerusuboyo@...> wrote:
>
> I wasn't denying 'scientific' cause and effect at all! What I'm saying, and
> which mirrors Hume, is that there is no causative link to be found in a
> sequance of events.
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