Induction
Before the distorting effects of philosophical reflection, we take for granted that whilst some predictions about the future are particularly risky (the UK weather, for example), it is possible to have knowledge of many future events. We infer apparently unproblematically from past to future and from finite instances to generalities by induction (although the term ‘induction’ itself is not a feature of informal utterance). We know that night will follow day. But how can this be reconciled with our conceptions of knowledge.
Hume set out what is now called ‘the problem of induction’. Reliabilism suggests one response to it. The account of knowledge drawn from Brandom and McDowell suggests another. But is any response satisfactory?
Reading
For initial background, revise:
Hume, D. ([1748] 1975) Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, Oxford: Clarendon Press §34-45 pp40-55.
You can find this online here. Read the whole of parts 1 and 2 up to the words "objects totally depends". Then:
D.H. Mellor, “The Warrant of Induction”, in D.H. Mellor, Matters of Metaphysics (CUP, 1991), chapter 15.
Available in both text and audio at http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/3475.
The slides are here.
Reflections in this session.