Our human lives are enormously reliant on science and thus it is important to question the process of scientific justification. Induction is one of the important basses for scientific knowledge, but its process of drawing conclusions can be greatly criticised. David Hume (1711-1776) was one philosopher who evaluated induction and found the following problems with induction (University of Edinburgh, 2016).
Hume believed that inductive practices are based on the relation of cause and effect. This comes down to the idea of constant conjunction which states: A causes B which means A is always conjoined in our experience with B. Thus, this matter of fact is bound by one’s senses. Hence, a causal relation that connects ideas has no logical bond as it is only a pattern of behaviour experienced by one’s senses (Kelly, 2010). In other words, our knowledge of cause and effect is the result of extrapolation from past experience of how the world has behaved to how it will behave in the future. …show more content…
The dilemma is that by trying to justify the extrapolation from a past experience to a future action by engaging with the relation of cause and effect is futile and ineffective. This case in point leads to another drawback of induction. The past cannot justify the future; as there is no reason to believe that there is a connection or set pattern in nature that shows the possibility of the future being the same as the past. Therefore, there is insufficient justification for inductive practices and so it can be said that induction is an outcome of habit rather than
Hume believed that inductive practices are based on the relation of cause and effect. This comes down to the idea of constant conjunction which states: A causes B which means A is always conjoined in our experience with B. Thus, this matter of fact is bound by one’s senses. Hence, a causal relation that connects ideas has no logical bond as it is only a pattern of behaviour experienced by one’s senses (Kelly, 2010). In other words, our knowledge of cause and effect is the result of extrapolation from past experience of how the world has behaved to how it will behave in the future. …show more content…
The dilemma is that by trying to justify the extrapolation from a past experience to a future action by engaging with the relation of cause and effect is futile and ineffective. This case in point leads to another drawback of induction. The past cannot justify the future; as there is no reason to believe that there is a connection or set pattern in nature that shows the possibility of the future being the same as the past. Therefore, there is insufficient justification for inductive practices and so it can be said that induction is an outcome of habit rather than