| |
Bertram Russell & the Problem of Induction
by
Kenneth Shouler, Ph.D.
Tags
No tags are currently set for this article.
- Russell showed Hume was right about induction
- Russell defined “the principle of induction”
- Russell said the past can’t predict the future
Bertrand Russell wrote an important essay called “On Induction” in his little book The Problems of Philosophy. His treatment of induction harkens back to the skeptic David Hume, who maintained that there was no “necessary connection” between the occurrence of two events A and B, but only a “habit” of expecting that the occurrence of A, say the movement of one billiard ball, will lead to B, the movement of another ball that A contacts. Hume was talking about causality in nature.
Using careful analysis and re-exploring the problem in new language, Russell showed that Hume was right: induction could never be justified. As Russell puts it:
The problem we have to discuss is whether there is any reason for believing in what is called ‘the uniformity of nature.’ The belief in the uniformity of nature is the belief that everything that has happened or will happen is an instance of some general law to which there are no exceptions.
But can you establish that there is a “uniformity of nature?” In answering, Russell the empiricist comes out looking very much like David Hume the empiricist. There are enough examples that show that the uniformity of nature is difficult to show.
Russell notes that domestic animals expect food when they see the person who usually feeds them. But the man who feeds the chicken every day throughout its life at last “wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken.”
|
|
|