Hume's Problem: Induction and the Justification of Belief

by Colin Howson

In the mid-eighteenth century David Hume argued that successful prediction tells us nothing about the truth of the predicting theory. But physical theory routinely predicts the values of observable magnitudes within very small ranges of error. The chance of this sort of predictive success without a true theory suggests that Hume's argument is flawed. However, Colin Howson argues that there is no flaw and examines the implications of this disturbing conclusion; he also offers a solution to one of the central problems of Western philosophy, the problem of induction.

Genres: Philosophy

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 2000

Reviews

[Ryan Jankowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Howson's area of specialization is in probability, so it will come as no surprise that the best he is able to offer in trying to resolve Hume's devastation of induction is an appeal to probability. He concludes as follows:

"We have solved Hume's Problem in about the only way it could be solved, by divorcing the justification for inductive reasoning from a justification of its consequences."

That's a brutal admission that I would think would have very little appeal. In other words, he hasn't solved anything, he's just dismissed the problem. That's not going to appeal to many that don't already adopt his worldview (one of which precludes other possible solutions). Consider the following:

"The religious explanation quite properly no longer commands wide assent, and Darwinism supplies the explanatory deficit with the only account which it is scientifically respectable to accept."

That may be Howson's experience, but he'll have to do much better than two very broad allusions to the work of Swinburne and Putnam to give the impression he's done due diligence in understanding the 'religious explanation' (whatever he means by that as we're never quite told precisely).

He critiques Kant's transcendental argument for arbitrariness (and rightly so), but fails to apply the same measure to his own preferred manner of predication. Here's Howson's position on Kant (with which I agree):

"The problem with Kant’s theory is the undeniable fact that we can sensibly and consistently conceive alternatives to the principles Kant held to be ‘necessary’ conditions of cognizing—the ‘law’ of cause and effect, Newtonian gravitational theory, and Euclidean geometry as the only possible geometry for space—all of which, moreover, are now deemed false!"

But then adopting that reasoning would be problematic for Howson's own position when he presents the following:

"My own belief is that there is no fact of the matter about what entitles a theory of reasoning to logical status, and one has to proceed as one does in extending common law to new cases, by appeal to precedent and common sense. Here again, of course, one must be selective, but with modern deductive logic in mind I propose the following as necessary and sufficient conditions for a discipline to have the status of logic."

This is no less arbitrary than Kant, for clearly competing conceptions of what entails 'common law' differs in its application in codifying one theory of reasoning as logic over any other. As a former professor of Logic at the London School of Economics, surely he is acquainted with numerous, and often competing, paradigms of logic (anti-realist, fractal, deontic, dialethic, etc).

For this reason, I did not find Howson's work persuasive and would suspect many others wouldn't either.

There is some value in his survey of the history of failed attempts to offer a solution to Hume's problem, but for those already familiar with the history, this book offers nothing new to consider.