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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Any reasoning from past observations to future predictions requires a connecting principle that assumes the uniformity of nature

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Moving from past to future is not direct because the course of nature might change
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    • 2.A connecting principle is needed to bridge past observations and future predictions
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    • 3.The only connecting principle that would justify such inferences is one asserting that nature is uniform
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Hume's own analysis shows that neither deductive logic nor empirical facts alone can bridge the gap between 'has been' and 'will be'.
      ?

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    • 2.Any probabilistic or frequency-based inference still presupposes that past frequencies reliably constrain future ones, which is itself a uniformity assumption.
      ?

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    • 3.Attempts to justify induction by appeal to its past success are circular, as Hume demonstrated, since that justification already assumes the uniformity it seeks to establish.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Bertrand Russell's 'inductivist turkey' illustrates that no finite sequence of confirming instances logically entails a universal generalization without a background assumption of lawlike regularity.
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    • 2.Goodman's grue paradox demonstrates that without a privileged principle selecting natural over gerrymandered predicates, infinitely many incompatible generalizations fit any dataset equally well.
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    • 3.The selection of 'natural' predicates over grue-like ones itself smuggles in a uniformity assumption about which features of nature remain stable across time.
      ?

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