If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
Just to expand on my rather succinct post. Hume's Fork is valid precisely because Hume's Guillotine is not. Hume's Fork is a pre-supposition, a value-claim which offers a methodology, not a proposition, which we adopt because of its empirical usefulness. A proposition would go something like: "Hume's Fork is a useful way of conducting scientific inquiry", which is absolutely a synthetic proposition relating to Hume's ideas of matters of fact.
Synthetic propositions/matters of fact cannot be certain according to Hume.
As far as I'm aware, he never made an exception for first principles in his schema.
Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on April 28, 2015, 02:23:33 PMSynthetic propositions/matters of fact cannot be certain according to Hume.They aren't and never will be, Hume was right on this. QuoteAs far as I'm aware, he never made an exception for first principles in his schema.Which is where he was wrong. Whether it was a purposeful omission or he just didn't think of it, his own idea is pretty clearly a presupposition. Philosophy still hadn't figured this out by the 1940s apparently, because the Vienna Circle and the Logical Positivists all maintained ideas of Verificationism while also maintaining Hume's Guillotine. Which is where the contradiction lies. If you maintain Hume's Guillotine, then Hume's Fork fails dramatically. If you reject Hume's Guillotine, it's quite clear that there is a role for presuppositions in any schema you develop, even if Hume himself never recognised it. And, it seems to me, you must reject Hume's Guillotine. There is a clear role for "oughts" in questions of what "is"; science itself is fundamentally based on Karl Popper's idea of falsificationism, which as you probably know is just a modern re-iteration of certain ideas like fallibilism and empiricism. You have to pre-suppose things in order to get off the ground; science only ever works when you assume certain values like fallibilism and empiricism and physicalism. The point of epistemology is to make sure your pre-suppositions are actually worth holding.Hume got one thing right and one thing wrong here, and I think you're essentially looking at the wrong side of the coin.
forgive my dumb but are you saying hume's guillotine should be rejected and hume's fork accepted
as a matter of pragmatics?
I think Hume was kind of a insane with his radical empiricism
Quote from: SexyBarracuda on April 28, 2015, 02:48:27 PMforgive my dumb but are you saying hume's guillotine should be rejected and hume's fork acceptedYes. Quoteas a matter of pragmatics?That's a rather deep question about the nature of epistemology itself, so I don't really have a well-prepared answer. But, to put it really simply, yes. Epistemology, I think, must be deflationary and pragmatic--and to some degree instrumentalist--in order to make any kind of sense.
Peirce would be proud.
Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on April 28, 2015, 02:56:13 PM I think Hume was kind of a insane with his radical empiricismHume gets way too much flak for this, in my opinion. He wasn't as radical as most people seem to think; he did, after all, also present scepticism and criticise the naive, inductivist empiricism we often still see.If anything, I'd criticise Kant for going off the rails with his ideas about synthetic a priori propositions; I don't find it particularly persuasive in the slightest.
Though many logical proofs are most readily accomplished by contradiction (not synthetic), they're also accomplished using induction
Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on April 28, 2015, 03:16:42 PMThough many logical proofs are most readily accomplished by contradiction (not synthetic), they're also accomplished using inductionInduction, however, is imperfect. Always is, and always will be. IIRC, Kant uses the example of the Second Law of Thermodynamics as an example of such a proposition, and yet I think it's unfair to categorise this as a truly a priori proposition. It may well be applicable in all circumstances we ever find, but in line with Hume I think it's really more of an incredibly strong conjecture, warranted by significant empirical evidence. Although, having actually read GEB, you probably have a better grasp on the idea.
I think piranha wanted to talk about the problem of induction, and this seems like a good transition point.
Postpositivists believe that human knowledge is based not on unchallengeable, rock-solid foundations, but rather upon human conjectures. As human knowledge is thus unavoidably conjectural, the assertion of these conjectures is warranted, or more specifically, justified by a set of warrants, which can be modified or withdrawn in the light of further investigation. However, postpositivism is not a form of relativism, and generally retains the idea of objective truth.
Critical rationalists hold that scientific theories and any other claims to knowledge can and should be rationally criticized, and (if they have empirical content) can and should be subjected to tests which may falsify them. Thus claims to knowledge may be contrastingly and normatively evaluated. They are either falsifiable and thus empirical (in a very broad sense), or not falsifiable and thus non-empirical. Those claims to knowledge that are potentially falsifiable can then be admitted to the body of empirical science, and then further differentiated according to whether they are retained or are later actually falsified. If retained, further differentiation may be made on the basis of how much subjection to criticism they have received, how severe such criticism has been, and how probable the theory is, with the least[5] probable theory that still withstands attempts to falsify it being the one to be preferred. That it is the least[5] probable theory that is to be preferred is one of the contrasting differences between critical rationalism and classical views on science, such as positivism, who hold that one should instead accept the most probable theory. (The least probable theory is the one with the highest information content and most open to future falsification.) Critical Rationalism as a discourse positioned itself against what its proponents took to be epistemologically relativist philosophies, particularly post-modernist or sociological approaches to knowledge. Critical rationalism has it that knowledge is objective (in the sense of being embodied in various substrates and in the sense of not being reducible to what humans individually "know"), and also that truth is objective (exists independently of social mediation or individual perception, but is "really real").
and all human knowledge is inductive
Quote from: Meta Cognition on April 28, 2015, 03:23:13 PMQuote from: HurtfulTurkey on April 28, 2015, 03:16:42 PMThough many logical proofs are most readily accomplished by contradiction (not synthetic), they're also accomplished using inductionInduction, however, is imperfect. Always is, and always will be. IIRC, Kant uses the example of the Second Law of Thermodynamics as an example of such a proposition, and yet I think it's unfair to categorise this as a truly a priori proposition. It may well be applicable in all circumstances we ever find, but in line with Hume I think it's really more of an incredibly strong conjecture, warranted by significant empirical evidence. Although, having actually read GEB, you probably have a better grasp on the idea.I think there's a strong argument for the entirety of our natural laws to be derived from induction; being able to be proved through analytic means just reinforces their certainty.I think piranha wanted to talk about the problem of induction, and this seems like a good transition point.
Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on April 28, 2015, 03:41:51 PMand all human knowledge is inductiveIt isn't, the point is that inductive reasoning is something of an illusion. Postpositivists say that induction is a wrong-headed way of looking at epistemology; it creates situations in which observations are assumed to be ampliative and thus justification for certain beliefs, when in fact beliefs are reached through a process of warranted conjectures which can be discarded when contrary evidence presents itself.
I guess I'm having difficulty distinguishing between what is meant by induction in epistemology, versus that of mathematical induction, which GΓΆdel has demonstrated to show completeness and consistency (as in the proof works for all inputs of whatever function it's addressing).
Although its name may suggest otherwise, mathematical induction should not be misconstrued as a form of inductive reasoning (also see Problem of induction). Mathematical induction is an inference rule used in proofs. In mathematics, proofs including those using mathematical induction are examples of deductive reasoning, and inductive reasoning is excluded from proofs.
Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on April 28, 2015, 04:24:27 PMI guess I'm having difficulty distinguishing between what is meant by induction in epistemology, versus that of mathematical induction, which GΓΆdel has demonstrated to show completeness and consistency (as in the proof works for all inputs of whatever function it's addressing).Here: QuoteAlthough its name may suggest otherwise, mathematical induction should not be misconstrued as a form of inductive reasoning (also see Problem of induction). Mathematical induction is an inference rule used in proofs. In mathematics, proofs including those using mathematical induction are examples of deductive reasoning, and inductive reasoning is excluded from proofs.Things like this aren't an issue for Popperians; many critical rationalists have come to identify mathematical operations like Bayesian inference as valuable ways of testing the mettle of propositions. (At least, objective Bayesianism is, not so much subjective Bayesianism. Although I must admit I don't quite understand the distinction).
Hume's Fork is self-refuting
