In regards to the book \"Philospohy of Science: A Very Short Introduction\", chapter 2, what are...

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Psychology

In regards to the book \"Philospohy of Science: A Very ShortIntroduction\", chapter 2, what are your thoughts on hume'sproblems? Do you think it is a genuine problem that scientistsshould pay attention to?

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Two Problems Humes problem is usefully divided in two There is first what I shall call the descriptive problem How do human beings form opinions about unobserved matters fact And then there is the normative problem Are beliefs formed in this way justified Does someone who reasons as we normally do really have reason to believe his conclusions about the parts of nature he has not observed A Formulation of the Descriptive Problem Lets suppose for now that perception and memory are clearly sources of knowledge If you see an apple on the table you know that there is an apple on the table If you saw an apple on the table yesterday and you now remember that you saw it then you know now that yesterday there was an apple on the table We will raise questions about these matters later on But let us set them aside for now in order to focus instead on our knowledge of things we have not observed Some of this knowledge is trivial I have not examined every triangle in the universe But I know in advance that each of them has three sides I have not examined every bachelor in the universe But I know in advance that none of them is married These propositions concern what Hume calls relations of ideas A proposition expresses of relation of ideas if and only if its denial is strictly impossible inconceivable or selfcontradictory Hume seems to regard these notions as equivalent For Hume there is no mystery as to how I can know such propositions a priori I simply consider the proposition attempt to imagine its falsity and notice that I am immediately involved in a contradiction or some similar incoherence This provides one straightforward route to knowledge about things we have not observed But this is not the knowledge that interests us here We are rather concerned with knowledge of unobserved matters of fact A matter of fact proposition has the following feature both it and its denial are fully conceivable possible and nonselfcontradictory Consider the proposition that my house is blue You can easily conceive of this propositions being true but you can just as easily conceive of its falsity Neither proposition is incoherent or impossible So both count as claims about matters of fact Humes Descriptive Problem may then be formulated as follows How do human beings arrive at their opinions concerning unobserved matters of fact There is no doubt that we have a multitude of opinions of this sort and that practical life would be impossible without them To take only the most obvious class of examples every substantive claim about the future fall into this category But if you had no opinions at all about the future you would be paralyzed You might be hungry but you would have no idea whatsoever where the food was You might be cold but you would have no idea what would happen if you turned up the thermostat or put on an extra sweater There is no doubt that we have opinions about unobserved mattters of fact and no doubt that we should be grateful for having The descriptive question is How do we arrive at them Humes Solution to the Descriptive Problem Humes first claim is negative Knowledge of unobserved matters fact cannot be derived a priori Rather it must somehow result from experience Imagine an adult human being who has neither seen snow nor heard stories about it He is shown a snowball for the very first time and asked to predict before he has touched it whether it will be hot or cold We all spontaneously predict that it will be cold and were right But all he can do is consider the possibilities He can conceive that it will be cold he can conceive that it will be hot Neither supposition involves any kind of internal contradiction and so long as he is not allowed to investigate the matter he cannot rule either proposition out of consideration So a priori before he has made any relevant observations he has no grounds for an opinion The difference between us and him is not a difference in intellectual power He can reason as well as we can It is rather a difference in experience And this seems to be completely general We do not yet See Answer

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