Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

Inductive reasoning is vital to our everyday and scientific reasoning. David Hume famously argued that it is impossible to justify induction by reason. Many see Hume’s argument, the so-called problem of induction, as one of the major challenges for theory knowledge. Hume also offered a solution to the problem of induction, albeit a skeptical one. Yet, his solution is commonly regarded as vindicating rather than resolving the problem. I believe that Hume’s solution has been misunderstood. In this paper, I propose an interpretation of Hume according to which the question “is induction justified?” is meaningless or at least futile. That is, I propose that Hume’s solution is in effect dissolution of the problem of induction. I also argue that Hume’s dissolution is different from and superior to Strawson’s dissolution of the problem.