Hume and the Fiery Furnace

Abstract

There are a standard number of replies to the riddle of induction, none of which has gained ascendency. It seems that a new approach is needed that concedes less to the Humean dialectic. Humeans, both traditional and contemporary, unwittingly play on the ambiguity of the phrase “change in the course of nature,” and that is why 'C · ~E' appears to be self-consistent, though in fact it is not. I provide an analysis of 'cause' and ‘natural necessity’ which gives inductive inference that internal warrant we assume it to have in ordinary and scientific thinking and rebut in advance contemporary Humean objections based on the erroneous assumption that ‘x is necessary’ and ‘x is a priori‘ are materially equivalent.

Agency, Causality, and Meaning

“…The empiricist account of causality precludes agency explanations because it stipulates that only events which are sufficient to produce other events can be causes. This is because traditional empiricist philosophy is wedded to a Humean ontology of events (Madden, 1971), which ultimately derives from the phenomenalism of the classical empiricists. Now it may be true that if the only legitimate objects 'of scientific knowledge are sense impressions, then the Humean account of causality in terms of the constant conjunction or regular succession of sensory events is the only possible account.…”

Agency, Causality, and Meaning

“…This is because traditional empiricist philosophy is wedded to a Humean ontology of events (Madden, 1971), which ultimately derives from the phenomenalism of the classical empiricists. This is because traditional empiricist philosophy is wedded to a Humean ontology of events (Madden, 1971), which ultimately derives from the phenomenalism of the classical empiricists.…”