Abstract
Abstract
In A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume presents an argument according to which all knowledge reduces to probability, and all probability reduces to nothing. Many have criticized this argument, while others find nothing wrong with it. In this paper we explain that the argument is invalid as it stands, but for different reasons than have been hitherto acknowledged. Once the argument is repaired, it becomes clear that there is indeed something that reduces to nothing, but it is something other than what, according to many, Hume had in mind. Thus two views emerge of what exactly it is that reduces. We surmise that Hume failed to distinguish the two, because he lacked the formal means to differentiate between a rendering of his argument that is in accordance with the probability calculus, and one that is not.
Funder
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Social Sciences,Philosophy
Reference39 articles.
1. Ahmed, A. (2015). Hume and the independent witnesses. Mind, 124(496), 1013–1044.
2. Ainslie, D. C. (2015). Hume’s true scepticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Ainslie, D. C., & Butler, A. (Eds.). (2015). The Cambridge companion to Hume’s treatise. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
4. Atkinson, D., & Peijnenburg, J. (2017). Fading foundations: Probability and the regress problem. Synthese Library (Vol. 383). Cham: Springer Open Access.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58295-5
.
5. Daston, L. (1988). Classical probability in the enlightenment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献