How Does PHILOSOPHY - Epistemology: Hume's Skepticism and Induction, Part 1 [HD] Work?

Imagine you're trying to guess what’s going to happen next when you’re playing a game, that's kind of like Hume's skepticism and how he thinks we learn things.

Epistemology is the study of how we know things. It's like asking, "How do I know what I think I know?" Hume was a philosopher who really questioned this, he wanted to figure out how we can be sure about things when we're not 100% certain.

Like Predicting What Comes Next

Think of it like predicting the next color in a pattern. If you see red, blue, red, blue... you might guess the next one is red. That's induction, using past patterns to predict what will happen next.

But Hume asked: Why do we believe that just because something happened before, it will happen again? It’s like assuming your favorite toy will work tomorrow because it worked today, but what if it breaks?

Hume said we don’t actually know for sure, we're just used to things going the same way. So even though patterns help us guess, they’re not proof that the pattern will continue forever.

It's kind of like a game with rules you've never been told, you play by what you see, but there might be more to it!

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Examples

  1. A child sees the sun rise every day and assumes it will always happen.
  2. You eat a hot dog and it tastes good, so you think all hot dogs are good.
  3. Your friend has never lied to you before, so you believe them now.

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Categories: Science · Hume· Skepticism· Induction