Research Catalog

Hume's defence of causal inference

Title: Hume's defence of causal inference / Fred Wilson.
Author: Wilson, Fred, 1937-
Publication: Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press, [1997], ©1997.

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Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	B1499.I65 W55 1997g	Off-site

Description

xii, 439 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-76) has long been considered a sceptic on the subject of induction or causal inference. In this book, Fred Wilson convincingly reconstructs the Humean position, showing that Hume was in fact able to defend causal inference as a reasonable practice by using an alternative set of cognitive standards.
Wilson demonstrates the workability of Hume's approach to causal reasoning by relating it to more recent discussions, for example, to Bayesian views of scientific inference and to Kuhn's account of scientific rationality. He also presents a variety of intriguing related topics, including a detailed discussion of Hume's treatment of miracles. As a whole, this work successfully argues that insofar as Hume presented philosophy with the problem of induction, it is also true that he solved it.

Series Statement

Toronto studies in philosophy

Uniform Title

Toronto studies in philosophy.

Subjects

Bibliography (note)

Contents

1. Is There a Prussian Hume? Hume's Theory of Mental Activity. Sect. 1. Hume's 'Emotivist' Theory of Causation. Sect. 2. Hume's Account of Dispositions. Sect. 3. Reason and the Active Mind. Sect. 4. Some Humean Causal Inferences. Sect. 5. Humean Principles Not A Priori. Sect. 6. Hume's Fictional Continuant. Sect. 7. Kant's Convictions -- 2. Hume's Defence of Causal Inference. Sect. 1. We Must Infer. Sect. 2. But We Need Not Do Science. Sect. 3. Hume's Justification of Science (I). Sect. 4. Hume's Justification of Science (II). Sect. 5. Hume's Cognitive Stoicism -- 3. Reason's Sceptical Challenge to Reason. Sect. 1. Reflective Concern and the Rationality of Causal Inference. Sect. 2. The Argument against Reason. Sect. 3. Two Critics of Hume. Sect. 4. The Origins of Hume's Argument concerning Chains of Testimony. Sect. 5. Miracles and Testimony. Sect. 6. Hume's Argument against Reason Reconstructed. Sect. 7. Reason as Strategy.
Sect. 8. The Rationality of Reason. Sect. 9. Humean Strategies and Kuhnian Science.

ISBN

0802041582

LCCN

cn 97930766

OCLC

ocm36993363

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries