…The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
-Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Hume’s Deduction of the Problem of Induction
Several questions about the nature of human’s actions are brought into light and attempted to be answered throughout An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding; the most celebrated of Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume’s publications. Among these many mysteries lies one of particular interest, in that nearly all of us participate in its processes while only the rare individual even contemplates why we do such a thing. This refers to what is often called The Problem of Induction, in which one tends to rely on predictions about future happenings based on things that have already occurred in the past, even though there is no evidence that past and future occurrences are correlated[1]. While some may argue that there is indeed justifiable reason to believe certain instances of the future will be parallel to instances of the past, Hume argues otherwise. Indeed, he holds the position that using experiences of the past to be similar to those of the future, even though it often ends up working, holds no rational justification and is thereby an irrational action. This view, at least from the perspective of this paper, is in fact true and support of Hume’s claim will be explored through his argument on the matter broken down and summarized throughout this paper.
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