Hume's Argument Against Induction
According to the empiricist English philosopher David Hume, inductive logic is inherently invalid. Hume took an extremely radical view of empiricism, the point of philosophical view that immediate, perceptual experience alone should validate inquiry into the nature of human existence and the nature of reality. Inductive logic is derived from assumptions and hypothesis about natural laws that govern the universe. Because every situation is different, Hume believed, every situation can and must be judged upon its own terms. One cannot assume because something happened in the past it will happen again in the future.
Induction depends upon a series of assumptions about something and generates the hypothesis that is event must always the case, based on a predictability of observations that validates a proposed hypothesis. Thus for Hume it was just as invalid as deductive logic, or making rationalist judgments based upon categorical assumptions. I might assume inductively that because I have seen the sun rise in the sky every day for my entire life that it will do so again tomorrow. But tomorrow the world might end.
For Hume, the main materials of thinking are perceptions and are derived either from immediate sensations or internal perceptions. Internal perceptions or rational human musings, or inductive hypothesis generated from assumptions about predictable experience are by definition less full of force and vivacity than those generated from experience. Hume divided human perceptions into two categories, each distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity." Ideas are "more feeble" and ultimately derived from less lively impressions unlike perceptions derived from immediate experiences. (EHU, Section II). Induction is based upon ideas, in other words it is an internal summary of experiences of the moment, rather than something specific to an immediate occurance.
Work Cited
Hume, David. Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, in Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and concerning the Principles of Morals, edited by L.A. Selby-Bigge, 3rd edition revised by P.H. Nidditch, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.
