Abstract
Why is it that Locke, who possessed a full ontology of contingent causality, never raised the problem of induction, as Hume would do only when, within four decades, the scientific revolution would be over? I will suggest now that the reason for this puzzling fact is that the problem of induction is a detrimental difficulty only for the aristotelian, but is a standard feature of science for the platonist. If it is the problem of finding logically necessary connections between phenomena, then the 17th century platonist dismisses this as a non-problem, since there are no such connections in a world created by the Judeo-Christian God. If the problem of induction is that of discovering the unobservable causal layers of the world, then he declares this to be a difficulty so obviously unimportant in comparison with the irreducible irrationality of an informative world as to make any worry about it ridiculous. For science is necessarily hypothetical and the possibility of error is one of its necessary features not because of unobservability of micro structures at all, but because of its informativity. In so far as the problem of induction is identical with the problem of possible error about the identification of necessary links in nature, it is dismissed as a problem at all, since it is logically non-soluble and only soluble problems are really problems.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bechler, Z. (1991). Newton’s Invention of the Problem of Induction. In: Newton’s Physics and the Conceptual Structure of the Scientific Revolution. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 127. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3276-3_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3276-3_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-1054-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-3276-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive