Hume Studies

Hume Studies Volume XXIV, Number 1, April 1998, pp.141-159 SYMPOSIUM A version of this paper was presented at the symposium on Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy by Don Garrett, held at the XXIVth International Hume Conference, Monterey, California, July 1997. Hume on Reason and Induction: Epistemology or Cognitive Science? PETER MILLICAN The fourth chapter of Don Garrett's book Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy,1 entitled "Reason and Induction," contains a powerful and provocative discussion of Hume's argument concerning induction, in which Garrett first outlines the well-known traditional "skeptical" and contemporary "nonskeptical" types of interpretation, before criticising both types very effectively. He then ends by proposing his own rival interpretation which sees Hume's argument as descriptive rather than normative, and takes its aim as being to establish a fundamental thesis in cognitive psychology concerning the causes of our inductive reasonings, with no direct implications, either skeptical or non-skeptical, regarding their epistemic basis. In Garrett's view, Hume's concern is to establish that our practice of reasoning inductively, though itself involving the exercise of our inferential faculty (i.e., "reason"), does not have a foundation in that faculty—in other words, that our inductive reasoning does not result from our first having made a higher-level inference about the reliability of such reasoning: In arguing that inductive inferences are not "determin'd by reason," Hume is neither expressing an evaluation of the epistemic worth of inductive inferences.... Nor is he denying that inductive inferences are a species of reasoning. He is denying only that we come to engage in this species of reasoning as a result of any piece of reasoning about it. (CCHP 94) Peter Millican is in the School of Philosophy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT UK. email: peter@scs.leeds.ac.uk 142 Peter Millican If correct, this interpretation implies that we radically rethink what Garrett describes as "one of the most famous arguments in the entire history of philosophy," which Hume himself "clearly regards...as one of his most important and most original contributions," and which is indeed commonly regarded today as constituting "the essential core of Hume's philosophy" (CCHP 76-77). So it is to Garrett's discussion on the interpretation of this argument that I shall devote most attention here. I shall begin with an outline of his objections to the familiar interpretations of it. I. Garrett's Objections to the Skeptical Interpretation The traditional interpretation of Hume's argument concerning induction sees it as a straightforwardly skeptical attack on the rationality of inductive reasonings, aimed at proving that such reasonings are entirely devoid of evidential value. In relatively recent years this interpretation has been advanced and developed most prominently by Antony Flew (1961) and David Stove (1973), both of whom see Hume's argument as founded on an implicit assumption of deductivism, thus explaining Hume's own endorsement of it whilst undermining its pretensions to persuade anyone who is not already convinced of the illegitimacy of non-deductive inference. Against this interpretation, Garrett presents three powerful objections. First, that Hume's supposed extreme skeptical conclusion seems incompatible with his own widespread use and endorsement of inductive reasoning. Secondly, that even if this first objection can be blunted by appeal to Hume's involuntarist and non-rationalist psychology (which implies that he, like everyone else, will inevitably continue to reason and believe regardless of his philosophy) nevertheless a skeptical reading is hard to square with the unconcerned manner in which Hume continues to use and to recommend induction. Thirdly, that Hume's argument is logically inadequate to yield the skeptical conclusion traditionally ascribed to it: "there is no reason why Hume should regard the famous argument as itself sufficient to establish that inductive inferences lack evidentiary value" (CCHP 81-82). Garrett backs up this third objection with an outline of the structure of the argument as it occurs in the Treatise, an outline which (unlike Stove's well-known structure diagram) is both plausible and faithful to the text.2 II. Garrett's Objections to the Nonskeptical Interpretation The contemporary nonskeptical interpretation of Hume's famous argument, like the traditional skeptical interpretation...