Hume's Problem Solved: The Optimality of Meta-Induction (Mit Press)

Schurz, Gerhard

ISBN 10: 0262039729 / ISBN 13: 9780262039727

Published by The MIT Press, 2019

Seller Inventory # IN-400362

Synopsis:

A new approach to Hume's problem of induction that justifies the optimality of induction at the level of meta-induction.

Hume's problem of justifying induction has been among epistemology's greatest challenges for centuries. In this book, Gerhard Schurz proposes a new approach to Hume's problem. Acknowledging the force of Hume's arguments against the possibility of a noncircular justification of the reliability of induction, Schurz demonstrates instead the possibility of a noncircular justification of the optimality of induction, or, more precisely, of meta-induction (the application of induction to competing prediction models). Drawing on discoveries in computational learning theory, Schurz demonstrates that a regret-based learning strategy, attractivity-weighted meta-induction, is predictively optimal in all possible worlds among all prediction methods accessible to the epistemic agent. Moreover, the a priori justification of meta-induction generates a noncircular a posteriori justification of object induction. Taken together, these two results provide a noncircular solution to Hume's problem.

Schurz discusses the philosophical debate on the problem of induction, addressing all major attempts at a solution to Hume's problem and describing their shortcomings; presents a series of theorems, accompanied by a description of computer simulations illustrating the content of these theorems (with proofs presented in a mathematical appendix); and defends, refines, and applies core insights regarding the optimality of meta-induction, explaining applications in neighboring disciplines including forecasting sciences, cognitive science, social epistemology, and generalized evolution theory. Finally, Schurz generalizes the method of optimality-based justification to a new strategy of justification in epistemology, arguing that optimality justifications can avoid the problems of justificatory circularity and regress.

About the Author: Gerhard Schurz is Director of the Düsseldorf Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Hume's Problem Solved: The Optimality of ...
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2019
Binding: hardcover
Condition: New