Hume, Popper, Kuhn.

[Jordaan93]

I'm having real trouble with getting my head around Hume, Popper and Kuhn. I have to write an essay on them - "Hume's problem of induction undermines the integrity of scientific knowledge and renders it as dogmatic as any religion. Discuss to what extent, and in what way, the philosophies of Popper and Kuhn refute this statement."
Would anyone be able to help, give me a couple of pointers, etc?

Or just any related info about the general epistemology topic would be helpful. Thanks 

[Russ]

I suppose the characteristic of dogmatic beliefs is that when confronted with conflicting evidence they ignore it or argue it away.

Kuhn suggests that this will not be the case in science and that it will spark a "crisis" and subsequent paradigm shift. Popper suggests that conflicting evidence is required for falsification of a theory and will actually destroy a hypothesis.

I'd use those as starting points. Got any other questions, I remember bits of when I studied this

[Menang]

This is good revision for me!

Hume:
Trusting scientific knowledge is as good as faith in a religion because science is based on inductive reasoning.
1. If we lived in a non-inductive universe and all our knowledge were to be deductively sound, then all possible effects of a particular cause are equally valid. (There is no experience to differentiate between the possibility of a ball falling down or a ball defying gravity and floating upwards, for example).
2. However, we show a preference to the possibility that the ball will indeed fall.
3. So clearly, we live in a universe where our preferences for such possibilities are governed by inductively reasoned laws of nature.
4. Inductive reasoning assumes that the future will resemble the past. (This is called the uniformity principle).
5. The universe is rather chaotic and doesn't really work that way. (Hume doesn't specifically say this, though I think it's implied that he invokes the uniformity principle).
6. So inductive reasoning isn't a rationally sound base for our knowledge at all.
7. Because science is based on induction, there really isn't any rationally sound basis of trusting scientific knowledge.

Note that Hume doesn't discount the usefulness of science. He's just saying that the Problem of Induction entails that scientific laws cannot be the be all and end all of knowledge.

Popper:
Popper accepts the problem of induction. However, from my interpretation of the text, he seems to be attempting to salvage rational grounds of scientific knowledge by applying deduction to all that inductive reasoning.

His solution to the problem of demarcation is falsifiability.

Falsifiability is modus tollens (If p, then q. Not q, therefore not p.) and is a valid deductive argument.

By attempting to falsify theories and eliminating them as a possible scientific law, Popper hopes to introduce rationality back into scientific knowledge.

Again, this is very modest, just like Hume. He's not saying that falsification will be the saviour to all inductive problems. He's saying is a solution to the problem of demarcation and might possibly give us a reason to trust science again.

Kuhn:
Kuhn's scientific revolutions fundamentally rejects science as teleological. Science isn't truth, and isn't set out to discover truth (as in THE TRUTH). If there is a truth, science may happen upon it, but we will never know.

Normal science is scientific progress - this is the real productive side of science. We solve problems, cure cancer, invent mobile phones and other useful stuff. However, this only offers efficiency and productivity, not actual epistemic truth.

So I think Kuhn would actually agree with Hume in that he "undermines the integrity of scientific knowledge" (as per your question). I don't know if he "renders it as dogmatic as any religion", because he probably doesn't see science as attempting Truth at all. Hume seems to be actively rejecting science as rationally sound (deductive), but in comparison Kuhn really just ignores all this Truth business and talks about how historically science evolves in different paradigms, solving problems along the way.


Hope that helps, hope I got my stuff right. If I got anything wrong let me know!

[Aurelian]

I'm having real trouble with getting my head around Hume, Popper and Kuhn. I have to write an essay on them - "Hume's problem of induction undermines the integrity of scientific knowledge and renders it as dogmatic as any religion. Discuss to what extent, and in what way, the philosophies of Popper and Kuhn refute this statement."
Would anyone be able to help, give me a couple of pointers, etc?

Just as an aside, you're unlikely to get this kind of topic on the exam. Not the first bit, something like that could well come up (aside from the mention of religion lol... not 'pc' probably), but the idea of a topic forcing you to incorporate all three philosophers. If you'll look at the past three years, all the topics have only ever been "discuss with reference to two of x, y, z", never all three. Often they don't even specify any philosophers whatsoever. As a result, you probably wont like this suggestion, but I would recommend doing the following topic instead;

"Is science rational, or is it merely a discipline of dogma and faith? Discuss with reference two two of the following: Hume, Popper and Kuhn."

Aside from being most likely more like what you'll see on an exam, it's also a more general topic which is beneficial in itself; it's far easier to be able to adapt a general essay to a specifically detailed topic than the other way around.

Hume:
Trusting scientific knowledge is as good as faith in a religion because science is based on inductive reasoning.
1. If we lived in a non-inductive universe and all our knowledge were to be deductively sound, then all possible effects of a particular cause are equally valid. (There is no experience to differentiate between the possibility of a ball falling down or a ball defying gravity and floating upwards, for example).
2. However, we show a preference to the possibility that the ball will indeed fall.
3. So clearly, we live in a universe where our preferences for such possibilities are governed by inductively reasoned laws of nature.
4. Inductive reasoning assumes that the future will resemble the past. (This is called the uniformity principle).
5. The universe is rather chaotic and doesn't really work that way. (Hume doesn't specifically say this, though I think it's implied that he invokes the uniformity principle).
6. So inductive reasoning isn't a rationally sound base for our knowledge at all.
7. Because science is based on induction, there really isn't any rationally sound basis of trusting scientific knowledge.

The second half of this summary is somewhat inaccurate, specifically point 5. When Hume talks about citing the uniformity of nature in order to justify inductive reasoning, his point is not that this uniformity doesn't actually exist (on the contrary, he probably believed it did). What he is trying to show is that such justification is actually *circular* because it, in turn, relies on inductive reasoning:

Why do we think that nature is uniform? Because our past experiences have seemed to indicate so. Since nature has always exhibited uniform tendencies, it stands to reason that nature is itself uniform.

This is a clear instance of inductive reasoning, and hence Hume is trying to show that you cannot justify induction with reference to the uniformity of nature. The key point is that such justification is *circular*, not that the claim of the uniformity of nature is actually false.

[Menang]

Hume:
Trusting scientific knowledge is as good as faith in a religion because science is based on inductive reasoning.
1. If we lived in a non-inductive universe and all our knowledge were to be deductively sound, then all possible effects of a particular cause are equally valid. (There is no experience to differentiate between the possibility of a ball falling down or a ball defying gravity and floating upwards, for example).
2. However, we show a preference to the possibility that the ball will indeed fall.
3. So clearly, we live in a universe where our preferences for such possibilities are governed by inductively reasoned laws of nature.
4. Inductive reasoning assumes that the future will resemble the past. (This is called the uniformity principle).
5. The universe is rather chaotic and doesn't really work that way. (Hume doesn't specifically say this, though I think it's implied that he invokes the uniformity principle).
6. So inductive reasoning isn't a rationally sound base for our knowledge at all.
7. Because science is based on induction, there really isn't any rationally sound basis of trusting scientific knowledge.

The second half of this summary is somewhat inaccurate, specifically point 5. When Hume talks about citing the uniformity of nature in order to justify inductive reasoning, his point is not that this uniformity doesn't actually exist (on the contrary, he probably believed it did). What he is trying to show is that such justification is actually *circular* because it, in turn, relies on inductive reasoning:

Why do we think that nature is uniform? Because our past experiences have seemed to indicate so. Since nature has always exhibited uniform tendencies, it stands to reason that nature is itself uniform.

This is a clear instance of inductive reasoning, and hence Hume is trying to show that you cannot justify induction with reference to the uniformity of nature. The key point is that such justification is *circular*, not that the claim of the uniformity of nature is actually false.

Oooh. Thanks Aurelian!
I was a bit unsure with that bit.
Your explanation makes much more sense.