I’m sure there are philosophers who say they don’t, but I guarantee you they act as if they do. Even if they don’t know anything about electronics, they’d still expect the light to come on when they flip the switch.
That’s… not really an argument. Of course everyone has to act pragmatically; we wouldn’t even be able to think if we didn’t. But that’s quite different from establishing the validity of the principle itself.
Well, it doesn’t establish that induction is always valid, so I guess we might not really be disagreeing. But, pragmatically, everyone basically has to assume that it usually works, or is likely to work in whatever the particular case is. I think it’s a good enough heuristic to be called a rational principle that people already have down.
I’m sure there are philosophers who say they don’t, but I guarantee you they act as if they do. Even if they don’t know anything about electronics, they’d still expect the light to come on when they flip the switch.
That’s… not really an argument. Of course everyone has to act pragmatically; we wouldn’t even be able to think if we didn’t. But that’s quite different from establishing the validity of the principle itself.
Well, it doesn’t establish that induction is always valid, so I guess we might not really be disagreeing. But, pragmatically, everyone basically has to assume that it usually works, or is likely to work in whatever the particular case is. I think it’s a good enough heuristic to be called a rational principle that people already have down.
OK, forget it.