Quote:
Quote by: ZNFYRH  We don't know that tomorrow will be like yesterday.
We infer it.
Yesterday was observed. We use it as the premise for what we infer about tomorrow.
Your final sentence is confused.
Empirical observations aren't "grounded" in anything. Inferring things based on empirical observations is reasonable, however. It's the best kind of reasoning, when you base your inferred conclusions off something observed. |
Thats false. Deduction would be the best type of reasoning. I think we are looking at the problem in two different ways. Let me agree with you that basing judgments off of empirical observations is a very good way to infer conclusions from. My concerns are not practical, there are purely philosophical. Let me put the problem of induction this way:
We gather empirical data and from that infer that other similar observations will be relatively the same. This is call the uniformity of nature. But how do we gather that this uniformity exists? We gather empirical data from which we infer that the uniformity exists. So we beg the question (which means the conclusion is also one of the premises). Think about it this way: if you wanted to convince someone that empirical inferences are rational what would you say? That up until know they have always word. In other words, you are using an empirical inference to prove that empirical inferences are justified.