Why is reason defined as deductive logic? Seems that animals and humans rely heavily on inductive reasoning. Deductive is something we came up with rather recently, but our ancestors didn't use it to survive, communicate and utilize tools, etc. — Marchesk

So you want to define reason as 'how we think'? That seems a bit broad.

Take Hume's other critique, of moral reasoning, summarised as 'you can't get an ought from an is'. And take medicine as an example. Science says that these pills have these effects, and medicine makes use of the facts. But it also has an unscientific attitude, that pain and death are bad things to be avoided if possible, and these are not facts, but -shall we say? - passions. Now Hume is by no means suggesting that we should not have these passions; he is simply saying that the reasoning of science cannot justify them, but rather is employed in their service.

Similarly, he points out that the reasoning of science, that there is this history of evidence and experience that can be described and structured according to mathematical formulae says nothing, and can say nothing about the future, because there can be no evidence of the future, it is all of the past.
And again, he is not in the least suggesting that we should not imagine the future and expect it to be like the past; he simply points out that it is not any form of reasoning that gets us there, but the equivalent of passion - habit. We want to predict the future, so we want it to be related to the past, which is what we already know of.

It's all very annoying for philosophers, because they want reason to be king, and it isn't, but a mere servant of those animal passions that the enlightened man imagines himself as having transcended.

the reasoning of science cannot justify them [passions]... — unenlightened

What does 'justify' mean to you in this context? I take it to mean 'demonstrate the necessity of', which is something science is entirely capable of doing. It is perfectly feasible that neuroscience, evolutionary biology, social psychology etc can identify passions which must 'necessarily' exist by virtue of our being biological entities.

Does 'justify' mean something different to you?

Does 'justify' mean something different to you? — Pseudonym

Yes it does. One might say that anti-natalism is an evolutionary dead end, but this does not entail that it is wrong. Evolution has an explanation for both selfishness and altruism, but it does not vote for either. As Dawkins says, genes are not selfish, they don't have selves, they don't have wants.

Sorry I can't make out from that what 'justify' means to you, would you mind spelling it out a bit more clearly?

A claim is justified by evidence of its truth or valid argument from accepted premises. I don't understand your difficulty. A bio-evolutionary/neurological explanation of belief in God is a very different thing from a justification of belief in God.

A claim is justified by evidence of its truth — unenlightened

Right, so if neuroscience demonstrated it to be be 'true' that certain passions were, by biological necessity, present in the brain, how would that not be a justification?

or valid argument from accepted premises — unenlightened

P1. Passion x is common to all humans, it is physically impossible to be a human without also having passion x.
P2. I am a human.
C1. From p1 and p2 - I am justified in having passion x.

A bio-evolutionary/neurological explanation of belief in God is a very different thing from a justification of belief in God. — unenlightened

This is not analogous. The existence of God has a separate truth value to a belief in the existence of God. We cannot say with certainty that there is a God, but we can say with certainty that someone has a belief in God. Hume was never positing that a passion could have a truth value, nor that anyone ever said it could. We're talking about justifying it's presence. Otherwise the statement becomes meaningless, if we're asking that the actual property of the passion is justified, then to say that science cannot justify it is a straw man, nothing can justify the properties of an entity in that way. A passion is not a proposition, it is a state.

Right, so if neuroscience demonstrated it to be be 'true' that certain passions were, by biological necessity, present in the brain, how would that not be a justification? — Pseudonym

One such passion might be a preference for one's own children's welfare over other peoples'. Thus of biological necessity, my kids are preferable to yours. and of biological necessity, you take the opposite view. Neither view is justified, and since they are mutually contradictory both of them cannot be justified on pain of logical explosion.

You're confusing 'justified' with 'true'. It is justified that I believe it is 6:40pm, if you look at your (unbeknownst to you) broken clock, it is justified that you believe it to be 6:00. We cannot both be right, but we both hold justified beliefs.

What?

As Dawkins says, genes are not selfish, they don't have selves, they don't have wants.

don't listen to Dawkins - he's a bellend - listen to EO Wilson: 'the middle level of contention between the products of the two levels of evolution (Individual selection and group social extremes) that constantly move back and forth and are the creative core of the human species; that's where creativity comes from'

What? — unenlightened

You are misusing the word 'justify'. Justifying a proposition does not require that no other conflicting proposition can possibly be true, it requires that you have good reason to believe the proposition.

Notwithstanding this, your example is false anyway. Only the view that child x's welfare is paramount and child y's welfare is paramount are mutually incompatible, but this is not the form our passion takes. If I had three children x,y, and z, and in the night child z was replaced with an identical looking copy, my passion would not be centred on the real child z, it would be centred on the new one. My passion does not externally refer and so incompatibility in the real world is not relevant to is truth value. My passion is that "the welfare of one's children (whoever I believe them to be) is paramount".

Furthermore, you are asking of the passions a level of reason that is not being asked of propositions about empirical truths. To say I have a passion for food, is a truth statement if the brain can be shown to be in a state common to all other humans who desire food. In the same way as 'the sky is blue' can be said to be true if all other users of the terms 'sky' and 'blue' agree. We do not ask that the proposition is justified by proving that the sky 'ought' to be blue, that it has some final cause for being blue. It is sufficient that it matches the definition of 'blue'.

You are equating justification with a reductive explanation. Sometimes that is the case, but not always, and clearly not in the case of "passions." I am sorry, but it is patently silly to say that hunger is "justified" by some reductive neurophysiological account. Justification - as you yourself said - is reason to believe. I don't require to know any facts other than my feeling of hunger in order to justifiably believe that I am hungry. If someone pointed out some other facts that suggest a different conclusion - e.g. that I had a meal less than an hour ago - those other facts wouldn't trump my justification. And if someone did a CAT scan or whatever and concluded that my "brain can be shown to be in a state common to all other humans who desire food," that would be entirely superfluous to the justification that I already have. If I feel hungry then I am hungry. Passions are self-justifying.

You are equating justification with a reductive explanation. — SophistiCat

Justification - as you yourself said - is reason to believe. — SophistiCat

Reductive explanation is a reason to believe. It is the standard reason we believe in everything else, that we have a reductive explanation for its being the case.

The comment I was disputing was "he is simply saying that the reasoning of science cannot justify them, [the passions]".

My argument was, in what way can the reasoning of science "justify" anything other than by explaining the causal chain of its existence back a few steps?

I have a passion 'hunger', science can explain exactly what that passion is in physical terms (brain states), why it is there causally (DNA - protein synthesis - neurons development - interaction with the environment), and also why it is there teleologically (evolutionary function of hunger). What additional thing can science provide with regards to the proposition "the sky is blue" that is missing from what science can tell us about passions such as to warrant the distinction made?

A claim is justified by evidence of its truth or valid argument from accepted premises. — unenlightened

Right. So the claim that the future is like the past is justified by evidence, not by a valid argument from accepted premises. It forms one of those first-principles that are not derived from any more general principles.

All that Hume showed was that there can be no non-question begging argument to justify that the future is like the past. He did not show that we lack evidence that the future is likely to be like the past or that it is irrational to believe that the future will be like the past. It clearly is not irrational.

Hume is struggling because he doesn't get it that first-principles are also derived through reason. His conception of reason is too narrow, and moved away from Plato's conception of reason, where even the passions had reasons of their own.

Right. So the claim that the future is like the past is justified by evidence, not by a valid argument from accepted premises. — Agustino

Yes, and the only people who have evidence of the future are Nostradamus and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Yes, and the only people who have evidence of the future are Nostradamus and Jehovah's Witnesses. — unenlightened

I am Nostradamus, what are you talking about? :-!

But by the way, having evidence that the future is likely to be similar to the present neither requires knowledge of the future nor the necessity that the future really is like the past. So the sun could simply pop out of existence tomorrow, but even if that were to happen, it wouldn't justify believing it today.

No knowledge and no immediate experience means no evidence. So one is reduced to the inductive argument which is circular:-

What are the chances that the future will be like the past? Well the future has always been like the past in the past, so if the future is anything like the past, chances are it will be like the past. — me

No knowledge and no immediate experience means no evidence. So one is reduced to the inductive argument which is circular:- — unenlightened

The evidence is my past experience. My past experience has proven, that in certain circumstances (ex. the laws of nature) the future is like the past. So in such particular cases, I seem to be justified in believing this - and by this, I simply mean that it would be irrational to believe the opposite. Do you mean to suggest that it is not irrational to believe the opposite? Sure, the laws of nature could change - it is logically possible. But there's no reason to believe it.

I would agree with Hume that we cannot justify the blanket, almost metaphysical statement "the future is like the past" - because no, it's not. In many regards it is different - but in some regards it is the same. We seem to be able to rationally decide which are which.

Sure, the laws of nature could change - it is logically possible. But there's no reason to believe it. — Agustino

How could you possibly know this? Can you enumerate specifically the Laws you are talking about? Can you show they describe the future is like the past? Can you show even one so-called Law that hasn't changed since the beginning of time?

Can you show even one so-called Law that hasn't changed since the beginning of time? — Rich

I'm not sure if time had a beginning. No, I can't show that they haven't changed "since the beginning of time", but I can show, for example, that Newton's law of gravity has remained the same ever since the last 200 years at the very least.

Newton's law of gravity — Agustino

Newton's "Law" it's a simple measurement within a very narrow scope over an extremely small amount of time that is an approximation.

Laws of Nature belongs in the fiction shelf, but it is still bandied about because materialism needs it. It's the go-to phrase for materialists as they cannot plea to a God or invoke the mind. As a consequence they just throw around this totally meaningless phrase hoping that no one will notice there is nothing there.

Right, I already know your position on this, so please spare me the retelling.

I'm not interested to discuss the metaphysics of it, my interest is that in practical terms, the laws have remained the same.

I'm not interested to discuss the metaphysics of it, my interest is that in practical terms, the laws have remained the same. — Agustino

Well, the Law may stay the same but had shown to no longer be anything except an approximation and superceded by GTR. So apparently Laws are any mathematical equations that have practical application. Fine. It's open season on Laws even if outmoded.

I suppose you have a Law that predicts what time I get up every morning?

Well, the Law may stay the same but had shown to no longer be anything except an approximation and superceded by GTR. So apparently Laws are any mathematical equations that have practical application. Fine. It's open season on Laws even if outmoded.

I suppose you have a Law that predicts what time I get up every morning? — Rich

No, I don't, but if I want to build a house, I will still rely on Newton's equations, GTR or not. That Newton's equations have been superceded by GTR is of no relevance to their continued application on Earth. That may be of relevance only metaphysically.

Fine. Newton's requisition is a nice little equation, that can be used for certain types of problems for some practical purposes. Far, far, far from the fictional Laws of Nature that have immutably guided the universe since its Genesis.

My past experience has proven, that in certain circumstances (ex. the laws of nature) the future is like the past. — Agustino

You're muddling the tenses. "My past experience has proven, that in certain circumstances (ex. the laws of nature) the future has been like the past." And this says exactly nothing about what will be.


You have to rely on the assumption that the future will be like the past in order for past evidence to be relevant to the future. Which is assuming the conclusion. I don't object to you doing it, I just object to your claim that is is reasoned.

You're muddling the tenses. "My past experience has proven, that in certain circumstances (ex. the laws of nature) the future has been like the past." And this says exactly nothing about what will be. — unenlightened

Yes, but something is fishy with Hume's argument. When we're dealing with logic, we have to establish what things we know with the greatest certainty and proceed from there. So if you have an argument whose conclusion contradicts a statement that you know to be true, then before accepting the truth of the argument (and rejecting the truth of the statement), you must compare the certainty you have in the premises of the argument, with the certainty you have in the statement that the conclusion contradicts. If the statement is more certain than the argument, then you ought to abandon the argument and look for the mistake you have made.

It is irrational to bet that the laws of nature will not apply tomorrow given how things stand today and in the past. Do you agree with that? That to me seems to be almost 100% true.

If you disagree, then you'd say it's not irrational, so the person suffering of madness who thinks gravity will pop out of existence tomorrow isn't actually being irrational. I find that very unlikely to be true. I find it highly unlikely that you honestly and authentically would stand by the statement that the person who claims gravity will pop out of existence tomorrow isn't being irrational.

So reasoning backwards from here, we either have an argument based on premises for this, or we have direct evidence for it. I think the latter. Therefore I will say that I think Hume is framing the issue in a manner that is not satisfactory. And that is because he is trying to say we need an argument backed by premises for this, whereas I'm saying that this is one of our foundational premises - or first principles - which is backed up by the very practice of living, that we do not derive from any more general principles. So when Hume tries to derive it from more general principles, he fails - as we would expect him to I would add.

I'm saying that this is one of our foundational premises — Agustino

Yes. We reason from it, but we cannot reason to it. Which is about what Kant in his long-winded way eventually arrives at; one might say that it is part of what we mean by 'the future', that it will follow in an orderly fashion from the present and past, and if it doesn't, then we would have to call it a new world, or an afterlife, or something. But to claim, after having been dragged kicking and screaming over several pages to it, that "we would expect" the result is - extravagant.

But to claim, after having been dragged kicking and screaming over several pages to it, that "we would expect" the result is - extravagant. — unenlightened

Well, what can I say, I am an extravagant man >:O

Though isn't it clear that we need some first-principles, which cannot be derived via argumentation, but must be derived rather from experience?

one might say that it is part of what we mean by 'the future', that it will follow in an orderly fashion from the present and past, and if it doesn't, then we would have to call it a new world, or an afterlife, or something. — unenlightened

Do you think that this is what Kant says or is this unrelated?