Terahertz

Recently (when I’ve been posting), I’ve written a bit on rationalism and have been trying to construct a logical defence of it, both for myself, and for my (so far very well-spoken) critics.  I added a bit of a response here that attempted to clarify some points, but even that brings about more comments:

First:

We do use faith when we suppose that no monsters will jump out of our refrigerators and eat us. This isn’t blind faith, of course. It’s a reasonable faith based on experience. In general, monsters don’t habitate our refrigerators, no matter how long your leftovers hang about there! But there’s no reason why monsters should not be there. Nor is there any reason why dandelions should be blue one day instead of yellow. A Christian might say God wills such things, but there is no reason why God should not say, “Tomorrow I’ll make icebox monsters and blue dandelions just to remind men that they rely on Me more than they give credit for.”

This is where the fundamental issue is.  The “monsters in the fridge” analogy is something we take for granted.  We have never seen monsters in a fridge, and therefore we assume there shall not be monsters in the future.  This is an inductive argument (which I tried to allude to in my last post on this).  As Hume theorized: there can be no (deductive) logical justification for induction, it is merely a habit.  All arguments for induction are inherently circular (i.e. induction is only justified by an inductive argument).

So, when we say it’s reasonable to assume there’s no monsters in the fridge (which we agree), we have an inductive argument for that, and the only justification for using induction is that it’s worked in the past (which is an inductive argument itself!)

So, I think we both realize the same issue, and it’s pretty deep.  Science itself is an inductive practise, and is generally credited with being rational/logical – but it potentially has no rational basis!

Perhaps god (or God if you prefer) makes induction justified in this world, but you’re right that that does not ensure the future success of induction, so this is a problem for all of us (theist, deist, atheist, or whatever else).

As it stands (as there seems to be no philosophical consensus on any way to solve Hume’s problem from ~250 years ago) I think we are all left to take that leap and hold onto induction, since it seems as though it evolved from the basic habits of animal behaviour to a complex rational account of the world found in our minds today. So that is the leap of faith I’ll admit honestly to taking, and I think its one we all take.