RI Recap Quiz for Scepticism Unit 1

Recap on Scepticism Unit 1

• 1) What is the difference between Philosophical Scepticism and Ordinary Scepticism? • 2) What is the point of PS? • 3) What is the Closed belief system argument? • 4) What were the 5 sceptical arguments in the lecture? • 5) How do they proceed?

Problem of Induction • Science appears certain because generalising from thousands of observations does seem intuitively justified. • Why? Because we think that the future always resembles the past, i.e. the Uniformity Principle. • For example: P1: All the metals that we have observed so far expand when heatedC1: All metals will expand when heated (P1) • This is inductive and not a valid argument. To make it valid, we can add in:P2: The future will resemble the past (Uniformity Principle) • Now, the argument is valid BUT P2 only appears to be true because it is based on past observations of how, in the past, the future had indeed resembled the past. • In other words, the UP is the result of a generalisation, i.e. an inductive inference. This looks like:P3: In the past, the future resembled the pastP4: The future will resemble the pastC2/P2: The future will resemble the past (P3-4) • But then the argument is circular since the conclusion is itself one of the premises. • Hence, the attempt to make induction certain is doomed to failure.