The Pagan Agenda

I have an additional problem with the ‘problem of induction’: as an argument it has no direct bearing on the reality of mental deliberative processes. At its best, it is a tautological thought experiment confined to conceptual analysis. The ‘problem of induction’ speaks of events in the mind that one can only suppose through inductive reasoning: we presume that there is an ‘inductive inference’ within the deliberative process of say, me opening a door, but this assumption is itself an inductive inference of an incident in retrospect. Therefore one is applying the very thing one wishes to prove or disprove in the act of arguing, which if proven is tautological, and if disproven, a contradiction in terms.

In the case that a conscious awareness of ‘induction’ immediately precedes the act of opening the door this is limited to a subjective reading, and is hardly scientific. After all, the reason for the awareness may not be that part of cognition is in fact ‘inductive’ (as the term is scientifically expressed) but may be a result of any number of consequences leading to its surfacing and may exist in a nominal form in one’s thought process.

Do we use inductive reasoning, or is this a concept that is one of many to explain phenomena that is subjectively concealed from us (much like a computer has a base substrate beyond its ability to self-reference)? Must there be a rigid procedure to my deliberation every time I open the door or can each new action involve a level of informal deliberation that transgresses any general rule? The commonsensical view is there must be some general rule, else how could we open the door consistently without difficulty. I am not denying that there must be some dependence on the repertoire of lived experience in order for the door to be opened effortlessly, but this may be only a small part of the deliberative process at any specific moment in time, and may be insufficient in itself to adequately explain the phenomena underlying my ability to open the door. There are for any action a plurality of potential explanations: perhaps the door was opened as a result of my body motioning towards it as a result of physical laws, and nothing remotely inductive occurred in the physical causality of opening the door (it is possible to open a door heavily inebriated); or emotional triggers indirectly cause an ‘inductive’ characteristic, triggers which may lack definite associations on a conscious level; or there is even the open possibility of spiritual intrusion on the deliberative process.

After all, is spirituality any more speculative than induction?

As Wittgenstein writes in his Philosophical Investigations:

-325 “‘The certainty that I shall be able to go on after I have had this experience—seen the formula, for instance,—is simply based on induction.’ What does this mean?—‘The certainty that the fire will burn me is based on induction.’ Does that mean that I argue to myself: ‘Fire has always burned me, so it will happen now too.’ Or is the previous experience the cause of my certainty, not its ground? Whether the earlier experience is the cause of my certainty depends on the system of hypotheses, of natural laws, in which we are considering the phenomenon of certainty.

Is our confidence justified?—what people accept as a justification—is shewn by how they think and live.” (p. 90 of Blackwell edition)

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