First formulated by David Hume, the problem of induction questions our reasons for believing that the future will resemble the past, or more broadly it questions predictions about unobserved things based on previous observations. This inference from the observed to the unobserved is known as "inductive inferences". Hume, while acknowledging that everyone does and must make such inferences, argued that there is no non-circular way to justify them, thereby undermining one of the Enlightenment pillars of rationality.
Usually inferred from repeated observations: "The sun always rises in the east."
Usually not inferred from repeated observations: "When someone dies, it's never me."
David Hume was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. Beginning with A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Hume followed John Locke in rejecting the existence of innate ideas, concluding that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. This places him with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and George Berkeley as an empiricist.
David Hume by Allan Ramsay, 1754
An engraving of Hume from the first volume of his The History of England, 1754
David Hume's mausoleum by Robert Adam in the Old Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh
Statue of Hume, sculpted by Alexander Stoddart, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh
