My favorite epistemological joke--"How do you know that there will be a problem of induction tomorrow?" is closely related to the following point:
Criticizing some attempts to solve the problem of induction as circular may itself be naive --unless one's estimation of this issue includes the recognition of the fact that it is only through induction that we recognize this problem. There is no way to "step outside of our own skin," as it were, i.e., to make use of a non-inductively obtained vantage on this issue. But there may be no need to do so if induction gives us eidetic knowledge rather than only predictions. It would be a kind of faux pas to criticize the inductions had by others as being merely predictive and probable while regarding one's own grasp of the same in eidetic terms. But that seems to be the sort of move that one must make in order to justify skepticism on the basis of the problem of induction. If the attempted solution is not inductively weaker than our grasp of the problem itself, then the purported solution deserves a hearing: it should not be dismissed as circular.
Criticizing some attempts to solve the problem of induction as circular may itself be naive --unless one's estimation of this issue includes the recognition of the fact that it is only through induction that we recognize this problem. There is no way to "step outside of our own skin," as it were, i.e., to make use of a non-inductively obtained vantage on this issue. But there may be no need to do so if induction gives us eidetic knowledge rather than only predictions. It would be a kind of faux pas to criticize the inductions had by others as being merely predictive and probable while regarding one's own grasp of the same in eidetic terms. But that seems to be the sort of move that one must make in order to justify skepticism on the basis of the problem of induction. If the attempted solution is not inductively weaker than our grasp of the problem itself, then the purported solution deserves a hearing: it should not be dismissed as circular.
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