Most of our beliefs about the external world and the decisions we make based on them are arrived

to on the basis on our experience. For example, I believe that Coca-Cola tastes good to me, based on my

experience of good taste after each consumption of it in the past. When I make the decision to travel to really nice way
to introduce
Italy due to my previous good experiences in that country, it's because I think that since in the past Italy inductive
reasoning. Grea
use of example
was a good place to spend time in, it will be so in the future. This kind of reasoning can be generalized as

linking some properties (in one of our previous examples, the property of a drink being Coca-Cola) with

another (good taste) based on our experience of those properties being joined together in the past – in
"inductive reasoning" or "induction"
short „All observed As are Bs, therefore all As are Bs”. This reasoning is called inductive. A common

feature of beliefs inferred based on inductive reasoning, according to David Hume, is that they are not a

logical necessity, and we can easily imagine things being the other way around – for example, Coca-Cola
Yes, good. And this might be true even if Coca-Cola always tasted good in the past, etc.
could taste bad, or Italy could be a bad place to travel to. In other words, these are beliefs about „matters

of fact”. We can contrast it with deductive reasoning, which is only concerned with making logical

inferences, and which is employed for example in mathematics. The belief that 2+2=4 is not a belief which

is based on our experience, but simply a consequence of the definitions of the symbols contained in it.
Yes, good.
Hume called those kinds of statements „relations of ideas”.

We could, hypothetically, imagine another kind of reasoning – counter-inductive reasoning, which

would be the exact opposite of inductive reasoning – it would be in the form „All observed As are Bs,

therefore all unobserved As aren't Bs”. For example „All Coca-Colas I drank so far taste good, therefore all

the others taste bad”. This kind of conclusion-making seems wrong to us, but its idea serves an interesting
Yes, good!
purpose in the arguments about the merits of inductive reasoning. (The set-up here is really, really well done! Excellent job!)

Hume thought that, when examined, inductive reasoning doesn't seem to have much justification

behind it. After all, it seems just as logically possible that the next Coca-Cola I drink will be a bad-tasting
Excellent
one – on what basis, therefore, should I believe otherwise? The first argument that might come to our

mind might be that inductive reasoning has worked well in the past, so it's reasonable to assume that it

will work well in the future. However, it can be noticed that the inference „Previous instances of inductive
Yes! Excellent!
reasoning were correct, so the future ones will be too” is exactly the kind of reasoning we're trying to Very nicely
explained here.
justify. The argument is then circular, and therefore doesn't hold much weight. To make matters worse,

we could justify counter-inductive reasoning in a similar way - „All instances of counter-inductive

reasoning in the past were wrong, so the future ones will be correct”. This shows that counter-inductive

reasoning is internally consistent, and that both inductive and counter-inductive reasonings support
themselves. But, as I wrote in the beginning, inductive reasoning seems to be the basis of most of our

beliefs about the external world. What does this mean? Are most of our beliefs unjustified? Do we have to

find a new belief system?

An interesting detail of our justification of counter-inductive reasoning is that we assumed that

counter-inductive reasoning was wrong in the past – and, as a consequence, inductive reasoning was the

way to go. It seems like counter-inductive reasoning can be justified only if it's false as a general law – and
Hmm interesting!
I think I see what
similarly, if we say that counter-inductive reasoning is true in general, then it turns out to be false – you're getting at here
but I'm not entirely
sure I see it yet. Spell
because, on the basis of itself, we have to abandon it after it turns out to be true in previous cases. this point out some
more!
Inductive reasoning doesn't suffer from this flaw – if it's true, we should abide by it.

This shows us that inductive reasoning is stable, but again, doesn't necessarily justify why it should

give us the correct result. Indeed, when we spell out the principle „All observed As are Bs, therefore all As

are Bs”, it's not apparent why this should be correct – however it also seems very intuitive that when we

observe the sun circling around the earth throughout our whole lives, we conclude that its movement will

be similar in the future. We could say that the characteristic of the future is that we know nothing about

it, since we haven't observed it yet. But, in that case, should we refrain from making any assumption about
Very nicely put. You're
doing a great job of
it? Why does making conclusions on the basis of inductive reasoning seem so intuitive to us? bringing out the central
puzzle here.
When talking about the movement of the sun, we can notice that there's an infinite amount of

possibilities that can conceivably happen. It could start moving orthogonally to its previous movemment,

stop and hang, implode, explode, etc. We don't seem to have any way of distinguishing between all those
possibilities – all of them seem equally likely and unjustified based on our experience. One that sticks out

to us is the possibility that the sun will continue its movement just like before. Since this scenario is the

only one that's distinguishable to us, we could reason like so – if we have a way to predict future behavior

of the sun, it's by assuming that the sun will behave as it did so far, and if we don't, then we shouldn't be
oh wow! that's a
concerned about choosing anyway. We have therefore nothing to lose by reasoning by induction, and really interesting
thought!
potentially something to gain. Similar reasoning can be applied to other cases – we have no reason to claim

that all future As are Bs just because that relationship holds in our observations – but it's the only way we

can make inferences about the future, so we have no reason not to make our decisions based on it. This

would also explain why learning by experience is the way humans and other creatures operate – since

induction is the only way we can get knowledge about the world, if it wasn't correct, those creatures

wouldn't be able to make good decisions, and so wouldn't be able to survive. I really like this suggestion! Very, very
interesting.
 I would, therefore, grant Hume that the principle behind inductive reasoning doesn't have much

support behind it. However, at the same time, it seems like the only possibility that's available to us, so we

have no reason not to assume its truthfulness. This seems like an unsatisfactory and a bit worrying result,

but it seems like we have to live with it. After all, do we have an alternative?

This is an absolutely fantastic paper in nearly every respect. It's exceptionally well-written, it's well-organized, it presents the
material from lecture in a clear and careful and original way, and it pushes the dialectic further than where we left it in class (with a
very, very interesting suggestion!). I really enjoyed reading this paper. You have a real knack for this. If you like philosophy, I would
heartily encourage you to keep at it. 
Your suggestion at the end of the paper --- that, although there's no good non-circular justification for Inductive Reasoning, we hav
good practical reason to follow it (because we have nothing else to go on) --- is a really cool point. Very insightful. I think this is
definitely something worth continuing to think about! 
Excellent work!

Writing Clarity: 30/30

Content: 30/30
Analytical Engagement: 30/30
+10
Total Overall: 100/100