Hegel and the Humean problem of induction

W. A. SUCHTINP HEGEL AND THE HUMEAN INDUCTION

PROBLEM

OF

Introduction

FOR MANY different reasons, Hegel’s thought about the sorts of questions that fail within ‘philosophy of science’ has very seldom been made the subject of separate investigation: those working at Hegel tend not to be much interested in philosophical problems of the sciences, and people concerned with the latter generally do not attend to Hegel.’ The present paper is meant as a contribution to this hitherto neglected area by considering what light, if any, Hegel’s work throws, or can be used to throw, on Hum&s problem of induction. Many difficulties stand in the way of such an endeavour. One is the very fact that the ground has been worked so little (in contrast with the case of Hume). Another (certainly not unrelated to this) is that I-legel’s mature thought forms a tightly interwoven whole, and this makes any attempt to consider aspects of it in significant abstraction from the rest an at least very risky enterprise. But nothing ventured nothing gained. The paper had two main parts. The first, Sections 1-3, considers the relevance of certain parts of Hegel’s writings to the traditional Humean problem of induction. Section 1 looks at some passages from the Phenomenolugy ofSpirit and some parts of the Logic covering similar ground. This leads, in Section 2, to a review of some central themes in the treatment of ‘Knowing’ in the Logic. Section 3 outlines Hume’s posing of the problem of induction, and analyzes the preceding in the light of this and other considerations. The second main part consists of Section 4. This contains a very brief sketch of another treatment of the problem of induction, in the light of Hegel’s thought.

*Department of General Philosophy. The University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006. Australia. Received 10 February 1989; in revisedform

18 Janwry

1990.

‘Gerd Buchdahl reflects upon reasons for the neglect of Hegel from the point of view of philosophy of science in the opening section of his ‘Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature and the Structure of Science‘. Ratio 15 (1973). l-27. Srud. Hist. Phil. Sci.. Vol. 21, NO. 3. pp. 493-510, 1990. Printed in Great Britam.

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I. The Theme of Inductive Reasoning in Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ and in His System of Logic 1.1. The the~ne ofinduc~iw reasoning in Hegel’s Phenomenofogy Chapter

of Spirit

V, Section A, in Hegef’s Phenomenalogy of Spirit is entitled Vernunft’ - ‘Reason at the Stage of Observation’. It is in effect his treatment, within his ‘phenomenofogical’ framework, of ‘The Scientific Revolution’. He writes here that ‘for consciousness at the stage of observation, the truth of a law is found in experience’, and the idea ‘that the truth of a law is essentially reality . . . becomes for that consciousness . . . an antithesis , _ . to what is intrinsically universa1’. But this form of consciousness ‘contradicts its own belief’, insofar as ‘it does not itself take its universality to mean that everJj single sensory thing must have provided evidence of the law, in order to enable the truth of the law to be asserted’. Rather, for it, ‘the assertion that stones fall when raised above the ground and dropped does not require us to make the experiment with every stone; it does perhaps mean that the experiment must have been made with at feast a great number, and from this we can then b_v analogy draw an inference about the rest with the greatest probability or with perfect right’. However, ‘analogy not only does not give a perfect right, but on account of its nature contradicts itself so often that the inference to be drawn from analogy itself is rather that analogy does not permit an inference to be made’.2 This may be restated as foflows. (1) For the view in question, what a law of nature is about, what makes it true, is exclusively actual experience: its universafity is simply a matter of what is in fact exceptionfessly the case, rather than what is necessarily true, independently of actual instantiation% (2) But this doctrine also affirms, inconsistently with this, that we can assure ourselves that a certain statement in fact asserts a law in advance of an examination of every actual instance of it. For a considerable number of positive observed instances, and no negative ones, permits an inference to the next case, or to all further cases, by analogical reasoning. (3) But analogical reasoning is so unreliable in practice that the only general conclusion it really Iicenses is that it is unreliable. Hegef goes on to say that the unreliability of analogical reasoning is due to the fact that ‘the law as it first appears exhibits itself in an impure form, enveloped in sensory particularities [umhiiilt van einzelnem sinniichem Sein] . _immersed in empirical material’. In the face of this the ‘instinct of reason’ appeals to experiment, by means of which it ‘proceeds to refine the law and its moments, , . to find the Poe conditions of the law; and this means ‘Beobachtende

‘PhS. 151f (PhG,

189, 190). (For

abbreviations

see list at end of text.)

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nothing else . , . than . . . to free its moments completely from being tied to a , , as properties of specific things. and to free the predicates from their subjects’, so that they ‘are found only as universals’. Thus the ‘pure law . . . while present in sensory being, operates there independently and unrestrained, and is, whilst immersed in it. free of it’.” So, to resume the earlier paraphrase, (4) analogical reasoning is unreliable because in actual situations the features of reality knowledge of which (in the form of laws) would permit reliable inferences are generally present only in a context of other (irrelevant or countervailing) factors. (5) Thus the law must be stated in terms not of actual, de &IO regularities, but of relations between those features themselves taken as universals in abstraction from their empirical instantiations. That is, laws must be pure conditionals or hypotheticals, true independently of their instantiations, and thus necessarily true. (6) The means for distinguishing the ‘pure case’ from the particular circumstances of actual instantiation is experiment. specific being . . . to suspend the moments,

1.2. The theme of inductive reasoning in Hegel’s system of logic

Turning now to Hegel’s system of logic, the second of the three sub-divisions of the doctrine of the syllogism there4 is entitled ‘Syllogism of Reflection’.5 The first of the three forms that fall under this heading he calls the ‘Syllogism of Allness’, exemplified by: “‘This is a piece of gold’, ‘All pieces of gold are metals’, therefore, ‘This is a metal”‘. Hegel argues here, in effect, that if, as is the case at this stage, the predicates are taken in extension, the major premise presupposes a complete enumeration of relevant individuals (pieces of gold), and thus a different form of the syllogism, namely, the ‘Syllogism of Induction’ exemplified by: “‘All members of a certain set of objects are pieces of gold’, ‘All members of that set are metals’, therefore, ‘All pieces of gold are metals”‘, But a complete enumeration of the sort required is in general impossible, because membership of the set is open-ended. (And if it were possible there would be no inference in the sense required, since the conclusion would simply re-state part of the premises.) This points to a type of syllogism that permits an inference to an unexamined state of affairs on the basis of a less than complete enumeration of actual cases of the same sort. This bill is filled by the ‘Syllogism of Analogy’, which involves an argument from the fact that all observed members of a set of individuals which have a certain property (e.g. being gold) also have another (e.g. being metallic) to the conclusion that another, hitherto unexamined individual, which is similar to the examined ones in having the ‘PhS.

152-154 (PhG, in general

+Onwhich L&k’.

Unrersuchungen

191. 1920. see especially

W. Krohn. Di~~ormale Logik in Hegel’s ‘Wissensdtqji der (Munich: Carl Hanser. 1972). EL 4190. Cf. also PP. I l5f (&49.50), l37f (M72-74) (W-4: I52f. 26f).

cur Schhsslehre

‘SL. 6868 (WL. II. 3338):

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first property, is also similar to the examined ones in having the second. The gist of Hegel’s difficult discussion of this form of the syllogism seems to be that the basis of the alleged inference vouchsafed by the Syllogism of Analogy cannot be simply the fact that all examined instances of one predicate are also instances of the other, for this would not permit an inference to a previously unexamined case, particular cases as such being independent of one another. So the Syllogism of Analogy points to a relation between the predicates which is independent of their instances. In other words, the imporr of the Syllogism of Analogy is realized by a different form of syllogism which is - in Hegelian terminology - the ‘truth’ of the former and ‘posited [gesPr;t]’ by it. This new form is the ‘Syllogism of Necessity’.6 the core-form of which is the ‘Hypothetical Syllogism’, exemplified by: ‘.’ If something is gold, then it is a metal’, ‘This is a piece of gold’, therefore, ‘This is a metal”‘. Here the hypothetical expresses the element of strict universality, of necessity, that grounds the inference from an instance of the antecedent predicate to one of the consequent predicate, whilst the other premise and conclusion take up the factor of particularity and contingency that dominated the Syllogisms of Allness and Induction, giving it its proper place in a juster conception of inference (the process of Aufiebung). Thus the Syllogism of Analogy is a transitional form, both logically and methodologically. Logically, it is a necessary stage in the process of construction of the most adequate form of inference considered simply as a process of thought (the ‘Subjective Concept’), connecting with purely extensional conceptions of inference, but in fact containing implicitly another conception. Methodologically, from the point of view of the actual process of inquiry, analogy is ‘the instinct of reason, which intimates [ahnen l&t] that this or that empirically discovered feature is grounded in an object’s inner nature or kind, and goes on to base itself on his idea’.’

1.3. The wo

treatments

compared

Thus there is a broad agreement between Hegel’s train of argument in the Phenomenology and in his system of logic as regards the sequence of stages from induction to inference based on necessary hypotheticals. A difference is that experiment, which played an important role in the earlier account, does not occur in the later, at least as surveyed so far. For this we must turn some further pages in the Logic until we reach the section on ‘Knowing’.

SL. 695ff (WL. II. 343ff); EL. ij190. Addition (Zusatz); cf. also PP. I16 (# 51-M) (W, d:IS3f). ‘EL, 9191. Addition (Zusm): see also SL. 798, 805 (WL. II 456. 463).

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2. ‘Knowing’ in Hegel’s System of Logic 2.1.

‘Theoretical knowing’, anoiytic and synthetic

The section entitled ‘Knowing [Erkennen]’ in both of Hegel’s principal presentations of his system of logic has two main subdivisions. In the Science of Logic the first of these is entitled ‘The Idea of the True’. In the Encyclopaedia it is simply called ‘Knowing’, that is, the same as the section as a whole, which is somewhat confusing. But in the text itself the subsection is said to treat of ‘the drive of knowing towards truth, knowing na such, the theoretical activity of the Idea’.s So, for the sake of a clearer terminology, ‘Knowing’ in its first aspect may be called “‘theoretical knowing’“.9 In the most general terms, ‘theoretical knowing’ characterizes the stage at which the subject confronts the object as something immediately given, as a concrete individual, and seeks to adapt itself cognitively to the character of the object, which is thought of as inscribing its nature on the subject’s tabula ram. The subject appropriates the object insofar as it contributes certain universal forms for the apprehending of it. More specifically, ‘theoretical knowing’ is of two sorts. To start with, ‘analytic knowing’ ‘consists in dissolving what is given, the concrete situation, whose differences must be isolated and given the form of abstract universality; or in leaving behind the concrete as ground and, by abstraction, bringing into relief, against a background of seemingly inessential details, what is concretely universal, genus or force and law’.‘O Thus ‘analytic knowing’ identifies a concrete individual by means of a set of universal characteristics. (To supply an example, ‘this’ is discriminated as a ‘mass’ which has an ‘acceleration’.) ‘Analytic knowing’ is succeeded by ‘synthetic knowing’, the aim of which is to bring the isolated features identified at the earlier stage into a necessarily related system. ” The first stage of ‘synthetic knowing’, namely, ‘definition’, in effect takes over the object of knowledge vouchsafed by ‘analytic knowing’, that is, a description of an individual in terms of a set of general predicates. This is followed by ‘division [Einteilung]‘, where the individual is more specifically characterized by differentiating the universal genus. (So, to continue the example, the individual identified as something having mass and acceleration may be particularized as one which orbits another body under the influence of

*EL, $225. ‘SL. 783ff (WI_. II. 439fT): EL, $+2X-232.

32). “‘EL,q27.

Cf. atso PP. 12Of (@71-79),

142 ($94) (W, 4: 158% 160.

“Strictly speaking. ‘analytic knowing’ is said to pass beyond itself through its own internal dialectic. For. though its principle is self-identity/abstract universality, it has alrcddy been shown, at the beginning of the ‘Doctrine of Essence’, that identity presupposes difference(and conversely), so that the determinations of ‘analyttc knowing’ are essentially related. When this becomes explicit (Re.rer:r) we have synthetic knowing. See SL. 793 (WL, II. 450).

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a force with its centre in that body.) Finally, in the ‘theorem [Lehrsar$ the universal to various features of the particularized are shown be necessarily linked. (The orbit, mass and acceleration are connected by reference to genera1 laws of motion and other information.)

2.2. Experiment The topic of experiment is raised only glancingly in Hegel’s presentation in the Encyclopaediu, but in the Science of Logic it is treated at much greater length, coming up in the section on ‘division’, though it would seem rather to belong to the earlier stages of ‘analytic knowing’ and ‘definition’. He has this to say: In physics the individual natural properties or matters have be freed the manifold [Verwicklunge~] in they are in concrete ality and with their necessary conditions; . are objects of intuition; but the path to their intuition must he prepared in such a way that they can for the first time appear free from all modifications by circumstances extraneous to their own specific character [Bestimmtheit] and be maintained thus. Magnetism, electricity, the various gases, and so forth, are objects knowledge of whose specific character is ascertained only by apprehending them in isolation from the concrete conditions in which they appear in the actual world. . . Experiment must, . . show that the inseparable concretion of those conditions is inessential, and this it does by exhibiting the things in one concrete shape and then again in another, SO that for knowledge there remains nothing but their abstract form.‘2

Thus experiment reveals the intrinsic natures of things by separating these natures from the accidental circumstances in the context of which they occur in the world as immediately given to the knowing subject. From what is said at the beginning of this passage, and in that quoted in the third paragraph of 2.1 above, it seems clear enough that experiment is thought of as isolating not just the conditions for correct application of particular predicates, but the ways in which the latter are lawfully connected with one another. All this is entirely in

“SL. 802 (WL.

II. 459f3. The corresponding

passage in Et

is in $16 adfincm.

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line with what is said about experiment in the Phmomenology considered.

2.3 The

alleged

defects

of ‘theoretical

passage already

knowing’

Hegel’s treatment of ‘theoretical knowing’ concludes with an exposition of what he argues are its inherent defects, the common character of which is that such an approach cannot attain that full measure of necessity which is essential for a compIete grasp of the object. At the stage of ‘definition’, the content as such is contingent (the ‘thisness’ of the individual versus the universality of the descriptions employed), and so are the specific descriptions selected. (The individual is identified as a massy, accelerated object rather than as, say, an iron, grey-coloured one.) At the stage of ‘division’ contingency shows itself in the logical arbitrariness of the dQ$erenria. (The massy, accelerating object might just as well have been distinguished as the object I looked at through my telescope at such and such a time and place.) Finally, the stage of ‘theorem’ has a residue of contigency, because the proof always involves certain premises and steps which can be justified only after the event, in respect of their efficacy in yielding the required conclusion. (The gravitational force-law or law of conservation of angular momentum are different ways of calculating motions, in some contexts equally applicable, in others not.)j3 In this regard Hegel writes of the empirical sciences:

The . . particular forces or other. , . forms which result from the method of analyzing experience and can be justified only as res&s, must be placed in rhe in order that they may provide a generalfowtdution that is subsequently and demonstrated in it. These general foundations having no support of their own, we are supposed for the time being to take them for granted; only when we come to the derived consequences do we notice that the latter constitute the real ground [Grund] of those foundations [Grundlagen] ... Hence . . . in the study of such sciences. . . the presuppositions are blindly taken for grunted. . . If, in order to accept these presuppositions as valid, we demand their necessity. . . we cannot get beyond the starting p0int.l”

forefront

applied to the individual

In sum, ‘theoretical knowing’ finally achieves a degree of necessity, and to that extent approximates genuine knowledge. But that necessity is still merely subjective insofar knowing continues

as it contains an element to be ‘other’ with respect

of arbitrariness: to the knowing

“For a neat discussion of this and related points - naturally without R. Feynman, The Chururrer of Physical Low (Cambridge. Mass.: M.I.T. “SL, 8141 (Wt. II. 473f). Cf. EL. $9, $133 Addition (Zusatz).

the object of subject, it does

reference IO Hcgel - see Press, 1965). pp. 4OFf.

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not manifest, an inherently necessary structure which would make intelligible.‘5

2.4.

it

totally

‘Practical knowing’

The overcoming of this inherent defect is the task of the second main sort of ‘Knowing’. This is expounded in the Science of logic under ‘The Idea of the Good’, and in the Encyclopaedia under ‘Willing’, introduced as ‘the pracrico/ activity of the Idea’, so that it may be called “‘practical knowing’“.16 Hegel’s train of thought here is briefly this. Knowledge is a certain sort of conformity between subject and object. In ‘theoretical knowing’ the subject tries to institute this by attempting to conform itself to the object. But this fails - in principle - for the reasons given above. ‘Practical knowing’ switches to a converse strategy. Here the subject tries to establish the sought-for conformity between itself and the object by adapting the object to itself in a practical,

Teil (W, 9) $246 Addition (Zusatz): ‘In the theoretical approach (a) from natural things. leave them as they ate, and adjust to them. In doing this we start from the information [Kennmisse] we have about nature via the senses. . . (b) In the second relation of things to us, they either acquire the determination of universality for us, or we transform them into something universal. . . (c) . . The theoretical approach is inwardly selfcontradictory, for it seems to bring about the precise opposite of what it intends. We want to get to know the nature that really is, not something which is not; but instead of leaving it alone and taking [n&men] it as it is in truth [ Wahrheir], instead of observing [wahmehmen] it, we make something completely different out of it. By thinking things, we transform them into something universal; however, things are individual. . . . We make them into something subjective. produced by us, betonging to us, and of course peculiar to us as men. . . The theoretical approach , leaves things to subsist in their own way; and thus we immediately have two aspects. subject and object, the separation of which is marked out as being that between what is accessible to us and what is beyond [ein Diesseifs und ein Jenseirs]. However, our intention is rather to grasp and comprehend nature. lo make it ours, so that it is not something beyond and alien to us. This is where the dificulty comes in: How are we as subjects to get over into the object? . We turn things into universals or make them our own, yet as natural things they should be free for themselves. This is the crux of the issue concerning the nature of knowing, this is the concern of philosophy. The inadequacy of the basic features of the thinking displayed in physics may be traced to two very closely connected points. (a) The universal of physics is abstract or simply formalistic I/ormell]; its determination is not immanent within it, and does not pass over into particularity. (b) This is precisely the reason why its determinate content is external to the universal, and is therefore split up, dismembered, particularized, isolated and lacking in any necessary connection within itselC; why it is in fact merely finite.’ Hegel’s Philosophy qfhru~ure, trans. M. J. Petry (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970). Vol. I. pp. 197, 198f, 202. ‘OThe quotation from the Encyclopaedra is from $225. On ‘practical knowing’ see SL, 8 188 (WL, II. 477ff); EL. @232-235. Cf. also PP. 12lf (@SO-83) (W. 4: 160). With the turn from the theoretical to the practical attitude in the system of logic cf. the Phenomeno/og_v. Chap. V, B. On the whole topic see M. Reidel, rhhcorie und Praxis im Denken Hegels Interpretationen zu den Grurrdsrellungen der neu:eirlichen Suhjekfivitiir (2nd edn, Frankfurt/M.-Berlin-Wien: Ullstein, 1976).

“Cf.

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active manner - specifically, through attempts to realize the Good.” So the subject attempts to make the object transparent to thought by actually transforming the object in accordance with thought’s own character.la ‘Theoretical knowing’ is ‘aufgehoben’ in ‘practical knowing’: willing involves thinking, thinking is a mode of willing.lg But does the surd of contingency which bedevils ‘theoretical knowing’ not recur here, even if in another form? For actions tend to have unintended consequences, which are the objects of further action, and, anyway, every action has merely partial success or limited significance. Hence are we not back with the familiar abstract ‘Ought [Sullen]’ or ‘Vicious Infinity [schlechre

“Hegel explicitly makes the point that what is here called ‘practical knowing’ is. in its structure. simply a repetition of the already treated category of teleology. just on a higher plane as regards content. See SL, 819f (WL, II, 479). The connection of what is said in this part of the Logic with ‘the Good’ is not immediately apparent. Rather, it must be taken in connection with Hegel’s view that both the true and the good are a matter of the conformity between what exists and its appropriate Concept (Begrim. and, correspondingly. falsehood and evil a matter of lack of conformity. See the particularly clear presentation of the doctrine in EL, $24 Addition (Zusati) 2. and in the part of the L.ogic being discussed SL, 7991 (WL, II, 456). lLThis may be compared with Kant’s remark concerning scientific knowledge that ‘we have complete insight only into what we can make and bring about in accordance with our concepts’ (Critique of’/udgrmenr, Part II, Section 68 adfinem). But this, which apparently concerns the concept-guided, actual transformation of certain empirical objects into others is of very secondary significance in Kant’s thought in comparison with the idea of the transcendental constitution of empirical objects in general. Cf. on this issue E. Heintel, ‘Galilei und Kant’, fhilosophia Naturalis 9 (1963, 191-212. A further historical discussion of this whole point would. of course. have to consider the vennn/~~ctum idea in Hobbes and Vito. “Cf. Philosophy of Right, $4 Addition (Zusatz): ‘The difference between thinking and willing is only that between the theoretical and the practical attitude. These, however, are . . not two faculties; the will is rather a special way of thinking: thinking translating itself into existence . , This difFerence between thinking and willing may be described as follows. In thinking an object. I make it into thought and deprive it of its sensory aspect; I make it into something which is essentially and immediately mine: for it is only in thinking that I am in my own element [bei mir]. only comprehending is a drilling right through [Durchbohren] the object, which then ceases to stand over against me. and from which I have taken the character of its own which it had in opposition to me. . . An idea is always a generalization. and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think. The ego is thinking and so the universal. The variegated canvas of the world is before me: I stand over against it, and in this [theoretical] attitude to it I overcome its opposition to me and make its content my own. The ego is at home in the world when it is acquainted with it, still more so when it has comprehended it. . . . The practical attitude, on the other hand. begins in thinking, in the ego itself. and it appears first as though opposed to thinking because it sets up a sort of separation. Insofar as I am prtlCtiCd or active, i.e.. insofar as I do something, I determine myself. and to determine myself simply means to posit a difference. But these differences which 1 posit are still mine all the same, the determinate volitions are mine and the aims which I struggle to realize belong to me. If I now let these determinations and differences go, i.e.. if I posit them in the so-called external world, they none the less still remain mine: they are what I have done. what I have made, they bear the trace of my mind [Gekl]. Such is the difference between the theoretical and the practical attitude; but now the tie between them must be described. The theoretical is essentially contained in the practical . because we cannot have a will without intelligence. On the contrary. the wilt contains the theoretical within itself: the will determines itself; this determination is in the first place something inward: what I will I hold before my mind as an idea, it is an object for me The content of what is thought indeed has the form of being. but this being is something mediated. something posited through our activity. Thus these different attitudes are inseparable.’ Trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Ctarendon Press. 1952). pp. 226f.

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Unendlichkeit]‘, where the end to be attained always stays one step ahead of the moves taken to achieve it? Hegel’s response is, once again, difficult, but seems to be as follows. A contextually unresolved contingency is really a necessary condition for the existence of freedom and hence of genuine subjecthood. for freedom is only intelligible where resistances to projects are confronted. Thus the highest Good, the full exercise of rationality, freedom, can be realized only in precisely that situation which at first sight seemed to be obstructive of it. The ultimate insight is that the Good is precisely the process of achievement of partial goods, and in this sense the Good is ever-already realized in the world.20

3. The. Theme of Inductive Reasoning in Hegel and Hume’s Problem of Induction 3.1. Hume’s argument about induction

Though Hume’s name is not mentioned in the Hegel-texts just considered.2’ it is impossible to miss the connection with his arguments about inductive reasoning. To begin with, then, let us survey the gist of those arguments to the extent that they are relevant here.” An inference, properly so-called, from a statement about one observed matter of fact to one about an unobserved matter of fact would obtain under one or other of two conditions. One is that the second statement be deducible from the first, without the mediation of any othe; statement, by virtue of a necessary ‘Relation of Ideas’ between the relevant concepts. The other is that the second statement be deducible from the first by virtue of the mediation of some other set of statements. The first sort is excluded because the appropriate descriptive concepts are unavailable.23 The second sort would have to include a premise to the effect that, in general, if a P-type situation obtains at one time “See the particularly compendious statement in EL, $234 Addition (Zusatz). “Hegel nowhere offers a systematic. critical discussion of Hume’s philosophy of induction rather than fairly general ones about his subjectivity and scepticism. See mainly EL, &$40,47. 50, 53, and Lectures on the History of Phitosophj, trans~ E. S. Hgldane and F. H.-Simson (reprint, London Routledae & Keaan Paul. 1955). Vol. III. DD. 369-375 (W. 20: 275-2811. >‘The hollowing brief presentation is a sia’tement of the core of Hume’s account rather than a reproduction of any of his own statements, which are misleading and confusing in a number’of ways which cannot be gone into here. See A Treatise ofHuman Nu/ure, mainly Bk. I, Pt III; An Abstract qfu Treutise oJHumon Nu~vre, J. M. Keynes and P. Sraffa (eds) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938), pp. I I-24; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Sections IV-VII. ‘“It is not clear whether Hume meant that the properties which such concepts would designate

are not accessible to us or that such concepts cannot be intelligibly constructed. The second seems the only position consistent with his doctrine of meaning, but the first can be textually supported. See W. A. Suchting, ‘Hume and Necessary Truth’, Dialogue 5 (1%6). 47-60. [Added in prooj See now on these issues Galen Strawson, The Secret Connexion. Causation. Realism. und David Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).]

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and place in C-type conditions and is associated with a Q-type situation there, then the same will be true of a P-type situation in C-type conditions at any other time and place - what may be called a ‘Uniformity Principle’. But there can be no knowledge of such a principle, because were it knowable it would have to be so either a priori or a posteriori, whereas it is not knowable u priori (for the same general reason as excludes immediate inferences from statements about observed to ones about unobserved states of affairs) nor knowable a posteriori (since this would involve just such a principle and hence beg the question). So there are not, and cannot be any inferences of the sort in question. What we call an inference of this sort is just a matter of a habit (‘custom’) brought about in us by the observed concomitance of the sorts of situations in question, such that the observation or thought of one calls up, by association, a thought of the other. z4 The concepts in question are not universally co-instantiated because they are necessarily related; rather, they are held to be necessarily related because they are universally co-instantiated.

3.2. The questions of reliability

and justification

and Hegei’s argument

in the

Phenomenology It should be clear from this that Hume’s argument is not really concerned with what may be called the actual reliability of the beliefs we have about the unobserved (in particular, the future) formed on the basis of our experiences of the observed (in particular, the past), but rather with the justification of the move from observed to unobserved. In Kantian terms, he is not really concerned with the question ‘quidfuctr?‘, but with that ‘quid juris?. Hume’s argument would be unaffected even if all our beliefs about the unobserved, based on the observed, were always completely reliable. Now Hegel’s treatment in the Phenomenolugy, outlined in 1-l above, appears to run together the issues of reliability and justification. He begins by stating a certain view about the character of a law, namely, that it is simply a report about what is exceptionlessly the case rather than a statement of necessity. He goes on to ask how, on the first view, it is possible to make inferences from the observed to the unobserved. This would appear to be raising Hume’s problem about the justiJication of such a move. But his response to the answer to this question in terms of analogical argument concerns the question of the reiiability of this procedure. However, in pursuing the question of how to overcome the defects of analogical inference, Hegel in effect suggests a solution to the

“According to Humc the process works through analogy. as in Hegel’s reconstruction of the ‘syllogism of reflection’. See Enquiry. beginning of Sect. 1X. Also Trearise, Bk. I. PI ffl. Sect. XII, last paragraph. 5nIls P1:l-K

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problem of justification, by affirming that experiment vouchsafes exactly those necessary connections between descriptive concepts the existence of which Hume denies, thus giving rise to his problem of induction.2s The end of the passage links up with its beginning: the ‘truth of a law’ is to be found not in :experience’ but rather in ‘what is intrinsically universal’. As for the system of logic, the general sequence of stages is, as already remarked, similar, though there the apparent conflation pointed to above does not occur, the argument involving only the character of the inference qua inference.

3.3. The problem

ofjusttfying

the introduction of Hegel’s necessary

hypothericals

But what is Hegel’s justification for introducing those necessary hypotheticals the existence of which Hume in effect denies? In the passages from the Phenomenology already surveyed their existence seems simply to be asserted: it is mereIy affirmed that experiment in fact discloses certain necessary relations between descriptive concepts themselves. This is also the role of experiment in the Logic, as we have seen. But Hume might well reply that if there are genuine inferences about matters of fact, from the observed to the unobserved, then indeed there must be necessary connections between certain descriptive concepts (‘Relations of Ideas’), but that he denies the latter, and therefore the former, on the basis of certain arguments, whilst Hegel affirms the former, and therefore the latter, without argument. Hegel’s response to this would doubtless be that (within his system of logic anyway) he has already justified the applicability of the category of necessity (towards the end of the ‘Doctrine of Essence’ by the time he has arrived at the treatment already surveyed (in the ‘Subjective Logic’), and that he can properly assume the results of the earlier argument in pursuing the later. Let us therefore look at that earlier account of the category of necessity. The relevant passages occur in the context of a treatment of the modalities generally.26 The gist is as follows. According to the argument so far, whatever “‘The theme of experiment is, of course, not absent in Hume. Indeed he subtitles the Treurlse ‘An Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects’, though ‘experimental’ here fairly clearly means just based on experience. But he makes more serious reference to experiment in affirming its capacity to provide reliable access to uniformities on the basis of a single case ‘after a careful removal of all foreign and superfluous circumstances’ [Trea/&. Selby-Bigge (ed.), p. 104, and similarly pp. 131, 149, 173f, i75, as well as the long footnote towards the end of Sect. IX of the EnquiryJ. However. C. J. Ducasse for one has strongly argued that this is inconsistent with Hume’s’conitant conjunction view of causation. See, 70; example, 2.J of his paper, ‘Critique of Humeyr Conception of Causality’, hurnal uf Philosophy 63 (1966). 141-148. The argument here is critic&d in T. L. Beauchamp and A. Rosenberg, Hlrme lrnll fbe Prc&Lm qf Cuusorion (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1981). pp. ll2ff. ‘“SL. 54lff (WL. II, 1698); EL. @l43-149.

Hegei and the Humean Problem of induction

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is actual has two aspects, namely that of self-identity, what is ‘inner’, and that of difference (relation to otherness), what is ‘outer’. If the first aspect is taken in abstraction from the second any self-consistent description can be said to have a possible application, so saying that something is possible does not distinguish it from anything else. Such a distinction can be made only by reference to the second aspect, that of the actual circumstances in which something occurs, This unity of identity and difference is contingency (Zlrfall). By virtue of the first aspect that which is concretely as it is could be otherwise. It is by virtue of the second aspect that it is concretely as it is. Thus the explanation of its being the way it is does not lie in its own nature but in circumstances external to it. The ground of explanation of a contingency is an actuiilly existing condition (Bedingung) which selects, so to speak, certain formally possible states and not others. (To supply an example: it is formally possible that all water on earth should exist in the form of steam, but this is ruled out by the actual temperatures that occur on earth.) However, such a condition also has no ground, in the sense that the explanation of its being just what it is lies in something else. All this is true of any contingency. So contingencies form a network, the nature of any particular item being (at this stage) its character as a condition for the existence of another, The concurrence of a certain set of conditions makes a certain outcome ‘necessary’, ‘If all conditions are at hand a state of affairs [die Sack] must become actual . . .‘.27 More precisely, this is a ‘relative’ necessity: something is actual contingently or conditionally upon something else’s being actual. Still, the totality of conditions has no ground outside itself, and in this sense it is ‘absolutely’ necessary. So the absolutely necessary includes contingency within itself, insofar as each member of the totality of conditions has a (contingent) ground in some other member, but all the members, taken collectively, form a set which has no ground outside itself. There are many problems here, but the principal one for present purposes is how to understand what is asserted in the passage quoted. What is the force of the ‘must’ here? If the actual occurrence of die Sache is a criterion for the completeness of the set of relevant conditions then there is certainly a necessity here, but it is of a merely tautological sort. However, if the conditions are identified independently of their contribution to the production of die Sache then it is not clear that the relation between conditions and outcome is ‘necessary’ in a sense stronger than Hume’s ‘regularity’ analysis vouchsafes. An important clue to Hegel’s intent here is provided by the sentence which immediately follows that cited above: ‘and the state of affairs [die Sack] is itself one of the conditions’. This may be glossed as follows. A condition can be regarded from two points of view. On the one hand, it may be identified in “EL. $147.

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terms which do not relate to die Suche. For example, a certain object may be described as a piece of wood and given a characterization in terms of chemistry or physics. On the other hand, it may be described in terms which refer to what it may be a condition for, that is, in terms of a relevant Suche. Thus (to continue the example) that which in chemical terms is a certain structure of celIulose (or whatever) may be identified in term of its relation to its possible use as a constituent of, say, a house, and called a ‘plank’. So. in the sense that die Snche constitutes conditions as conditions, it is itself a condition, and indeed the basic condition. All this permits us to see how, for Hegel, the category of necessity is not ultimate. For at this stage things are conditions by virtue of a relation to, as it were, a principle of colligation which is external to them. To take up the above example again, it is not seen to be of the intrinsic nature of wood that it is apt for being used to build a house; the integration of wood into a house is not a part of the free, that is, externally unconstrained, manifestation of the nature of the wood. So it is necessary to pass to a higher series of categories which express outcomes as free expressions of the natures of the elements involved. The type of this is purposive activity. So, for Hegel, the category’of necessity is subordinate to that of teleology.28

3.4. Hegel’s critique of ‘theoretical knowing’ again With this we find ourselves suddenly back at the standpoint of Hegel’s critique of ‘theoretical knowing’, and his suggested way of transcending it (2.3 and 2.4 above). It will be remembered that, according to Hegel, the basic defect of ‘theoretical knowing’ consists in its ineliminable component of contingency, that this can be eliminated only by eliminating the otherness of the object as such, and that this is achievable only by changing the world in accordance with ethical aims, that is, by subordinating everything to the teleological standpoint. But it should now be clearer how what Hegel argues is the defect of ‘theoretical knowing’ is so only from the standpoint which is supposed to overcOme that defect. From a materialist standpoint it is of the essence of theoretical knowledge that it should be contingent in Hegel’s sense, because this is an index of the fact that, though it deals, qua theory, with ‘thought-objects’, related in complicated ways to real objects, real objects are not thought-

‘LThe ultimately teleological basis of Hegel’s account of necessity has ken underlined by many commentators: e.g. N. Hartmann ‘This Hcgclian concept of necessity is so set up that it can find application only in a releological~y ordered world. Indeed. looked at more closely, it is itself though in a disguised way the concept of this world-order.’ [Die Philosophic de.r deutsehen Idealismus (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. 1974). pi 4591; E. E. Harris, An Interprerofion of rhc Logic qf Hegel (Lanham. MD: University Press of America, 1983). pp. 2OOf; etc.

Hegel

and the Humean

Problem

of Induction

507

objectsz9 Thus .the alleged essential defectiveness of ‘theoretical knowing’ is only such from a presupposed idealist-teleological standpoint.Ja In other words, the alleged problem with ‘theoretical knowing’ is simply a reflection of the alleged solution to the problem3’ that is taken for granted throughout and never demonstrated.

4. Hegel and a Reconsideration of the Problem of Induction 4.1. Recall of Hegel’s accounl of ‘practical knowing’ The aim of the paper so far has been to sketch Hegel’s treatment of reasoning about matters of fact and to show that it is defective. But this does not necessarily mean that it should be dismissed without further ado. The question now is whether it contains suggestions for a more satisfactory account. As a preliminary to trying to answer this question it will be as well to recall the elements of his account of ‘practical knowing’. Hegel argues that ‘theoretical knowing’ is defective because there is tiere always an unresolvable residue of what is other than thought. But this problem can be resolved by going over to the context of ethical action where (I) ethical aims confront the real, which is (2) transformed in practical action in a way aimed at bringing the real into conformity with those aims, whilst (3) the inevitable untransformed residue of any particular process of transformation, which is a necessary presupposition of free action, is transformed in another course of action, which itself gives rise to further tasks of transformation, and so on.

4.2.

A

parallel treatment

of empirical

knowledge

Now, if the idealist presupposition that generates the idea of the inherent defectiveness of ‘theoretical knowing’ is dropped (see 3.4 above), then the way

“Cf. here Bachelard’r thinking on the notion of ‘reality’ conveniently brought together in M. Tiles, Bache/urd: Scierrce ond Ohjecrivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1984), esp. pp. 48ff. 127-129, 193. “Cf. Hegel’s sympathetic commentator G. R. G. Mum: ‘free activity is everywhere the criterion which orders the categories’. G. R. G. Mure. A Srud~ I$ He&i Logic (Oxford: Clarendon Press. in his Ascent 10 fhe Ahrolufc. 1950), pi 140; also J. N. Findlay. ‘Hegel’s Use of Teleology’. Meraphuicul Pupers and Lerrurrs (London: George Alten & Unwin. 1970). pp. I3 I-147. etc. “On the general question of the ‘mirror’ relation of philosophical questions and answers see the writings of Louis Althusser: e.g. L. Althusser and E. Balibar, Reuding Cupiral (London: New Left Books. 19701, pp. 52, 116, etc.

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Studies

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is open to pose the question whether the schema of ‘practical knowing’, presented above in a threefold way, suggests a model for‘theoretical knowing’ itself, or, to free the terminology from specifically Hegelian overtones now, a model for ‘empirical knowledge’. In trying to answer this question it is apposite to return to the period with Hegel’s analysis of which in the Phenomenolugy of Spirit this paper began, namely, the ‘Scientific Revolution’, and specifically to consider the essential lines of the methodology of the figure with whose name this revolution is chiefly associated, namely, Galileo.“’ For present purposes this methodology may be displayed in a threefold way. (1) To start with, there is a purely theoretical part, consisting of a set of stipulations that constitute certain concepts (‘theoretical objects’ concerning ‘pure cases’) - for example, ‘equal or uniform motion’ - in general.in terms of certain relations between them, and a set of consequences thereof, (2) Then there is a set of procedures, in particular instrumental-experimental ones - for example, an inclined plane - which materially transforms real objects, permitting them to be described in the language of theory, and permitting the executor of this transformation to ascertain the degree to which those transformed objects correspond to the consequences of the theory. We thus understand the real to the extent that it can be made to correspond to concepts constructed by us and thus optimally (if not wholly) intelligible to us. (3) Finally, there is a process, usually involving further instrumental-experimental procedures (and consequent calculation) by which attempts are made to increase the degree of conformity between the theory and the real by further transforming the latter so as to exclude ‘disturbing factors’ and/or by comphcating this theory to take the latter into account - for example, by actually decreasing the resistance of

‘?The view of Galileo’s methodology briefly indicated in the following (and taken to be broadly definitive of that of modern science) has been decisively influenced by a number of writings of which the following are representative: M. Heidegger, ‘The Age of the World Picture’. in- The Ouesrion Concerninn Technolvnv & Olher Essays (New York: Harper. 1977); K. Lewin. ‘The Conflict between Aristotelian and Galilean Mbdes of Thought in ‘Contemporary Psychology’ (1931). reprinted m the author’s A Dynamic Theory of Personality (New York: McGraw-Hill. 1935); J. Mittelstrass. Neuzeir und Aufilb’nmg (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1970). esp. pp. 207ff. [An English summary of some major parts of this book is available in the same author’s ‘The Galilean Revolution: The Historical Fate of a Methodological Insight’, Studies in Hisrory and Philosophy o/.S~.ience 2 (1972). 297-328.1 Mittelstrass’s systematic standpoint is indebted to Hugo Dingier, whose last, summarismg work is Die Ergreifung de* Wirklichen Kopitd I-IV (Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp. 1969). K. Holzkamp’s WiJsenschuf~ als Handlung (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. 1968) bases itself on what is sound in Dingler’s work and develops it in great detail within the context of contemporary philosophy of science. See also K. Lewin, Gesefz und Esperiment in der Ps.yholugre (Berlin/Schlachtensee: Weltkreis Vcrlag, l927), and the ‘Structuralist’ view of theories. Initiated in J. D. Sneed, The Logical Srruc/ure of Malhemu~icol Physics (2nd edn. Dordrccht: D. Reidel, 1979), expounded and developed by W. Stegmiiller in his book The Strucrurnlist View, qf Theories (Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer, 1979), and by others, and now best studied in W. Balzer. C. U. Moulines and J. D. Sneed, An Architecronic for Science: The Swur~vrolisr Program (Dordrecht: D. Reidel. 1987).

Hegel and the Humean Problem of Induction

509

air to the falling body, or allowing for it in the intra-theoretical stage I.

4.3.

Retrospective

remarks

and the bearing

of 4.2 on the problem

calculations at

of

inductio#

The above suggests that there is a close analogy between the structure of Hegel’s ‘practical knowing’ and the schema in 4.2. But the differences from the Hegelian position are profound. The contents of stage’i ground or licence inferences about matters of fact, but it does not do so by reference to any sort of real essences discovered either intuitively (Hume’s ‘Relations of ideas’) or experimentally (Hegel). The defmitions and axioms here are, logically speaking, free posits. The relevance of these to the real is assessed by reference to what happens in stages 2 and 3. Hume is perfectly right in arguing that there are no ‘Relations of Ideas’ concerning matters of fact which are knowable a priori as true of those facts. But there are stipulations that licence inferences, and the conclusions of the iatter may be warranted a posteriori. As for Hegel’s picture of experiment, this is not a method for finding the ‘pure case’ in the real but rather of trying to make the real ‘fit’ the pure case defined independently of it. Hegel says that for ‘theoretical knowing’ knowledge always remains external to the real and that this is its inherent defect. A situation which would not be defective in this way would be one where the object as it were determined its own privileged descriptions and would thus be transparent to reason. But only a theoretical object would be like this because only such an object has, in principle at least, no characteristics but those involved in the principles of its own construction. So in effect he is making the demand that a real object not be a real object but a theoretical object. Now what guarantee is there that the procedure indicated in stage 3 above will always be ultimately successful? This is, of course, equivalent to asking for a justification of a ‘Uniformity Principle’, that is, for some reason for believing that such a principle is true in general. The answer is that there is and can be no such justification. No matter how many times the procedure in question has had a successful outcome in the past, this does not constitute any reason for believing that it will be successful in the next case, any more than a continued failure of the procedure to produce a successful outcome constitutes any reason for believing that it will not be ultimately successful. Such a principle is indeed a rule regulating a historically constituted practice, that of modern

“The following remarks on the systematic problem of induction are meant only as a gesture towards a much fuller treatment which I hope to present on its own account in another paper.

Srudies in Hisror_v and PhiIosoph_v qf Science

510

science.34 The justification for ‘projecting’ one current theory rather than another lies in a comparison between their capacities to handle present problems and suggest others. This is a presenrly ascertainable fact. There is no possible answer to the question ‘Will the future be like the past?‘. but there is a general method available to tackle the situation if it does not.

Abbreviations

Used for Titles of Books by Hegel Principally

Referred to in the

Notes

EL:

Enzykloptidie

der philosophischen

Wissenschqften.

Erster Teil: Die

by William Wallace, not used here). PhG: Phiinomenologie des Geistes, J. Hoffmeister (ed.) (6th edn, Hamburg: F. Meiner, 1952). PhS: Phenomenology uJSpirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Ciarendon Press, 1977). The Philosophical Propaedeutic, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Basil PP: Blackwell, 1986). SL: Hegel’s Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969). WL: Wissenschaft der Logik, G. Lasson (ed.) (2nd edn, Leipzig: F. Meiner, Wissenschaft

der Logik (= The Logic of Hegel in the translation

1934). Werke in zwanzig l&den, E. Moldenhauer and K. M. Michel (eds) (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 197Off). Translations used are very frequently changed, and without notice.

W:

“Here and there Hume refers, intriguingly, to the ‘maxim’ of uniformity, in a way which suggests that the choice of the word was not just a literary one. See TreuliFe. Selby-Bigge (ed.), p. 132. and Enqvir~, Sections VIII, Pt 1. also VI and XI, Selby-Bigge (ed.), respectively pp. 87, 57f, 145 n. But the idea is not spelled out. Kant seems to have been the first to develop the idea of a principle of uniformity as regulative in character. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for a remark which made me think harder than before about Kant’s doctrines here. His view seems to be briefly this. The ‘Second Analogy’ shows that the concept of an event or happening (an objective change of state) presupposes that of an invariable rule of succession or causal relation. In this way the correct application of ‘event’/‘happening’ guormtees that there is a relevant cause present. though it does not suflice to pick out that cause. All this is in the sphere of the understanding. The sphere of reason, for its part, contains regulative principles. among them that which bids inquiry pursue the causal structure of experience indefinitely, See the Critique OJ Pure Reason. ASWJff/ B536ff and the ‘Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic’, A642ff/Bti?Off, especially the last four paragraphs on the ‘maxims of reason’.