All that is given in experience is the regular

experienced in sense impressions. All that is given
in experience is the regular succession of one kind
of event followed by another. But the supposition
that the earlier event, the so-called ‘cause’, must
be followed by the succeeding event, the ‘effect’, is
merely human expectation projected onto reality.
There is no justification for believing that there is
any causal necessity in the ordering of events.
Hume’s scepticism does not stop there, and
human belief in causation is just a special case of
a more general psychological trait: inductive
reasoning. Inductive reasoning is the process that
leads us to make generalisations from observing
a number of similar cases. For example, having
observed many white swans but no black swans,
one might seemingly be justified in the
conclusion that ‘All swans are white’. Equally,
being aware that men often die, we conclude ‘All
men are mortal’. But such generalisations go
beyond what is given in experience and are not
logically justified. After all, black swans were
found in Australia, and there is always the
logical possibility of coming across an immortal
man. Hume claimed that inductive reasoning
could not be relied upon to lead us to the truth,
for observing a regularity does not rule out the
possibility that next time something different
will occur. Since all scientific laws are merely
generalizations from inductive reasoning, this
so-called ‘problem of induction’ has been an
urgent one for philosophers of science. Trying to
show how induction is justified has taxed them
throughout the 20th Century. Karl Popper is
notable for offering the most promising solution
to Humean scepticism.
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Thomas Reid
1710–1796
Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers
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S
cottish philosopher who, like Kant ,
was inspired by the writings of his
fellow Scot, David Hume . Reid
produced two principal works,
namely his Inquiry into the Human
Mind and the later Essays on the Intellectual
Powers of Man .
Reid felt that Hume’s sceptical conclusions
were inevitable but unacceptable. Consequently,
and logically, the only move left open to him was
to object to the assumptions upon which Hume’s
philosophy was based. Principally, this amounted
to rejecting the assumption, common to
Descartes , Locke and Berkeley as well as Hume,
that ideas in the mind are intermediaries between
the subject and the world. Rather, Reid espoused
a form of direct perception in an attempt to deny
Hume’s conclusions and bring philosophy back
to common-sense.
Although he made original contributions in
this regard, Reid’s importance in philosophy has
gone down not so much for his own work but for
his masterful criticisms of Locke and Berkeley.
In particular, his criticism of Locke’s criterion of
personal identity helped to bring out the
importance of this debate in philosophy (also see
Leibniz ).