It’s fascinating seeing the responses to this from you all who obviously know a lot about philosophy. Coming at it from a layman’s perspective, and not really knowing who David Hume was, the science definitions bit was all I could really understand and I interpreted it the way that you say it could have been written. I’m now wondering if just placed my own preconceptions about the bits that I did understand onto the author without really considering the rest.
I’m absolutely a layman myself too, and somewhat allergic to philosophy and its tautologies. I think it’s exactly as valuable as laypeople find it to be.
This point about induction happens to be an exceptional personal crusade I’ve been on for decades, ever since I saw someone use it in a college debate on “does god exist?”
The “no” debater laid out the usual standards we apply to scientific knowledge and showed how miserably religion satisfies them (it doesn’t even show up to try, of course).
His opponent tried to demolish those standards as a gold statue with clay feet, because really, we can’t know anything - it’s all faith.
I’ll keep standing up to say “fuck that” at every opportunity I get for the rest of my life.
