Philosophy of science · Hume's problem

The problem of induction

The sun has risen every morning in recorded history. What justifies believing it will rise tomorrow? Hume's answer was unsettling: nothing does, at least not by reason. Every attempt to justify induction turns out to rely on induction, and the argument has resisted solution for nearly three centuries.

The problem of induction is Hume's argument that no number of past observations logically justifies a conclusion about future or unobserved cases. Inductive reasoning assumes nature is uniform, but that assumption can only be supported inductively, making the justification circular. The problem remains unsolved, though several responses attempt to dissolve or work around it.

The positions · at a glance
The argument at a glance
Position 01

Observation doesn't entail

The logical gap

That every observed A was B doesn't logically guarantee the next A will be. No contradiction arises from supposing otherwise.

Position 02

Uniformity is assumed

The hidden premise

Induction works only if the future resembles the past — which is itself what needs justifying.

Position 03

The circularity

Why it's unsolved

'Induction has worked before' is an inductive argument. Using induction to justify induction begs the question.

Position 04

It still works

The practical fact

Nothing here suggests you should stop expecting sunrise. The puzzle is justification, not reliability.

You believe bread will nourish you tomorrow because it always has. You believe the sun will rise, that dropped objects will fall, that fire will burn. Every one of those beliefs reaches beyond what you have observed to what you have not — and Hume's question is what entitles you to make that step.

Notice first that it is not a matter of logic. From "every observed emerald was green" it does not follow that the next will be; there is no contradiction in supposing otherwise, in the way there would be in supposing a bachelor married. The inference is not deductively valid, so if it is justified at all, it must be justified some other way.

The natural reply is that nature is uniform — that the future generally resembles the past, and regularities persist. That would license the inference. But how is that established? Not by logic, since a chaotic universe is perfectly conceivable. So presumably by experience: nature has been uniform so far. And there the trap closes. Using past uniformity to establish that the future will resemble the past assumes exactly the principle in question. The justification is circular.

Every defence of induction turns out to use induction.Why the circle closes

Hume's own conclusion was psychological rather than sceptical in the practical sense. We do not infer these things by reason at all, he argued, but by custom or habit: repeated experience produces an expectation, and that habit is what actually drives our reasoning about matters of fact. He did not think anyone could or should stop reasoning inductively — he thought nature had wisely not left something so essential to our shaky powers of argument.

The responses form a map of subsequent epistemology. Popper accepted the argument fully and concluded that science does not use induction: it makes conjectures and refutes them, so no inductive justification is needed. Critics reply that choosing to rely on a corroborated theory rather than a refuted one seems to reintroduce induction through the back door. Pragmatic responses, notably Reichenbach's, argue that if any method works induction will, so we lose nothing by using it. Bayesian approaches formalise how evidence should update degrees of belief, though they still require prior probabilities from somewhere. And Goodman made matters harder with his "grue" puzzle, showing that the evidence supporting "all emeralds are green" equally supports a bizarre alternative predicate — so the problem is not merely justifying induction but explaining which inductions are the right ones.

What makes this the most respectable unsolved problem in philosophy is its combination of simplicity and reach. Nobody proposes acting on it. But it sits underneath every empirical claim ever made, and nearly three hundred years of effort have not produced a solution that its proponents can defend without eventually leaning on the very thing in question.

People also askQuick answers

What is the problem of induction?

Hume's argument that no number of past observations logically justifies conclusions about unobserved cases. The inference isn't deductively valid, and justifying it requires assuming nature is uniform — which can only be supported inductively.

Why is the problem of induction circular?

Because the obvious justification — induction has worked reliably before — is itself an inductive argument. Using induction to justify induction assumes the very principle in question, so the defence begs the question.

What was Hume's solution?

He didn't offer a logical solution. He argued we reason inductively from custom and habit rather than reason: repeated experience produces expectation. He thought this was unavoidable and not something anyone should try to abandon.

Does the problem of induction mean science is unjustified?

No. It's a problem about philosophical justification, not about reliability. Science works, and nothing in the argument suggests otherwise. What remains unsolved is explaining precisely what entitles us to reason this way.

Sources & further reading

A summary following standard scholarly accounts. The problem of induction is widely regarded as unresolved.