Brain-snatched II

04/18/13 • 51 min

This lecture continues the discussion of scepticism introduced in the preceding lecture. There is discussion of different views about what the consequences would be for someone who accepted scepticism, and of some of the arguments that have been given for rejecting scepticism.

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Brain-snatched I

This lecture deals with philosophical scepticism about the physical world. This is the idea that we do not really have any evidence (at all!) for any of our ordinary beliefs about the world around us, because we cannot rule out the possibility that all our experience is some sort of massive illusion. We look at the detail of the argument for this startling view, and at one of the responses that may be made to it. The lecture refers to Chapter 3, "Brain-Snatched", in Stephen Law's book, The Philosophy Gym.

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The Problem of Induction

This lecture is a discussion of the problem of induction. I begin by looking at the structure of logical reasoning with a view to delineating the ‘problem’ with inductive reasoning; this is a problem for scientific knowledge as inductive reasoning is essential to science. I explore Hume's analysis of the problem of induction with a view to showing how deep the problem runs. I explain Hume's ultimate resolution to the problem in modern parlance as a type of naturalism.