Abstract

Mill's views in epistemology were very much the culmination of radical British empiricism, and its natural transition to certain forms of logical positivism. This paper involves an overview and critical evaluation of Mill's foundationalism, his views on inductive reasoning and attempt to “reduce” deductive reasoning to inductive reasoning, his attempt to solve the epistemological problems of perception by reducing talk of physical objects to talk about the permanent possibility of sensations (his phenomenalism), his views on knowledge of necessary truths, and his famous “methods” for establishing truths about causal connection.