Abstract

It would be difficult to overestimate the influence Hume’s problem of induction exercises on contemporary epistemology. At the same time, the problem of induction has not perceptibly slowed the progress of mathematics and science. This ironic state of affairs, immortalized by C. D. Broad’s description of induction as “the glory of science” and “the scandal of philosophy,” ought in all fairness to give both sides some pause. And on occasion, it does: the mathematicians stop to concede that Hume has not yet been answered, the scientists worry about randomization of experiments, and inductive skeptics stir uneasily in their chairs at the mention of certain mathematical theorems that seem palpably to have bearing on the problem.