Hume, probability, and induction

Abstract

On the basis of certain passages in his writings, Hume is nowadays certified, by some leading philosophers and historians, as having proved not only that inductive arguments can never be demonstrative, but also that they can never even be probable. This article points out that Hume uses “demonstrative” and “probable” in order to distinguish between arguments, not with respect to their degree of conclusiveness, but with respect to the nature of their premisses. And it tries to show, by a detailed examination of the argument in the passages in question, that far from having refuted the thesis that there are probable inductive arguments, Hume never contemplated it.