what makes them legitimate if they are not justified by reason? — JuanZu

Nothing. What makes the notion of “legitimate” coherent and applicable divorced from reason? Nothing.

If you believe as Hume does that constant conjunction has little or nothing to do with necessary connection, then belief in the necessary connection between two constantly conjoined things, is fancy, or practical for now, or whatever else you want to believe about it. It’s not actually true or actually legitimate.

Ask Hume, what do vivid impressions cause? He has to say “stop asking stupid questions.” But to “impress” is to transfer something, from one, to another. Light impresses itself upon my eyeballs. Do my eyeballs and the light cause anything? Or do I just constantly connect them to my “visions” out of habit (can’t say “force of habit” because “force” sounds like a cause)? He had to say that light and eyeballs don’t cause - causation is a figment of our minds. But for some reason he allows constant conjunction and “recurrent association” to be prior to a judgment of belief - like a cause is prior to some effect. (I guess if we just avoid using the word “cause” and stand on “recurrent” we can lift up a rational “conclusion” of “legitimacy” - without sounding as naive as people who still believe and say “cause” and believe they actually know something about the world.)

I agree with Hume that “cause” itself is a metaphysical concept. But I agree with Aristotle that metaphysical concepts, formal causes, exist - minds alone can sense or grasp or discern or understand or constitute, or believe them…

If you believe as Hume does that constant conjunction has little or nothing to do with necessary connection, then belief in the necessary connection between two constantly conjoined things, is fancy, or practical for now, or whatever else you want to believe about it. It’s not actually true or actually legitimate. — Fire Ologist

It is surprising to me that we can survive with these kinds of beliefs that are imposed on us most of the time. Of course, this is assuming that truth is subsumed by reason. We are beings who live in constant ignorance of truth and reality. I would say that these beliefs work on a practical level, but I wonder how they can work at all. It seems that another belief underpins legitimacy: that the external world is regular. But we are back where we started, as this belief is also illegitimate.

In Hume, legitimate beliefs exist. They occur in a process of recurrent association. A belief is legitimate when it is associated with a vivid impression. For example, the belief that one object will move after another is based on past experience of their constant conjunction. Hume concluded that fundamental beliefs, such as the existence of an external world or the existence of the self, are not rationally justifiable but are legitimate because they are the result of experience and custom. — JuanZu

So, you can’t trust induction, so just act as if you can. After all, what else are you going to do? Seems kind of a cheat. It’s not rational, but it’s legitimate. What other use is there for rationality other than to help us figure out what to do?

So, you can’t trust induction, so just act as if you can. After all, what else are you going to do? — T Clark

That is the pragmatic position. The world seems to be ordinary, and we act accordingly. But a philosopher pauses and asks about rational truth. Pausing seems like a suspension of everyday action and pragmatism, the things to be done. There is a relationship between the philosopher's contemplation (pausing) and not following inductive everyday life, if one can say such a thing. Can it be said that philosophy has classically rejected this more fragile aspect of empiricism? Heidegger spoke of an authentic and inauthentic mode of existence. I believe there is a relationship between philosophical thinking, rejecting everyday life and this authenticity, but it is not yet very clear to me.

The nearest thing to an answer to Hume comes from Wittgenstein, along the lines that doubt too stands in need of justification. Whatever can be known can be doubted and knowing and doubting both need justification. Can one justify the doubt that the sun might not rise in the morning? One can say that it might not, but can one really doubt it?

:up: :up:

Can one justify the doubt that the sun might not rise in the morning? One can say that it might not, but can one really doubt it? — unenlightened

Gambler's fallacy? :chin:

I don't think anyone has ever rolled the same number 1,000 times in a row. But apparently, it's just as likely as rolling the dice 1,000 times and at least one of those times being different than the next.

Huh? Your statistical claim makes no sense, but anyway statistics cannot answer Hume, whose argument comes down to 'you can't logically derive a proposition about the future from propositions about the past, just as his moral scepticism states that 'you cannot get an ought from an is.'

Given every morning of my life (that's more than 1,000) the sun has risen. Habit leads me to expect it to rise tomorrow. Now justify the doubt. Something like "I saw the devourer of suns starting to consume it last evening", perhaps?

Your statistical claim — unenlightened

And what claim was that? I'm fairly certain it can be proven no person has ever rolled a dye 1,000 times with the exact same result each time. If you put 6 people, each with a six-sided dye in a room, and instruct them to roll the dye 1,000 times, at least one of those 6 people should have a fair chance of rolling the same number every single one of those 1,000 times. Yet that never happens. That leads people, if not falsely, to believe, anything can happen, just because the same thing happened before. But that was a minor piece of commentary and not a claim or argument. That is as follows, next.

Given every morning of my life (that's more than 1,000) the sun has risen. Habit leads me to expect it to rise tomorrow. Now justify the doubt. Something like "I saw the devourer of suns starting to consume it last evening", perhaps? — unenlightened

Yes, that's reasonable. One with a mind to argue might say such an example is "low hanging fruit". Of course the Sun, a planetary body described by millions of people across thousands of years that has been doing the same thing will probably do the same thing tomorrow. But what does that have to do with non-physical concepts? There's the clear distinction between philosophy and science. Science would be, "if you touch that open flame, your skin will burn or blister." A person who doesn't know what fire is, may, rationally, mind you, doubt that. Until proven. They've never touched fire before, and perhaps they've never been burned or blistered. Without knowledge of the situation, doing such, and resulting in injury, wasn't (relatively) foolish. It was simply dangerous. A result of ignorance. Something we are all born with, and at least in some aspects of life, will die with.

Philosophy, on the other hand, attempts to reach at things a bit non-physical. Such as the mind, emotion, the sense of identity, and purpose. Things that can't be measured by your science. Doubting a metaphysical position is easier to justify than doubting a physical scientific one, for obvious reasons. Which stands to reason, the burden or "minimal quality" of proof, doesn't have to fit every single person's understanding to be valid (unlike science). Basically, comparing one's doubt in philosophy is nothing like doubting whether the Sun will rise tomorrow. At least, not generally let alone automatically.

But a philosopher pauses and asks about rational truth. Pausing seems like a suspension of everyday action and pragmatism, the things to be done. There is a relationship between the philosopher's contemplation (pausing) and not following inductive everyday life, if one can say such a thing. — JuanZu

I don't see the value in this kind of distinction. How do you see it?