In philosophy, the problem of induction is the philosophical question of whether inductive reasoning can ever justify absolute certainty in knowledge. Many thinkers throughout history have tried to answer this question, including the natural philosopher Francis Bacon, the mathematician Pierre de Fermat, the literary critic John Stuart Mill, and the historian David Hume. While many of them concluded that there is no way to prove a statement absolutely certain, others suggested that induction could provide at least partial justification for belief. Karl Popper expanded upon this idea in 1934, arguing that a proposition can be proven false by observing a single counterexample. The most famous contemporary version of this argument is due to physicist Paul Davies, who argues that if we observe a single photon traveling faster than light, then we must conclude that either special relativity is wrong or that our current understanding of physics is incomplete. This principle is called falsificationism, and it is often taken to mean that we should never accept statements that cannot be disproven. However, it is also possible to interpret falsificationism as meaning that we can always reject statements that are inconsistent with what we already know, even though we may never be able to prove them to be false.
Introduction
How do we really define Philosophy? The Greek word φιλοσοφία – Philosophia. Or as the term has been coined by modern Western language – Philosophy. The literal meaning of this word is relatively static. Derived from its Greek origin it comprises two separate words...
