Betrand Russell – Problems of Philosophy

As humans we naturally believe that the sunshine leave dress up tomorrow. But why is it that we believe this? In the following essay I will explore the logic behind this question focusing on Bertrand Russells arguments of installment, and the uniformity of nature as presented in his book The Problems of Philosophy Russells principle of the uniformity of nature suggests humans and animals fall into the trap of believing that everything that has and will happen becomes a general law with no exceptions (Russell, 63). In other words, the more frequently something occurs, the more certain it is to occur again.Russell provides an example citing the relationship surrounded by a chicken and a farmer. When the chicken sees the farmer coming everyday, he assumes, as per usual, that he will be fed, but ultimately one day the farmer will kill the chicken (Russell, 63). This is the trap that we frequently fall into by becoming too accustomed to what has already occurred, and assuming that it will constantly happen again. Russell argues that this is because humans use inductive logic to generate these general laws, which are used as the basis for the uniformity of nature (Russell, 66).This principle of induction states that the more times we see two things to be associated, the greater the certainty that this association is accurate (Russell, 67). An example is the rising of the sun. Through inductive logic we take a leak determined that every morning, the sun will inherently rise (Russell, 64). There is however, a small pass off that the worlds rotational force could step down which would result in the sun not rising. However, as inductive logic brings us to certainty without limit, it is seemingly impossible that the sun wouldnt rise, base on the billions of times it has risen in the past (Russell, 69).This is where I believe there is an issue in Russells argument. I believe that there is no legitimate evidence supporting the relationship between induction and th e uniformity of nature. In my opinion regardless of how many times the sun comes up the chance of the sun rising the next day, does not change. From this I conclude that induction is not a proper way of determining whether or not the sun will rise, because there is still an unchanging probability that it will not.Russell counters this by arguing that through induction we can approach a level of almost certainty, without limit (Russell, 67). I believe this to be a fallacy as well because this statement in itself is an oxymoron. It suggests that there are different degrees of certainty, which is contrary to the exposition of certainty itself. While I do believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, my belief is routed in the uniformity of nature, not in induction, as I am not convinced of this certainty which induction requires.Russell would once again refute this suggesting that its not the level of certainty, but rather the probability of the sun rising that increases. I however, belie ve that this probability cannot change. Each sunrise is independent of one another, just as each flip out of a coin is. heedless of how many heads in a row I get, I cannot by any logical measure deduce that the coin will always flip heads. Similarly, I cannot conclude that the sun will always rise just because it has in the past. Based on these grounds, the argument of induction does not stand, and hence, is not link up to the uniformity of nature.