I never say never, but that's not really my area. I can imagine doing a video on, say, Heidegger's "What is Metaphysics?" But I don't think I'll be doing Sein und Zeit, or one of the later books. There are others who would be much better at explaining the details of his theories.
A Humean line of response I'd imagine would be, because the knowledge about the trees is based on the past observations and the inductive reasoning by which we get the claim that "the trees usually don't flower in winter", we have no reason to suppose that this is true in general nor do we have any reason to think the trees flowering in winter is impossible. But since we a posterori discover the fact that the trees exhibit certain patterns of flowering in a certain causal network, the initial assumption must be that it is possible that the trees flower completely at random, or otherwise the argument would be circular.
I think we need to distinguish between epistemic and metaphysical (or real) possibility here. The Humean would be right if they claimed that the use of empirical methods presupposes that it is epistemically possible for the trees to flower whenever -- otherwise, observation is not needed. But of course this allows the Shepherdian to claim that through observation we find out what the real necessities are, and thus that it was never really possible for the trees to flower in winter. To be sure, nothing in this video proves that Hume's account of causation or necessity is wrong. I'm only following Shepherd in arguing that conceivability scenarios are not an argument in favour of Hume's account. (Shepherd has other arguments against other parts of Hume, but I'm not talking about them here.)
@@VictorGijsbers My understanding is that even if we grant that we discover the real necessities regarding the trees, there still are the problem of induction and skepticism about the uniformity of nature in the Humean toolbox to appeal to. Let's say we discover (part of) the real nature of the trees by means of induction, but there's still a metaphysical possibility (which has to be conceivable in the first place in order for us to come up with this idea) that it is in the trees' nature to start flowering in winter after a certain developmental stage, for example. And at that point we're still assuming the uniformity of nature; it might suddenly for no reason change its laws, thereby making the knowledge about the trees' nature obsolete. Though, I think the Shepherdian can take something like a causal externalist account of epistemic justification to make a rebuttal. And yes, I'm not a Humean myself so I think Hume's probably wrong on this one, but I felt as though there's plenty of room for a Humean to respond to Shepherd's argument as it was presented. Thank you for the response!
I feel like the notion of "possibility" has so much baggage when you touch on this subject, that if you don't clarify exactly what type of possibility you're talking about, you can get whatever answer you desire to the question. Because really, when you ask if something is possible merely because it's conceivable, what you've implicitly assumed is that the kind of possibility for which you're asking, is coherent. But it seems to me that it's not at all clear that it is coherent to ask. Or at the very least it's not well-defined. Suppose I want to affirmatively say it is possible for trees to blossom during the winter. Surely by possible we mean more than simply concievability. Surely we mean more than just in the fictional sense. Surely we're asking if it's possible *in reality* that this occurs. But to answer if this specific event is possible, wouldn't we first have to know, more broadly, what things are possible in reality? That is, what kinds of events can occur. For example, in order to know if it's possible for trees to blossom in the winter, we first need to know if it's possible for *any* kind of plant to blossom in the winter, do we not? I am not saying we're forced to provide a comprehensive list of every plant for which it is possible and impossible to blossom in the winter, before the question is warranted. But we do need to know if it's possible for at least 1 plant to blossom in the winter, for it logically follows that the answer to this second question determines the answer to the first. And this more general question is even harder to answer than the specific. Perhaps answering it even requires solving the problem of induction, and then we're really screwed. We could generalize ad infinitum if we're creative enough, it seems to me. So really, there appears to be a strange paradox in the question that's rarely discussed. For a more straightforward example, suppose you see kids playing a game on the playground, where they're kicking a ball around. You can't quite make out what the rules are. When you're allowed to kick the ball, what happens when you kick it, and so on. If a kid were to ask you if it's possible to win the game by not kicking the ball, you can't answer that question, because you don't know the rules of the game. The only sense in which it's "possible" is in the abstract sense that yes, you can concieve of a game where you win it by kicking the ball, but that's not the question. The question is if it's possible for this particular game the kids are playing, in reality. And it is undeniable that from the outside looking in, without communicating with the kids, you cannot know. And unfortunately for us, reality is rather silent about its own rules.
Welcome back! Will you continue your tractatus series in the future?
@@noonecares9665 I'm planning to!
❤️🔥☦️❤️🔥
Would you ever do a series on Hermeneutics (or just Heidegger)?
I never say never, but that's not really my area. I can imagine doing a video on, say, Heidegger's "What is Metaphysics?" But I don't think I'll be doing Sein und Zeit, or one of the later books. There are others who would be much better at explaining the details of his theories.
A Humean line of response I'd imagine would be, because the knowledge about the trees is based on the past observations and the inductive reasoning by which we get the claim that "the trees usually don't flower in winter", we have no reason to suppose that this is true in general nor do we have any reason to think the trees flowering in winter is impossible. But since we a posterori discover the fact that the trees exhibit certain patterns of flowering in a certain causal network, the initial assumption must be that it is possible that the trees flower completely at random, or otherwise the argument would be circular.
I think we need to distinguish between epistemic and metaphysical (or real) possibility here. The Humean would be right if they claimed that the use of empirical methods presupposes that it is epistemically possible for the trees to flower whenever -- otherwise, observation is not needed. But of course this allows the Shepherdian to claim that through observation we find out what the real necessities are, and thus that it was never really possible for the trees to flower in winter.
To be sure, nothing in this video proves that Hume's account of causation or necessity is wrong. I'm only following Shepherd in arguing that conceivability scenarios are not an argument in favour of Hume's account. (Shepherd has other arguments against other parts of Hume, but I'm not talking about them here.)
@@VictorGijsbers My understanding is that even if we grant that we discover the real necessities regarding the trees, there still are the problem of induction and skepticism about the uniformity of nature in the Humean toolbox to appeal to. Let's say we discover (part of) the real nature of the trees by means of induction, but there's still a metaphysical possibility (which has to be conceivable in the first place in order for us to come up with this idea) that it is in the trees' nature to start flowering in winter after a certain developmental stage, for example. And at that point we're still assuming the uniformity of nature; it might suddenly for no reason change its laws, thereby making the knowledge about the trees' nature obsolete. Though, I think the Shepherdian can take something like a causal externalist account of epistemic justification to make a rebuttal.
And yes, I'm not a Humean myself so I think Hume's probably wrong on this one, but I felt as though there's plenty of room for a Humean to respond to Shepherd's argument as it was presented.
Thank you for the response!
I think the Quinean approach to this is the correct take.
I feel like the notion of "possibility" has so much baggage when you touch on this subject, that if you don't clarify exactly what type of possibility you're talking about, you can get whatever answer you desire to the question.
Because really, when you ask if something is possible merely because it's conceivable, what you've implicitly assumed is that the kind of possibility for which you're asking, is coherent. But it seems to me that it's not at all clear that it is coherent to ask. Or at the very least it's not well-defined. Suppose I want to affirmatively say it is possible for trees to blossom during the winter. Surely by possible we mean more than simply concievability. Surely we mean more than just in the fictional sense. Surely we're asking if it's possible *in reality* that this occurs. But to answer if this specific event is possible, wouldn't we first have to know, more broadly, what things are possible in reality? That is, what kinds of events can occur.
For example, in order to know if it's possible for trees to blossom in the winter, we first need to know if it's possible for *any* kind of plant to blossom in the winter, do we not? I am not saying we're forced to provide a comprehensive list of every plant for which it is possible and impossible to blossom in the winter, before the question is warranted. But we do need to know if it's possible for at least 1 plant to blossom in the winter, for it logically follows that the answer to this second question determines the answer to the first. And this more general question is even harder to answer than the specific. Perhaps answering it even requires solving the problem of induction, and then we're really screwed. We could generalize ad infinitum if we're creative enough, it seems to me. So really, there appears to be a strange paradox in the question that's rarely discussed.
For a more straightforward example, suppose you see kids playing a game on the playground, where they're kicking a ball around. You can't quite make out what the rules are. When you're allowed to kick the ball, what happens when you kick it, and so on. If a kid were to ask you if it's possible to win the game by not kicking the ball, you can't answer that question, because you don't know the rules of the game. The only sense in which it's "possible" is in the abstract sense that yes, you can concieve of a game where you win it by kicking the ball, but that's not the question. The question is if it's possible for this particular game the kids are playing, in reality. And it is undeniable that from the outside looking in, without communicating with the kids, you cannot know. And unfortunately for us, reality is rather silent about its own rules.