Month: November 2011

  • Hume’s views on induction: a follow-up

    In our latest episode, Peter Kail addressed a popular misreading of David Hume’s views about induction—the process of inferring things about the future on the basis of facts about the past.  According to this reading, Hume is a skeptic about induction.  Let’s distinguish skeptical from non-skeptical views about induction like this: Skepticism about induction: we…

  • Episode 29: Peter Kail discusses the legacy of David Hume

    Peter Kail is University Lecturer in the History of Modern Philosophy at St. Peter’s College, University of Oxford.   For our belated celebration of David Hume’s 300th birthday, Prof. Kail joins us to discuss Hume’s life and philosophical legacy.  You can listen to our interview with Prof. Kail by clicking here. Hume’s work has had…

  • Possible Worlds Semantics

    Thus far, three of our episodes (12, 25 and 28) have contained some discussion of possible worlds semantics.  Most memorably, we learned in our last episode that John Searle is rather critical of the enterprise.  But what is possible worlds semantics?  Let’s take a look. This possible worlds business originally stems from the work of…