ABSTRACT
This chapter argues against the widely held view that David Hume is a radical sceptic about the reasonableness of induction. This view receives its most detailed recent defence in the influential writings of D. C. Stove. According to Stove, Hume argues for the sceptical thesis that no inductive argument increases the probability of its conclusion on the basis of the tacitly held assumption that only deductively valid arguments make their conclusions more probable. Hume, however, makes clear that contiguity and succession, though 'essential' to causality, do not provide a 'compleat idea of causation'. Hume offers normative rules of causal reasoning, stating the conditions under which inductive inferences are warranted. These rules emerge as a result of the reflexive application of causal reasoning. Hume's conclusion concerns the causes of inductive inference rather than the question of its justification. It is clear that Hume believes that the opposition between reason and the senses calls into question the epistemic value of inductive inference.
