Problem of Induction

The problem of induction questions the rationality of drawing conclusions about unobserved things from past observations, inferences philosophers call inductive inferences. David Hume, who first formulated the problem in 1739, argued that there is no non-circular way to justify inductive reasoning even though everyone does and must rely on it in practice. The traditional inductivist view holds that empirical laws in ordinary life and in science can be justified through some form of reasoning, though philosophers have long disagreed over what that justification could be, prompting C.D. Broad's remark that induction is the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy; Karl Popper's critical rationalism rejected the inductivist picture altogether, proposing instead that science proceeds by conjecturing hypotheses, deducing their consequences and attempting to falsify them empirically.