A reliabilist strategy for solving the problem of induction

Abstract

In this thesis I develop a two-stage strategy in which a simple reliabilist theory of knowledge and justification can be employed so as to solve David Hume’s famous ‘problem of induction’. In so doing, the key arguments I make include: (i) that justification possesses an externalist character so we do not need to show how we know that we possess inductive knowledge, and (ii) that an inductivist rule-circular justification of induction is defensible if induction is understood in terms of a reliabilist theory of knowledge and justification.