In a recent article on the relation between natural philosophy and quantum chromodynamics (the physical theory of the strong nuclear interaction), Frank Wilcek, a well-recognized researcher in elementary particle physics, included the following entertaining passage: A man walks into a bar, takes a seat on the next-to-last stool, and spends the evening chatting up the empty stool next to him, being charming and flirtatious, as if there were a beautiful women in that empty seat. The next night, same story. And the next night, same story again. Finally the bartender can't take it any more. She asks, "Why do you keep talking to that empty stool as if there were a beautiful woman in it?".
The man answers, "I am a philosopher. Hume taught us that it's logically possible that a beautiful woman will suddenly materialize on that stool, and no one has ever refuted him. If one does appear, then obviously I'll seem very clever indeed, and I'll have the inside track with her."
"That's ridiculous", says the bartender, who happens to be a physicist. "Plenty of very attractive women come to this bar all the time. You're reasonably presentable, and extremely articulate; if you applied your charm on one of them, you might succeed".
"I thought about trying that," he replies, "but I couldn't prove it would work."
I included this passage in this review not to ridicule the work of David Hume but to emphasize that his philosophy of science is in no way troubling. The author of this book though spent most of his professional life attempting to refute the views of Hume and then justify the practice of science "objectively". In the first few paragraphs of this book, the author sounds bitter about the lack of recognition for his work on "the problem of induction", which he felt Hume had shown to have devastating consequences on the "truth" of science. The search for an objective, rational "foundation" of science has occupied the time of this author and many others, who hold to the idea that scientific knowledge needs such a foundation and the Humean challenge must be answered. To those readers who agree with the author in this regard, this book would be of interest. To those who do not, this book could possibly be read as an exercise in mental gymnastics. There are some places in the book where issues are raised that are important in fields such as artificial intelligence, but as a whole the book is typical of 20th century philosophy of science: it holds as axiomatic that scientific knowledge needs an underlying foundation.
Since I personally do not believe the David Hume has to be answered at all, a review of the author's arguments against Hume would be misplaced. Having read Hume's works in detail, and having walked away from them puzzled as to why they are considered so "formidable" or "devastating", my interest in this book was purely subjective: that of gaining insight as to why many philosophers of science are so deeply troubled by Hume's philosophy and other science skeptics. Finishing the book still left my questions unanswered in this regard, and judging by a perusal of the literature on the philosophy of science, Humean skepticism is still considered the "thing to answer". Scientific truth is still held in doubt to a large degree, and debates on it in the social and political realm usually take place in the context of religion or why creationism should be taught in the public schools.
But science needs no foundation. The game of philosophy should now be what consequences science has for philosophy. What theories of truth, of ethics, of knowledge, are possible for philosophy because of science? If this book were rewritten to reflect this attitude, its content would be very different, possibly more elaborate in its views. The avenues that science opens up in ethics, epistemology, and ontology are rich in information theory, mathematics, logic, and many other areas. Scientific and technological advances are exploding at an unprecedented rate, and no Humean challenge or backlash can stop it.....thankfully.
