Sadler's Lectures
Sadler's Lectures
Lectures on classic and contemporary philosophical texts and thinkers by Gregory B. Sadler
William Clifford, The Ethics Of Belief - The Limits Of Inference - Sadler's Lectures
14 minutes Posted Jun 4, 2026 at 4:40 pm.
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Show notes
This lecture discusses the William Clifford's 1877 essay "The Ethics Of Belief", in which he makes and argued for the central claim "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."
It focuses on the third section of his essay, titled "The Limits Of Inference" in which Clifford discusses conditions for having well-founded beliefs of matters we don't have direct experience of, for example matters of everyday life, science, or history. We inevitably rely upon the assumption that the future or present will resemble what we have experienced in the past
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