CH. 10 From Hobbes to Hume

Question 1

Hume

Answer 1

DAVID HUME – (1711-1776) – Author of the six-volume History of England.

• “Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”

—David Hume

• Key figure in the Enlightenment.
• Most influential of the British empiricists, and possibly Britain’s greatest philosopher.
• He argued for a stronger and more encompassing skepticism than any other major philosopher.
  
  • His doubts about all these ideas sprang naturally from his consistent and thoroughgoing empiricism in which assertions can count as knowledge only if they can be traced back to experience.
  • “When we run over libraries, persuaded of these [empiricist] principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
  • He said that reason could not cure his melancholy but distraction and recreation could. As he put it, “I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.”
• Argued for a thoroughly consistent empiricism that led him to a skepticism so extensive.

TWO KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE:

• RELATIONS OF IDEAS – includes truths of mathematics and truths of logic (“Either it’s raining or it’s not); they are derived from reason.
  
  • We can come to know relations of ideas with CERTAINTY, but they are NOT informative about reality.
    
    • We know that “either it’s raining or it’s not raining” is true, but the proposition tells us nothing about whether it is actually raining. It simply states an obvious logical truth.
• MATTERS OF FACT – consists of information about the world and is based entirely on sense experience.
  
  • Matters of fact, on the other hand, are informative about the world, but they CANNOT be known with certainty.
• So contrary to the rationalists, Hume maintains that reason is NOT a source of knowledge about the world.
  
  • In line with the empiricists, he holds that knowledge about the world can be acquired only through experience.

​What can we know about matters of fact?:

• Hume’s answer: very little.
• He says that the information derived from experience—what he calls PERCEPTIONS – consists of SENSE DATA – such as sights, odors, and sounds and INNER PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES – such as hate, fear, love, and desire.

​​TWO TYPES OF PERCEPTIONS:

• IMPRESSIONS are what we directly and vividly experience, the raw sense data and psychological states.
  
  • ​EX: The experience of a bright red color when you look at a rose is an impression.
• IDEAS are our less vivid thoughts and reflections about impressions.
  
  • EX: Your thoughts about the original rose experience is an idea.

HUME’s CENTRAL POINT – For something to count as knowledge, it must be based on impressions or on ideas derived from impressions. And for a statement to be meaningful, it must ultimately refer to impressions.

• In other words, all knowledge must begin with sensory experience.
• Hume argues that:
  • Whatever we know about the world must be grounded in our perceptions.
  • The only thing that we can ever be sure of is those perceptions.
    
    • We know just our experience and can only guess what lies beyond it.
      
      • It’s as if we are locked in a windowless room and must speculate about what it’s like outside based on a video we can watch indoors. The video may or may not resemble the outside world, but it’s the only information we have.

HUME’s SKEPTICISM – Hume’s strict empiricism leads naturally to skepticism about a notion that we usually assume without question: CAUSALITY.

• We believe the world is filled with causes and effects; we think one thing causes another, and the two are somehow physically linked. Every day of our lives we draw countless conclusions based on our assumptions about cause-and-effect relationships. But Hume argues that we have no good grounds for believing that causes and effects are related the way we think they are.
  
  • Hume asserts that neither reason nor experience can provide us with evidence that causal relationships exist.
    
    • We can observe no power or force that enables causes to produce events.
    • He says that our perceptions do not give us any reason to believe that one thing makes another thing happen. (NOTE: Is that true?)
    • All we observe, says Hume, is one event ASSOCIATED with another, and when we repeatedly see such a pairing, we jump to the conclusion that the events are causally connected.
      
      • We make these inferences out of habit, not logic or empirical evidence.

PRINCIPLE OF INDUCTION – In making judgments about causes and effects, we reason INDUCTIVELY. That is, we assume that events that followed one another in the past will do the same in the future, that the future will be like the past.

• EX: Because of previous experience, we expect night to follow day, fire to burn, bread to nourish, and dogs to bark.
• Hume asks, Do we have any grounds whatsoever for believing the principle of induction? What justifies our assumption that the future will be like the past?
• He argues that the PRINCIPLE OF INDUCTION cannot be an A PRIORI truth, and it cannot be an A POSTERIORI fact.
  
  • A PRIORI – knowledge gained independently of sense experience.
  • A POSTERIORI – knowledge depending entirely on sensory experience.
• Because no amount of empirical evidence can show it to be true. Why? As Hume observes, to maintain that the principle of induction is an a posteriori fact is to say that it can be established by experience (that is, inductively).
  
  • That is equivalent to saying that the principle of induction can be proved by the principle of induction—which is to beg the question.
• The difficulty of justifying the assumption that the future will be like the past is known as the PROBLEM OF INDUCTION.

They have explored whether there are grounds for believing that the inductive principle—so indispensable in science and daily life—is true. All the while we use the principle to make all kinds of inferences and predictions, which usually serve us well.

• NOTE– Its usefulness is evidence of its existence and truthfulness, ie. Inductive principles can lead us to the truth. – TJB
• Hume, for his part, holds that we rely on the principle of induction not because it is an established truth but because it is a habit of mind.
  
  • Because of our long experience of seeing one event repeatedly follow another, we develop a feeling of expectation that they will always follow one another.
• NOTE– That something works is evidence that the thing works – like String Theory – TJB
• Hume’s skepticism extends beyond causality and induction to the existence of the external world.
  
  • He reasons that because all we can directly know is our experience, we can never be sure that an external world exists beyond our internal perceptions: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.”

—David Hume

Question 2

David Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Answer 2

David Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

Highlighting the Difference between Relations of Ideas (Reason) and Matter of Facts (Sensory Experience).

• “There is a considerable difference between the perceptions of the mind, when a man feels the pain of excessive heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls to his memory this sensation, or anticipates it by his imagination.”
  
  • “These faculties may mimic or copy the perceptions of the senses; but they never can entirely reach the force and vivacity of the original sentiment.”
  • “The utmost we say of them, even when they operate with greatest vigor, is, that they represent their object in so lively a manner, that we could almost say we feel or see it: But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such a pitch of vivacity, as to render these perceptions altogether indistinguishable.”
    
    • “All the colours of poetry, however splendid, can never paint natural objects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real landscape. The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.”
• “We may observe a like distinction to run through all the other perceptions of the mind. A man in a fit of anger, is actuated in a very different manner from one who only thinks of that emotion. If you tell me, that any person is in love, I easily understand your meaning, and form a just conception of his situation; but never can mistake that conception for the real disorders and agitations of the passion.”
  
  • “Our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its objects truly; but the colours which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in which our original perceptions were clothed. It requires no nice discernment or metaphysical head to mark the distinction between them.”
• Hume thinks that all knowledge must be traced back to perceptions; otherwise assertions of knowledge are meaningless.
  
  • From this he concludes that all theological and metaphysical speculations are worthless.
    
    • NOTE – Anything beyond our perception must rely on belief and probability of likelihood. –TJB
• ​”Here therefore we may divide all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or species, which are distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity.”
  
  • “The less forcible and lively are commonly denominated Thoughts or Ideas.”
  • "”By the term impression, then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will.”
  • “And impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions, of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above mentioned.…”
• “All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds – Relations of Ideas** and **Matter of Facts.”
  
  • “​Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation, which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain.”
    
    • “Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is any where existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths, demonstrated by Euclid, would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.”
  • Matter of Facts:
    
    • ​”The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality.”
    • “That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.”
      
      • “We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood.”
      • “Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind.”
• “In single instances of the operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover anything but one event following another; without being able to comprehend any force or power, by which the cause operates, or any connexion between it and its supposed effect.”
• “As to past experience, it can be allowed to give direct and certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise period of time, which fell under its cognizance: But why this experience should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for aught we know, may be only in appearance similar.”
  
  • “The bread, which I formerly eat, nourished me; that is, a body of such sensible qualities, was, at that time, endued with such secret powers: But does it follow, that other bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible qualities must always be attended with like secret powers?”
    
    • The consequence seems nowise necessary.
      
      • There is here a consequence drawn by the mind; that there is a certain step taken; a process of thought, and an inference, which wants to be explained.
      • These two propositions are far from being the same, I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect, and I foresee, that other objects, which are, in appearance, similar, will be attended with similar effects.
      • One proposition may justly be inferred from the other: I know in fact, that it always is inferred.
        
        • But if you insist, that the inference is made by a chain of reasoning, I desire you to produce that reasoning.
• In other words, Hume is saying,“I get it. We see all these things happening and then we see other things happening in a timeline that appears to us to consistently produce one thing from another, the effect from the cause. But really, though we make this connection with the limited data that we have available to us, we really can’t make a line of reasoning that connects the perceived cause to the perceived effect with deductive certainty.”