Chapter 4: Hume and Kant on Human Knowledge

Question 1

David Hume (1711-1776)

Answer 1

• Empiricist

Question 2

Perceptions

Answer 2

• David Hume
• The content of the mind should be called perceptions, which comes in two varieties: impressions & ideas.

Question 3

Impressions (perceptions)

Answer 3

• David Hume
• The immediate date of experience (e.g. seeing the colour red)

Question 4

Ideas (perceptions)

Answer 4

• David Hume
• Faint copies of impressions (e.g. thinking about the colour red while it’s not present).

Question 5

Hume’s Copy Principle

Answer 5

• “All our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions.”
• Knowledge ultimately derives from impressions received through the senses.
• Capable of telling whether an idea is meaningful or not. If complex ideas cannot be divided into smaller ideas, and there is no corresponding impression, the term lacks empirical content and is meaningless.

Question 6

Problems of the Copy Principle

Answer 6

• The Golden Palace: how can we have an idea of something no one has seen before? Hume: break down into smaller ideas like “pavement” and “gold”
• Blue colour palette: how can we imagine a missing shade in a palette? Hume didn’t know, but a solution could be is that you can blend ideas together and come up with the missing colour.

Question 7

Hume’s Fork

Answer 7

• The objects of human reason can be divided into two kinds:
• Relations of ideas (analytic a priori).
• Matters of fact (synthetic a posteriori).

Question 8

Relations of ideas (analytic a priori)

Answer 8

• Hume’s Fork
• Sciences like geometry, algebra and mathematics which are discoverable by the mere operation of thought. We can define things without having to look at the real world.

Question 9

Matters of fact (synthetic a posteriori)

Answer 9

• Hume’s Fork
• Second objects of human reasoning, less certainty. Discovering pattering of causes and effects through repeated observations, which we then put into laws. This enables us to explain and predict particular instances. Then we can start manipulating the world to influence outcomes.

Question 10

Causality

Answer 10

• David Hume.
• We think we see the cause and effect, habit of the mind.
  1. Contiguity: the moment of contact.
  2. Priority: the cause comes before the effect.
  3. Constant conjunction: everything will happen all over again.

We do not observe necessity, we can imagine the red ball not moving after colliding: problem of induction. Yet we constantly believe that causes exist (operation of the mind).

Question 11

Reason is but the slave of passions

Answer 11

• David Hume
• Operation of the mind is a learned habit or custom steered by passion. We do not discover the world through our reasoning, but reasoning does help us get through the world. Luckily, reason is so determined, otherwise we would be unable to predict and anticipate future events. Habits are our guide to life, capacities we depend on for our survival.
• Kant disagrees.

Question 12

Uniformity of the world

Answer 12

• David Hume
• Anticipation of causes and effects relies in assumptions that nature will behave uniformly. This assumption is not self-evident. Just as we do not see the causality in our experience (but conclude to causality when we notice the 3 points) we cannot see the uniformity of nature that we anticipate in every single instance. Once again, this is the problem of induction.

Question 13

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Answer 13

• Idealist.
• According to Kant, Hume is right about only observing contiguity, priority and constant conjunction but fails to acknowledge that universal and necessary knowledge exist.

Question 14

Analytic

Answer 14

• Immanuel Kant
• It does not reveal anything new about the world.
• E.g. a bachelor is an unmarried person.

Question 15

Synthetic

Answer 15

• Immanuel Kant
• They extend or expand our knowledge. They tell us something new about the world, need for empirical investigation.
• E.g. This candle is red.

Question 16

A priori judgement

Answer 16

• Immanuel Kant
• Prior to and independent of sense experience. The source is the reason.
• E.g. all candles melt when heated by the sun (cause and effect).

Question 17

A posteriori judgement

Answer 17

• Immanuel Kant
• Dependent in sense experience.
• E.g. this university is located near the city of Tilburg.

Question 18

Synthetic a priori judgement

Answer 18

• This is a statement that has their origin in the human mind, but nevertheless adds information about the world, expanding our knowledge.
• 7+5=12. The source of this knowledge is our reasoning (a priori). But an analysis of “7” and “5” do not reveal the concept of “12”. It expands our knowledge (synthetic).
• Kant: necessary and universal knowledge is possible, because synthetic a priori judgements are possible.
• Hume: no experience (which is needed for synthetic judgements), only contiguity, priority and constant conjunction, imagination and habit. Synthetic a priori is not possible because they are only the results of the workings of passionate human imagination.
• Kant: knowledge about necessary and universal causal nexus originates in our mind, our reason. The priori judgements adds to our knowledge, melting is not included in the concept of candles, which makes the judgement synthetic. Therefore synthetic a priori judgements are possible.

Question 19

The noumenal world

Answer 19

• Immanuel Kant
• The world an sich, if how things are in themselves. This world is unknowable to humans.

Question 20

The phenomenal world

Answer 20

• Immanuel Kant
• The Newtonian, determined world (including us).
• How can we be free and thus moral? We are determined by laws! You can only have knowledge about the phenomenal world, but this is a combination of input from the noumenal world and input of reason.

Question 21

Copernican turn

Answer 21

• Immanuel Kant
• Necessity and universality are not out there in the world, waiting to be discovered. They have their origins in the reason of rational beings. Science is scientific because it discovers the structure of the phenomenal world.

Question 22

Problems of the Copernican turn

Answer 22

• Immanuel Kant
• How does the noumenal world cause impingings if causality is only applicable to the phenomenal world? -> idealism. The noumenal world is unknowable, but can we not assume a match/harmony between our categories and the world out there?