David Hume’s Philosophy: Empiricism, Skepticism, and Human Nature
David Hume’s Philosophy
Critique of Knowledge
Hume establishes several key principles regarding knowledge:
- Empiricist Principle: Experience is the source and limit of our knowledge. Knowledge arises from experience, rejecting the innate ideas proposed by rationalism. The human mind begins as a tabula rasa upon which experiences are imprinted.
- Immanence Principle: We perceive representations of things through our senses, not the things themselves. Perceptions are divided into impressions (intense, undeveloped sensations) and ideas (less intense, more elaborate reflections on impressions).
- Copy Principle: All ideas originate from impressions. We cannot conceive of something we haven’t experienced, thus refuting innate ideas and metaphysics.
- Association of Ideas: The imagination links ideas through resemblance, contiguity (in time and space), and cause and effect.
- Nominalism: General or abstract ideas are particular ideas associated with a general term.
Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact
Relations of ideas (a priori reasoning) are intuitively or demonstrably true, like mathematical propositions (e.g., 2 + 2 = 4). Their contradictions are inherently false, independent of the world.
Matters of fact (a posteriori reasoning) are established through experience. Unlike relations of ideas, their opposites are possible and not demonstrably false. These are predictions (e.g., the sun will rise tomorrow) and we can only have certain knowledge of the past.
We have impressions of the past and present. The future, lacking direct experience, relies on cause-and-effect relationships based on habit, custom, and belief. Cause and effect are understood through experience, not reason.
Critique of Causality
If custom or habit, rather than reason, guides us, this leads to belief, not knowledge. Certainty in beliefs is problematic because belief is probable, not infallible. Rational, objective, and true knowledge of the future is impossible.
However, belief is essential for human survival. Hume’s skepticism prompts the question of how science should operate.
Critique of Science
Mathematics, concerning relations of ideas, is true a priori (before experience) and necessarily true for our understanding. However, it reveals nothing about the real world, being based on theoretical laws. Different theoretical laws would yield different mathematical truths.
Physics deals with matters of fact, reducing them to laws and attempting to predict the future. The necessary connection between cause and effect is uncertain. We observe event A followed by event B, but cannot definitively say A causes B.
Dogmatic metaphysics leads to superstition. If we only know our perceptions, not things-in-themselves, how can we assert the world’s existence? Hume suggests that life itself refutes this skepticism; we could not live if we doubted our own existence.
Ethics, Politics, and Religion
Ethics are determined by feeling, not reason. Feelings compel us to cooperate for social harmony. Virtue is an action producing a pleasant feeling of approval, while vice produces an unpleasant feeling.
Hume advocates for emotive, utilitarian ethics benefiting the most people.
Society arises from human utility, promoting the common good. Hume argues against God’s existence (due to lack of experience) and the intolerance of monotheism, advocating for moderate skepticism.