David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Exercises of Reasoning

Download David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and more Exercises Reasoning in PDF only on Docsity! David Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding He employed a rigorous style of empirical thinking and the way he deduced what he advocated to be the way to having correct understanding of things is through reasoning by analogy. All throughout the book, the theme of cause and effect resulting to experience, recurred in all of his ideas, and it is through this means of analogy, by applying ones understanding of experience to something newly encountered, that he applied what he thought was the correctness of knowledge in human thought and the natural world. In the first pages, he acknowledged the existence of a Creator by whom everything in the universe is dependent upon. But in the middle of the book, he went on to apply his method of analogy and causation to God. According to him, every effect must have a cause that brought it to existence. For example, the footprint on the sand near the sea must have been caused by a person who walked on the sand. This was his way of rigorously applying his empirical thinking which is limited to what is ‘observed and experienced’ and then to discard everything that does not conform to this method. But then, he went on to say that the existence of God cannot be justified because even though we see the creation (which is the effect), we had no direct actual experience of its Cause (God), so how can we prove the logic of His existence? This is where the limitation of logic and rigid empiricism is shown, though Hume will not accept it. Reason will always have its limitation, as much as Faith as how Hume subjected it with criticism will have its limitation as well. Now that in this book, Hume established how human understanding can be subjected to many factors that will deem it susceptible to many kinds of errors, so too, does his method of reasoning by experience and analogy can be subjected to similar flaws. Despite the comparison of what we know of objects and experiences applied to newly encountered objects and experiences, that does not negate the fact that each are distinct from the other with their own unique qualities. In the case of the Creator - he applies analogy, but he disregards that the Creator is distinct and His Attributes are different from His creation, and therefore for him to make an analogy in the context of the creation is unreasonable. Thus, Hume becomes a victim of logic by the fact that he failed to see the difference between what and whom he is trying to compare, because he reduced the notion of ‘qualities’ to abstract ideas existing only in the human mind. Much criticism can be attributed to religious interpretations as practiced by so-called religious people, but the depth of faith and wisdom coming from a belief on a Creator will always make a logical sense to humanity. What Hume dealt with is narrowly confined to issues of language, but the expression of language cannot be rid of its subjectivity and sophistry on the part of human beings with the way they express and understand it, in contrast to what reality and the actual world really is. Human understanding can indeed be flawed, but this flaw allows room for humanity to adapt to an ever-changing world. It has to grapple with continuous change, which may lead to a downward spiral of conflict and chaos or growth, since the way humans think (as influenced both by their innate nature and outside forces) lead them to act on many different ways towards their fellow beings and with the world around them. On the other hand, if empirical thinking, as what Hume employed in this book is applied in an absolutist sense and make it manifest not only in human thought but in belief, and then subject everything to the limited role of language and reasoning by analogy, including the understanding of the Creator Himself, humanity will be devoid of values and depth of wisdom. It is universally allowed by modern enquirers, that all the sensible qualities of objects, such as hard, soft, hot, cold, white, black, etc are merely secondary, and exist not in the objects themselves, but are perceptions of the mind, without any external archetype or model, which they represent. If this be allowed, with regard to secondary qualities, it must also follow with regard to the supposed primary qualities of extension and solidity; nor can the latter be any more entitled to that denomination than the former. The idea of extension is entirely acquired from the senses of sight and feeling; and if all the qualities, perceived by the senses, be in the mind, not in the object, the same conclusion must reach the idea of extension which is wholly dependent on the sensible ideas or the ideas of secondary qualities. Nothing can save us from this conclusion, but the asserting, that the ideas of those primary qualities are attained by Abstraction, an opinion, which, if we examine it accurately, we shall find to be unintelligible, and even absurd. An extension, that is neither tangible nor visible, cannot possibly be conceived: and a tangible or visible extension, which is neither hard nor soft, black nor white, is equally beyond the reach of human conception. Bereave matter of all its intelligible qualities, both primary and secondary, you in a manner annihilate it, and leave only a certain unknown, inexplicable something, as the cause of our perceptions; a notion so imperfect, that no sceptic will think it worthwhile to contend against it. Language, thought, and experience are thus, among many, are only parts of a complex reality that humans possess, and irrespective of the perception and resulting expression of these human faculties, there is an external world that exist independent of human beings. Hume was pointing that the material world cannot possibly exist without human perception consisting of a collection of qualities which were acquired through experience. These qualities are described to objects perceived in the material world, but at the same time, they are abstract in nature and only exist in the mind. Hume contends that the perceived world is only a collection of qualities that humans attribute to what they perceive, and the independence of the external world as existing apart from the perceiver seems to be only an illusion. This reminds me of another passage from a book entitled Consciousness by a Neuroscientist, J. Allan Hobson, If a tree falls in the middle of a forest, does it make a sound? - George Berkeley Hume declined any resemblance to religious school metaphysics and favoured a limited sceptic approach to science depending on circumstances. Hume is unquestionably an empiricist philosopher, and he strives to bring the rigor of scientific methodology to bear on philosophical reasoning. His distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact is absolutely crucial in this respect. Anything we can say about the world is a matter of fact, and thus can be justified only through experience and can be denied without contradiction. Relations of ideas can teach us about mathematical truths, but cannot, as some rationalist philosophers would have, teach us about the existence of our selves, an external world, or God. Hume is a naturalist because he suggests that nature, and not reason, leads us to believe the things we do. Habit has taught us that we are safe in making certain inferences and believing certain things, and so we don't normally worry about them too much. We cannot prove that there is a world external to our senses, but it seems to be a relatively safe assumption by which to live. Rather than try to justify our beliefs or identify the truth, Hume seeks simply to explain why we believe what we believe. The Enquiry is decidedly a book about epistemology and not about metaphysics. That is, Hume is concerned about what and how we know, and not at all about what is actually the case. For instance, he does not deal with the question of whether there actually are necessary connections between events, he simply asserts that we cannot perceive them. Or perhaps more accurately, Hume argues that, because we cannot perceive necessary connections between events, the question of whether or not they actually exist is irrelevant and meaningless. Hume is an ardent opponent of rationalist metaphysics, which seeks to answer questions such as whether or not God exists, what the nature or matter and soul is, or whether the soul is immortal. The mind, according to Hume, is not a truth-tracking device, and we misuse it if we think it can bring us to metaphysical conclusions. A Humean science of the mind can describe how the mind works and why it reaches the conclusions it does, but it cannot take us beyond the confines of our own, natural, reason. Hume's stated method is scientific, of careful observation and inference from particular instances to general principles. The drive of scientific inquiry is to dig deeper and deeper so as to uncover a very few, very simple principles that govern all the complexities that we observe. Newton's genius gives us three very simple laws that can explain and predict all physical phenomena. Hume wishes to perform a similar feat for human understanding (the word \"understanding\" is used by Hume to describe most broadly the several faculties of human reason). The hope is that Hume will derive a similarly small and simple number of principles that can explain and predict the processes of human thought. His method will be to proceed from simple observation of how the mind works and how we use it in everyday life, and to infer from his observations increasingly general principles that govern our understanding until he reaches a bedrock of simplicity and clarity. In this respect, Hume follows very much in the empiricist vein of philosophy and owes a large debt to \"John Locke\". Locke moved against rationalist philosophy, best exemplified by \"Descartes\", which relies heavily upon rational intuition. The empiricist tradition asserts that experience, and not reason, should serve as the basis of philosophical reasoning. The motivation for Hume's project is made apparent in his complaint that the \"accurate and abstract\" metaphysics that he is pursuing is frequently looked down upon and disdained. The difficulty and counter-intuitive nature of these inquiries often lead to errors that may seem absurd and prejudicial to future generations. Even today, there is a great deal of debate as to whether there has been any real \"progress\" in philosophy: we may have refined our discussions and dismissed some bad ideas, but in essence we are still mulling over the same problems that concerned Plato and Aristotle. It would not be unreasonable to suggest that we are no nearer a satisfactory and final answer than the ancient Greeks. Hume hopes that scientific observation can uncover the principles that underlie our reasoning so that we can be more immediately aware of faulty logic and more easily guided along the correct path. For instance, Hume's emphasis on observation goes directly against Descartes' rationalism, which disparages observation in favor of pure reason. Hume hopes that his empiricism will open the way for a carefully defined method that will not allow for such disparity amongst philosophers. Hume also suggests that his work must be epistemically (epistemic: of, relating to, or involving knowledge; cognitive) prior to the new science that he so lauds. The scientific method is a product of careful reasoning, and is thus subject to the laws of human understanding. While science seems to be in far better shape than philosophy, it too can benefit from his work. In this way, Hume differs from his predecessor, Locke. Locke sees himself as laboring on behalf of the new science, clearing away some of the linguistic rubble that might lead to confusion. While Locke humbly sees himself as simply clearing a path for science, Hume believes that his own work must lay the groundwork upon which science can rest. If he can uncover the precise laws that govern our reasoning and inferences, this should help us draw the right conclusions in our scientific investigations. Hume brings to bear three important distinctions. The first, and most important, is the distinction between ideas and impressions. This distinction is original to Hume and solves a number of difficulties encountered by Locke. A proper discussion of Hume's footnote would take us too far afield, but we should remark that Hume's criticism of Locke is exact and powerful. The distinction between impressions and ideas might seem quite obvious and of no great importance, but Hume is quite clever to identify the full importance of this distinction. An empirical philosophy asserts that all knowledge comes from experience. For Hume, this would suggest that all knowledge comes from impressions, and so ideas are set up as secondary to impressions. The second distinction, between complex and simple impressions or ideas, helps draw out further the power of the first distinction. A simple impression might be seeing the color red, while a complex impression might be seeing the totality of what I see right now. A simple idea might be the memory of being angry while a complex idea might be the idea of a unicorn (composed of the idea of a horse and the idea of a horn). Complex ideas and impressions are compounded out of the simple ones. Hume, we should note, is silently implying that every term must be connected with some idea. In the eighteenth century the philosophy of language had not yet flourished, and it was not clear how difficult it might be to determine precisely how words, ideas, and reality link up. Hume's suggestion that all terms can be analyzed into simple impressions anticipates Russell, who argues that we can analyze all terms into simple demonstratives like \"this\" or \"that.\" Hume's suggestion comprehends a picture of language according to which the words we use are a complex and opaque expression of a simpler underlying language which proper analysis can bring out. There are a number of objections we might want to raise to Hume's distinctions and the way they are introduced, but we will touch on only a few briefly. First, we might ask how strictly we can distinguish between impressions. Hume argues that ideas can be vague, but that impressions are exact and that the boundaries between them are clearly defined. Is the boundary between the impression of a 57\" stick and a 58\" stick that clearly defined? There is some level of vagueness in our impressions that Hume does not acknowledge. We could also point out that while we are experienced in distinguishing colors, we are not so good with some other sensations. For instance, we often have trouble distinguishing between tastes. Second, we might object to Hume's implicit philosophy of language. It seems closely linked to the idea that simple impressions are clearly defined and infallible. It is far from clear, however, why it should be desirable or possible to reduce all our language to simple impressions. What, we might ask, is the simple impression from which is derived the word \"sake,\" for example? Third, we might ask Hume to be clearer in his distinctions. For instance, are dream images impressions or ideas? Most likely they are ideas, since they consist of a mixture of imagination and memory. However, dreams are (arguably) phenomenally indistinguishable from waking experience: we cannot prove that we are dreaming from within a dream. Thus, all our impressions from within a dream are as real to us as we dream them as waking impressions are to us when we experience them. In subsequent sections, Hume presents an argument for why we believe in causation and induction. It is because, he says, observing one event invariably follow another creates in our minds the expectation that it will always be so. But, as he demonstrated earlier, there is no rational basis for this belief. Oddly, in the final sections Hume proceeds as if this belief is justified, and offers critiques of miraculous and natural religion. But Hume's argument seems to go much farther, and the more optimistic later sections are the result of his either not recognizing the strength of his earlier arguments or deliberatly obscuring it. In the critical section, \"Sceptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Understanding,\" Hume demonstrates there is no rational reason to expect future events to follow the same pattern as those in the past. To have confidence in induction, and thus science and most philosophy, is therefore a matter of faith rather than reason. There is no rational way to understand the world. In order to understand Hume's message, we have to understand the historical context of the book. In the 17th century mechanical science took over the scepter from christian scholastic philosophy. For centuries, scholars had tried to grasp reality by building axiomatic-deductive systems of knowledge, according to the philosophy of Aristotle. In other words, philosophers could understand the world from their armchairs. Galileo demolished this worldview, and for this he was thanked by the Church of Rome with an appropriate sentence of life long house arrest. What Galileo did, was to observe the behaviour of Nature in carefully controlled experiments. From then on it was clear that Aristotle's philosophy was falsified on all accounts: the discovery of the vacuum; the observations of comets and supernovae and of planetary satellites - both happening in supposedly unalterable heavenly spheres; Aristotle's assumption that heavier objects fall faster; etc. In 1687 Newton published his Principia and with this synthesized all the discoveries in physics and astronomy of the past 100 years in one universal system, comprising 'just' 4 laws (three laws of motion and universal law of gravity). With Newton, the Western worldview changed drastically: the only role for God was a master watchmaker, who created this universe and set it running. But more importantly, for philosophy at least, was the change of our conception of truth. Newton induced a grand system from particular observations; and induction was never before used as a scientific method. Thinkers like John Locke (in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding) and Berkeley (in his Principles of Human Knowledge) would ponder the question of what knowledge is. How do we know what's true knowledge? According to Locke, there is an objective reality out there, but our intellect is too limited to grasp it - the best we can hope for are scientifically informed opinions. Someone like Berkeley even went so far to say that there's no such thing as objective reality: all our sensations and reflections are mental constructs, ultimately build by God. A second key element in understanding Hume, is the discovery in the 18th century of the works of Sextus Empiricus - an ancient Greek sceptic philosopher, who found a contradiction in the method of induction. When we induce, we derive universal statements from particular observations. But there's no way to garantuee that the next observation will NOT contradict our current (universal) conclusion. So either we have to make all the observations - past, present and future - which is impossible, or we have to admit that induction is not true knowledge. It is in this historical situation (the 17th century developments in physics and the re-discovery of the works of Sextus Empiricus) that we have to situate David Hume. Now, what does Hume say about the question of what true knowledge is? Hume begins by explaining what causation is. According to Hume, causation is nothing but custom. When one billiard ball bounces against another, we only notice the movement of the first ball, the temporary bond between both balls and consequently the movement of the second ball. In other words: we see events following each other, nothing more or less. Now, human beings observe from the time they're born onwards certain events following each other. Ever since I can remember, I have seen objects fall to the ground when let loose. This forms in my understanding the custom of \"object let loose, followed by fall\". This is - according to Hume - causation. Next, Hume has to explain what learning is. For him, learning is observing experiences and generalizing from these experiences to expectations about the future. In other words: learning is induction. We induce general conclusions (and predictions and expectations) from all the experiences we have observed. But this brings us to the 'induction problem' of Sextus Empiricus: by definition induction is unreliable as a foundation for true knowledge, since we can never with certainty form infinite conclusions from the finite data available to us. But there is an important distinction here (known as Hume's fork), which is based on Hume's explanation of our ideas. According to Hume, we perceive (simple) ideas via our senses and then connect these ideas into associations (i.e. complex ideas) via reflection. The relationship between ideas can be known by reason alone, a priori. The ideas themselves cannot be known by reasoning a priori, only after they have been generated via our sensual perceptions - a posteriori. In other words: mathematical and logical ideas - ideas about relationships between concepts - can be known a priori, while scientific ideas can be known only by observation. Since a priori reasoning cannot inform us on certain knowledge about the reality - this requires sensual perceptions - we cannot attain true knowledge about the world. Like Locke, Hume asserts that science can approach this ideal, but we as human beings are limited by our intellectual capabilities. In other words: reasong powers are gradual and there's only a difference of degree between us and animals. This point is extremely important, since - unlike today where this is a generally accepted statement - in Hume's time human beings were seen as the epitome of Nature's Great Chain of Being. -founded on the relation of cause and effect What is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concering that relation? -experience What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience? -all influences from experience suppose that the future will resemble the past and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities Section 5 Sceptical solution of these doubts Part 1 p. 36 Reason is incapable of such variation. The conclusions which it draws from considering one circle are the same which it would form upon surveying all the circles in the universe. All inferences from experience are effects of custom, not of reasoning. Part 2 Belief p. 39 nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain p. 41 customary conjunction of the object with something present ot the memory or senses p. 42 Sensible objects have always a greater influence on the fancy than any other; and this influence they readily convey to those ideas to they are related, and which they resemble. Section 6 Of probability p. 47 There are some causes, which are entirely uniform and constant in producing a particular effect; and no instance has ever yet been found of any failure or irregularity in their operation... but there are other causes which have been found more irregular and uncertain p. 48 Though we give the preference to that which has been found most usual, and believe that this effect will exist, we must not overlook the other effects, we must not overlook the other effects, but must assign to each of them a particular weight and authority, in proposition as we have found it to be more or less frequent. Section 7 Of the idea of necessary connexion p. 50 There are no ideas, which occur in metaphysics, more obscure and uncertain than those of power, force, energy or necessary connexion, of which it is every moment necessary for us to treat in all our disquisitions. p. 51 all our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions, or, in other words, that it is impossible for us to think of anything, which we have not antecedntly felt, either by our external or internal senses p. 52 external objects are they appear to the sense, give us no idea of power or necessary connexion p. 62 one object connected with another -- they have acquired a connexion in our thought and give rise to this influence, by which they become proof of each other's existence Section 8 Of liberty & necessity Part 1 p. 66 the economy of the intellectual system or region of spirits p. 67 Beyond the constant conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent influence from one to the other, we have no notion of any necessity or connexion p. 74 It seems almost impossible, therefore, to engage either in science or action of any kind without acknowledging the doctrine of necessity, and this inference from motive to voluntary actions, from characters to conduct. p. 76 particular objects are constantly conjoined together, and that the mind is carried, by a customary transition, from the appearnce of one to the belief of the other. p. 78 By liberty... we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will p. 79 There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion or morality. The brilliance of Hume's criticism of causal inferences requires no exposition. It remains one of the great achievements of epistemology. Even if Kant and later thinkers improved upon it - without exactly refuting it - the skeptical logic retains an undeniable, raw, powerful immediacy. Whether Hume was a full-blown atheist or not (my guess is that he was), the text leaves very little wiggle room for \"the religious hypothesis.\" The skeptical treatment of vulgar superstitions and educated follies is equally valuable, since human hubris, maleducation and gullibility remain the true masters of modern societies. Hume's essayistic style is constantly verbose and not exactly scintillating on every page, but it is consistently lucid, analytical, honest, well-argued - and passionate where it counts.