David Hume’s Philosophy: Empiricism and Limits of Reason
David Hume’s Philosophy: Empiricism and the Limits of Reason
Challenging the Concept of Substance
We have knowledge of sets of impressions, but not of substance. If a quality were to repeat an impression on all substances, this is not true. The term ‘substance’ is an empty word. If we deny substance, are we denying God, the world, and myself? God, being an infinite idea not derived from any impression, is an object of faith but never of knowledge. Hume attacks the rationalistic arguments that showcase the idea of God:
- Ontological Argument: This argument starts with the idea of God to prove His existence.
- Causal Argument: This argument establishes causal connections between ideas, even trying to derive one idea from another. This idea cannot be proven empirically or rationally.
The Self and the World
The Self: There is no impression, apart from that provided by the senses, that is personal and permanent. Is there an impression that avoids an individual and permanent personal self? No.
The World: We believe there are things in the material world. This is a useful belief. There is a sense of the whole world as material, but it cannot be both powerful and knowledge.
Hume’s Theory of Knowledge
David Hume is the best representative of English empiricism in the 18th century and represents the mature current of this philosophy. He wrote two major works:
- The Treatise on Human Nature: An ambitious work where he tried to base all knowledge on man. It did not receive good reviews.
- The Investigation of Human Understanding: A more humble work where he established the limits of human reason and the distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact.
In his theory of knowledge, Hume established the principles of his philosophy:
- The principle of immanence
- Copying
- Laws of association of ideas
- Nominalism, or the denial of general ideas
His first principle sustains that all knowledge is derived from experience and the data our senses provide. From these principles, Hume began his investigation to establish the limits of human knowledge. He accepted that there are two sources of knowledge: the senses and reason. Reason is limited and has two objects of knowledge: relations of ideas and matters of fact.
Relations of Ideas
Relations of ideas are expressed through judgments. They have the following characteristics:
- They are analytic and a priori explanatory judgments, where the predicate is contained within the subject.
- They always conform to the principle of identity. That is why we refuse them if they are inconsistent and generate an absurdity.
- This knowledge is reached through reason, so the degree of certainty reached is total and absolute.
As the text indicates, regardless of whether they exist in nature, these relations are mental structures that are not derived from experience but through the use of the principle of identity and reasoning.