David Hume’s Philosophy: Understanding Human Nature and Knowledge
Hume: An Analysis of Human Knowledge
Foundations in Human Nature
David Hume’s analysis of the principles of human knowledge has its roots in human nature. His study focuses on the logic and psychology of human nature, ultimately the instrument of man’s knowledge. Hume proposes to study the human mind, for it begins with an analysis of the contents of the mind. It is only perception. Perception is everything in our mind. All contents of consciousness come from sensory experience. Hume denies the existence of innate ideas. Perceptions may be of two kinds: impressions, which are the immediate data of experience, and ideas, which are mediated by reflection, data, memory, or the imagination of impressions. There are no ideas without preceding impressions.
Simple and Compound Impressions
Impressions can be simple or compound. Simple impressions cannot be divided into simpler ones; they are the impressions of sensation or external experience. Complex impressions are inner experiences that occur in the reception of the data of experience, creating a sense. One thing is the perception of sound, and another is the feeling it gives me.
Ideas: Substance, Mode, and Relation
Ideas can be simple. There are many different ideas. By their nature, ideas can be of substance, mode, or relation. Vivid impressions are stronger; ideas make us doubt. They are simply separated from each other: the auditory, the tactile, and the visual. Finally, these originate unprecedentedly and immediately. The latter information is critical because it determines Hume’s phenomenalism. Our minds can never really find out if there are objects that appear to be the cause of our impressions, whether it is a creative power of mind, or if they come from a supreme being. Every idea that seems fantastic or unreal has its source in experience.
Association of Ideas
Ideas have their associations based on three laws: similarity, contiguity in space, and time. According to these three simple laws, ideas bind to form complex ideas. Hume made a classification between the ideas according to the cognitive faculty which is the source: we have ideas of memory, ideas of imagination, and ideas of reason. What Hume is explaining at this point is paramount. His program is critical: all the creative power of mind is to mix, increase, or decrease the material supplied by the senses. There are no extra-empirical sources or innate knowledge. Any idea of the mind comes from an impression, and every idea that does not come from an impression is not an idea or is illegitimate, used without any meaning.
Causation and Belief
See how Hume conducts his analysis of causation by applying his critical program described above. Experience is the totality of phenomena that appear to us, and we have perceptions. What we do is expect that the future will be like the past. In the case of causation, it is custom or belief. Causation is a conscientious act produced by the constant conjunction of two or more phenomena. But it is not an observable or demonstrable act; we have no impressions of it. The cause we believe in causality is the habit of repeating the same conjunction of two objects. The usual causes belief in the mind of the observer that between two phenomena there is a necessary relation, so one follows another.
Substance, External Reality, and Personal Identity
Hume supports the observed relationship between two objects but denies that they are connected through hidden powers of which we have no impression. We are pushed by the force of habit to think of nature as a uniform repetition of phenomena. The same critical program Hume applies to the notion of causality will be applied to the notion of substance, external reality, and personal identity. Regarding substance, we can say that it is a concept not supported by any impression. The word “substance” only designates a set of particular perceptions that we are accustomed to finding together. It’s our consciousness that unites them according to the laws of spatiotemporal contiguity, resemblance, and causality. It is the imagination that joins a particular set of simple perceptions and ideas and assigns them a particular name. By name, we can remember them and remind others.
Atomic Vision of Perception
As to the existence of the outside world, Hume has an atomic vision of perception. We can never say with certainty the existence of the outside world, but we cannot eradicate the belief in it. With regard to criticizing the idea of personal identity, Hume applied the same argument: the whole idea comes from a legitimate impression. Hume’s thesis is that there is no self as a substance other than impressions. What makes us believe in an ego as a substance where all impressions are ordered and received is memory. Our mind draws the conclusion, but it does not handle views and no substance. Reality for us is the phenomenon that appears as an impression, and there all our knowledge is limited to impressions.
Limits of Knowledge
Hume states that the limit of our knowledge are impressions. All human knowledge is made up of clusters of ideas set by the laws of association set out above and may be of two types: relations of ideas, which contain all the truths of mathematics and all analytical truths. The other propositions by which our reason can express the truth are the issues of fact. The mind is not based on its own operations but on links based on an observed fact in the absolute experience. We must recognize that Hume’s method gives an empirical reason limited to experience and that it is an effective antidote against dogmatism and fanaticism.
Morality and Politics
Hume examines issues relating to religion, politics, and morality from the study conducted on human nature. As to moral concerns, facts are neither good nor bad in themselves. The only facts are impressions. The origin of valuation is not in the fact but in the subject. The favorable or unfavorable impression that excites it does not come from outside but emerges within the individual. Hume thus argues that reason is not the basis of ethics. So are the passions and feelings, other motivations that tend to increase pleasure and decrease pain. Reason can choose which are the best means to achieve a passion. Instrumental reason intervenes. Hence, reason is a slave of the passions in the field of action within the meaning that reason affects the shares after the initial impulse of a passion or propensity desire. Hume’s intention is to avoid any truth or other idea being the basis of innate goodness without reference to man. As happens in politics, Hume does not accept the theory of the divine origin of the absolutist kings.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can say that Hume’s critical program comprises a destructive part or criticism of metaphysics.