Hume’s Critique of Causality, Substance, and Self
Hume’s Critique of Causal Indifference
Hume’s critique of the principle of causality is not limited to its application in physical phenomena, but also occurs in relation to our own voluntary acts. Impressions originate ideas; imagination creates in us ideas without sense. The succession or contiguity in time or space of two events creates in us a belief or custom. Laws admit the association consisting of a causal link between perceptions, but will always deny the objective value of said principle. We do not know if there is a relationship between impressions or between ideas and things.
The Necessary Connection and Sense Perceptions
We can never find, at once, any power or necessary connection, any quality that links the effect to the cause and then results in the unfailing latest matches directly. We only find that one follows the other. From the first appearance of an object, we can never speculate on what the effect will be. But if the mind could discover the power of any cause, we might predict the effect, even without the help of experience. The idea is impossible to be derived from the contemplation of bodies in their isolated moments of activity, because no body can reveal what the original idea can be.
Substance
We have no idea of substance that differs from a collection of particular qualities, nor do we possess any other meaning when we talk or reason about it. We have no impression of substance; we cannot have any knowledge of it. The idea of substance is nothing but a collection of particular qualities put together by imagination. In previous philosophy, substance was the thing itself. What we do not know is beyond our ideas. We cannot conceive how bodies are independent of our impressions. Bridges with reality itself are broken.
Hume denied the possibility of demonstrating the existence of God. The reasons were that God would be a substance, raising our knowledge that is limited to all our impressions, and we can never reach the real in itself, and that the arguments by which it is sought to demonstrate the existence of God are based on the order of nature and the principle of causality. God is considered a cause. But Hume discovers two fallacious points:
- We have no perception of nature.
- The principle of causality lacks transcendent value to our perceptions.
Therefore, where you cannot prove God’s existence, it cannot be shown either.
The Self
It is assumed that our different impressions relate to our ideas. If there is any impression arising from the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably identical throughout our lives, because it is assumed that the self exists in that way. But there is no constant and unchanging impression. We have no idea of our self; the self is unknowable. It is a set of impressions and ideas in perpetual flux and movement that we imagine linked together. It is assumed that all the critical analysis carried out previously has been produced by an intelligent subject, a self, but when I wonder what I am, it is dissolved in a bundle of impressions and ideas put together by the imagination.
Ultimate Meaning of Hume’s Criticism
Skepticism and relativism are contracted to science and are actually a curb on the excessive ambitions and illusions of rationalism, the traditional metaphysical dogmatism. Science is a set of universal, certain, rigorous, and indubitable truths. Hume will turn to his claims. “If they understand science that way, then humans cannot do science; their understanding is not enough for that. Human beings are limited; in any doubt, there is always the truth. Against all dogma, humility and prudence, we always think we may be wrong. Instead of aspiring to a metaphysical certainty and doubt, let’s settle for a moral certainty.”