Hume’s Empiricism and Skepticism: An Analysis of Human Understanding
Hume’s Empiricism and Skepticism
Applying Newton’s Method to Moral Science
Hume’s initial purpose was to apply Newton’s method to the study of man, viewing mental processes as analogous to physical laws. He conceptualized ideas as mental ‘corpuscles’ that attract or repel each other according to the laws of association. This approach ultimately led him to skepticism.
Critical Stage: Matters of Fact and Relations of Ideas
Hume’s critical stage involved developing a new analytical tool to distinguish between matters of fact and relations of ideas.
Principles of Human Knowledge
- Empiricist Principle: Reason alone cannot generate original ideas; all knowledge originates in experience.
- Principle of Immanence: Perception constitutes the entire content of consciousness. Perceptions are divided into impressions (vivid sensations) and ideas (fainter copies of impressions).
- Copy Principle: Ideas are copies of impressions. There are no innate ideas unless ‘innate’ is defined as ‘natural’ or ‘not copied’.
- Criterion of Discrimination: To determine the meaning of an idea, trace it back to its originating impression. If no such impression exists, the idea is meaningless.
- Principle of Association of Ideas: Ideas connect in the mind based on resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect.
- Denial of General Ideas (Nominalism): General ideas are particular ideas associated with a general term that recalls similar particular ideas.
Matters of Fact and Relations of Ideas
Building on Leibniz’s distinction between truths of reason and truths of fact, Hume categorized all objects of reason as either matters of fact or relations of ideas.
- Relations of Ideas: Intuitively or demonstrably true statements (e.g., mathematical truths) discovered through reason alone.
- Matters of Fact: Contingent statements whose opposite is possible. They are based on experience and the principle of sufficient reason.
The Problem of Reality
Hume questioned the nature of evidence for matters of fact. While present and past experiences are validated by impressions and memory, the future poses a problem as we have no direct impressions of it.
- Arguments about matters of fact rely on cause and effect.
- Cause and effect are learned through experience, not reason.
- Arguments from experience assume that similar causes produce similar effects.
- Custom and habit guide human life, leading us to believe that past events will repeat in the future.
Belief
Rational certainty about matters of fact is unattainable; we can only achieve belief. Belief is a feeling associated with an idea, influenced by custom and habit, and it guides our actions.
Science and Metaphysics
- Mathematics: Deals with relations of ideas based on psychological laws.
- Physics: Deals with matters of fact, aiming to predict and control the future through understanding causes. Its laws are probable, not necessary.
- Metaphysics: Abstruse and dogmatic knowledge leading to superstition. Hume advocated for moderate skepticism, believing that practical life mitigates extreme skepticism.
The Problem of the Self
Applying his criterion of discrimination to the idea of ‘self’, Hume argued that we have no constant and invariable impression corresponding to a continuous self. Our consciousness is a stream of perceptions, with no underlying, unchanging substance. He likened the mind to a theater of perceptions, without a fixed stage or audience.