Hume’s Philosophy: Knowledge, Causality, Metaphysics, Morals, Politics
Hume
For Hume, the origin of knowledge comes from experience (empiricism). Hume’s thought is based on Locke. This is based on no innate ideas; there are people who do not know the answer to a question about a mathematical truth. Also, if reason were the basis of morality, there should be the same moral standards everywhere.
I. Epistemology
1. The limits of knowledge are experience. Knowledge comes down to: Extension (the number of things we can know, those things based on philosophy cannot be known because we cannot experience them). Intensity (empirical science), we cannot know the “whole,” we can only speak of “some” based on probability. I cannot say all crows are black because I have not seen them all.
2. There is reason, but it only organizes and analyzes the knowledge gained by experience.
3. Psychologism: Mathematics requires the subject, so we owe it to the cellular structure (matter) because when we think of them, we use the brain, which is contingent, so math is too. There are no logico-mathematical laws; they are psychological and contingent.
4. Principle of immanence: Perceptions of mental objects are made. In Hume’s philosophy, the outside world is not considered (subjectivism). Mental processes are perceptions, which are divided into: Impressions (intense and alive, are today) and ideas (weak, all memories are ideas).
5. Principle of immanence: All ideas are copies of impressions (Pure Experience). Meaningfulness principle/criterion of truth. To see the sense of an idea, we go to the impression; if you cannot see its impression, it has no content. The word “God” does not make sense, for example; believing it means something is imagination.
6. Principle of association of ideas: There are ideas that tend to unite. Laws of association: 1 – Law of Cause and Effect, Law of Similarity, Law of Spatial-Temporal Contiguity.
7. Principle of negation of general ideas: Reason cannot create concepts, but we see no concrete objects, only abstract objects (one word designates a specific object). There are no impressions of abstract words; they are used with various objects by resemblance.
8. Types of knowledge: There are two types: Issues of fact, that of which I have an impression (contingent and synthetic truths). Relationships between ideas, reason establishes relationships between experimental ideas, getting the idea of the whole and the related part (greater than…).
II. Critique of the Principle of Causality
We think we have certainty about future issues by the principle of causality, when we only have the present and past.
1. To find out if you must go to the impression. The separate causes of something do not say anything, so it must derive from the relationship of two objects (cause-effect).
2. There is a connection between cause and effect, and there is a need (required connection).
3. Is there a need? It would make sense if there exists a priori knowledge; if so, knowing the subject would know the predicate (analyzing discovers fire heat). To find an effect, you have to go to experience; the cause is not the same as the effect. It is a posteriori knowledge.
4. Connection: For an effect to be produced by a cause, there must be a link or connection because, using the imagination, we see that a cause produces an effect, but we do not see that link. Hume said that after observing an event that happens repeatedly, it creates a habit that creates the tendency to imagine causality.
III. Metaphysics
1. The world is solipsistic: Hume says you cannot see the world as it should be because of what we see (he does not believe in causality); also, you cannot see all parts of the world.
2. God: I cannot know whether God exists because I have no impression (not material); the word “God” means nothing.
3. I: Hume criticizes the concept of self (substance). There is no substance impression (permanent, identical, and simple). When you see something, it is a set of perceptions; the idea of substance comes from the imagination. Perceptions of an object change but are very similar, so through imagination and memory, that something lies in the set of perceptions that it is permanent, identical, and simple. As there is no impression, there is no concept of person.
IV. Morals
1. Moral qualities are not found through experience. Moral norms are based on feelings, our emotions, morals. This is because we only see certain actions and feelings (hatred, pain, pleasure…). Feelings are reduced to pleasure and displeasure. Moral rules are generated according to their usefulness; in a murder, death causes pain to many people, so it is not useful, and they jail the murderer.
2. A standard is good when it is useful, i.e., when it generates pleasure to more people.
3. There are rules set more or less universally because we are made in the same way (or similar), so things that give us pleasure are very close between us. All human beings are selfish by nature; good deeds mask selfishness. What I do is for pleasure. To give pleasure to the sense of empathy, we need to know that it causes pain to others and so not to, because they would not get pleasure.
V. Politics
1. Theories of the origin of society:
The origin is God: This cannot be because if God existed and had been a factor, He would not have let tyrants rule (God’s goodness).
By agreement of man: This cannot be because to be a pact, there must be a society previously.
The origin is instinct and pleasure: This theory is championed by Hume; man has sought social pleasure and comfort to live well.
2. Government type: Must be a democracy, free, etc.