Hume’s Principles: Empiricism, Ideas, and Reality
Hume: Key Principles
Hume’s Empirical Principle: There is nothing in the mind that has not first occurred through the senses.
Principle of Immanence: The senses are merely conduits, transmitting images without creating a direct contact between the mind and the object.
Principle of “Copy”: All our ideas are copies of our impressions. It is impossible to think of something we have not felt before, either internally or externally.
Principle of Association of Ideas: Ideas are not isolated in the mind. Imagination has great power and freedom to mix and match them. There isn’t a random connection between ideas; there is a kind of attraction, a gentle force that normally prevails.
Hume’s Laws of Association
Hume reduced this to three laws:
Similarity
For example, a painting leads our thoughts to a resemblance.
Contiguity
For example, one room leads to thoughts about adjacent rooms.
Cause and Effect
For example, thinking of a wound leads to thinking about the pain associated with it.
Principle of Denial of General Ideas (Nominalism): General ideas are particular ideas related to a general term, which recalls other particular ideas, retaining some detail of the original idea in mind.
Issues of Fact and Relations of Ideas
There are two kinds of truths:
- Truths of Reason (Deductive): These are necessary, and their opposite is impossible. They relate to reality and are innate.
- Truths of Fact (Inductive): These are contingent, and their opposite is possible. They relate to reality and are based on the principle of sufficient reason.
All objects of human reason and research can be divided into two groups:
- Relations of Ideas (Demonstrative Reasoning): All intuitive or demonstrative statements that are true.
- Issues of Fact (Probable Reasoning): The opposite of any issue of fact is always possible; it never implies a contradiction.
The Problem of Reality
Hume investigates the nature of the evidence for any real existence and matter of fact. Memory and impressions are sufficient to ensure our past. The problem lies in the future, about which we can have no direct impressions. However, there are future events that seem quite obvious, e.g., fire -> burn.
- All matters of reasoning appear to be based on the relation of cause and effect.
- Causes and effects are discovered through experience.
- All arguments based on experience are based on the similarity found in natural objects, which leads us to expect similar effects.
- Practice is the guide of human life, leading to a recurring belief that the same event will occur.
Belief
We cannot have certainty about issues of fact, only belief. This belief is a particular feeling that accompanies an association of ideas.
Science
- Mathematics: Deals with relationships of ideas and allows for demonstrative reasoning and certain conception. For Hume, mathematics is psychological; its truths are based on psychological laws.
- Physics: Deals with facts and aims to teach us to forecast the future. Examines two fundamental concepts: ideas of force and necessary connection.
- Metaphysics: Hume is particularly strict in rejecting metaphysics, considering it abstruse, dogmatic, and leading to superstition. The question is meaningless because it refers to substance. The key concept of metaphysics lacks value, and metaphysics is an illusion.