The Philosophical Naturalism Of David Hume - Essay Example

Hume’s Philosophy David Hume (1711-1776) is generally regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, he was also d as an historian and essayist. A master stylist in any genre, Humes major philosophical works are: A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740), the Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748) and concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), and the posthumously published Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779). They remain widely and deeply influential, despite being regarded by many of his contemporaries as works of scepticism and atheism. Humes influence is evident in the works of quite a lot of other philosophers, among who are: Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, Charles Darwin, and Thomas Henry Huxley. The diverseness of these writers shows what they gleaned from reading Hume; it reflects not only the richness of their sources but also the wide range of Humes empiricism. Contemporary philosophers recognize Hume as one of the most thoroughgoing exponents of philosophical naturalism. David Hume sought to develop more fully the consequences of Lockes cautious empiricism by applying the scientific methods of observation to a study of human nature itself. He was of the opinion that we cannot rely on the common-sense pronouncements of popular superstition, which illustrate human conduct without offering any illumination, nor can we achieve any genuine progress by means of abstract metaphysical speculation, which imposes a spurious clarity upon profound issues- that we are entirely unjustified in thinking that we can ever know anything about matters of fact. He thought that the alternative is to reject all easy answers; employing the negative results of philosophical skepticism as a legitimate place to start. Hume felt that since human beings live and function in the world, we should try to observe how they do so. The key principle to be applied to any investigation of our cognitive capacities is, then, an attempt to discover the causes of human belief. According to Hume, the proper goal of philosophy is simply to explain why we believe what we do. His own attempt to achieve that goal was the focus of Book I of his book, the Treatise of Human Nature and all of the first Enquiry. . He defines these terms thus in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: "By the term impression, then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. And impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions, of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above mentioned." He further specifies ideas, saying, "It seems a proposition, which will not admit of much dispute, that all our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions, or, in other words, that it is impossible for us to think of anything, which we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or internal senses." This forms an important aspect of Humes skepticism, for he says that we cannot be certain a thing, such as God, a soul, or a self, exists unless we can point out the impression from which the idea of the thing is derived. Hume’s analysis of human belief begins with a careful distinction among our mental contents: impressions, which are the direct, vivid, and forceful products of immediate experience; ideas are merely feeble copies of these original impressions. (Enquiry II) for example, the color of the ink on which this script is printed is an impression, while the memory of the color of my former car is merely an idea. Hume assumed every idea must be derived from an antecedent impression, thus it always makes sense to inquire into the origins of our ideas by asking from which impressions they are derived. Hume went further in Enquiry IV i to distinguished between two sorts of belief. Relations of ideas are beliefs grounded wholly on associations formed within the mind; they are capable of demonstration because they have no external referent. Matters of fact are beliefs that claim to report the nature of existing things; they are always contingent. (This is Humes version of the a priori / a posteriori distinction.) Mathematical and logical knowledge relies upon relations of ideas; it is uncontroversial but uninformative. The interesting but problematic propositions of natural science depend upon matters of fact. Abstract metaphysics mistakenly (and fruitlessly) tries to achieve the certainty of the former with the content of the latter. Matters of Fact Genuine information rests upon our belief in matters of fact; this made Hume particularly concerned to explain their origin. Hume thought that such beliefs can reach beyond the content of present sense-impressions and memory, and only by appealing to presumed connections of cause and effect. But since each idea is distinct and separable from every other, there is no self-evident relation; these connections can only be derived from our experience of similar cases. Hume supposed that the most obvious point is a negative one: causal reasoning can never be justified rationally. In order to learn, we must suppose that our past experiences bear some relevance to present and future cases. But although we do indeed believe that the future will be like the past, the truth of that belief is not self-evident. In fact, it is always possible for nature to change, so inferences from past to future are never rationally certain. Thus, on Humes view, all beliefs in matters of fact are fundamentally non-rational. We all believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is a matter of fact; it rests on our conviction that each sunrise is an effect caused by the rotation of the earth. But our belief in that causal relation is based on past observations, and our confidence that it will continue tomorrow cannot be justified by reference to the past. So we have no rational basis for believing that the sun will rise tomorrow, but still we believe it will rise The Self In the Treatise, Hume offered a similar account of the belief in the reality of the self. Here there is the ordinary human supposition that lies behind our use of first-personal pronouns. Upon this relatively simple foundation, philosophers have erected the notion of an immaterial substance, a mind or soul that persists through time on its own. Humes question is, "From what antecedent impression does the idea of the self arise?" Hume pointed out that we do not have an impression of the self. No matter how closely I attend to my own experience, no matter how fully I notice the mental operations presently occurring "in my mind," I am never directly aware of "I." What I do experience is a succession of separate and individual ideas, associated with each other by relations of resemblance and causality. Although these relations may be extended through time by memory, there is no evidence of any substantial ground for their coherence. The persistent self and the immortal soul are philosophical fictions. So as far as we can tell, Hume concludes, there is nothing to the self over and above a big, fleeting bundle of perceptions. Note in particular that, on Humes view, these perceptions do not belong to anything. Rather, Hume compares the soul to a commonwealth, which retains its identity not by virtue of some enduring core substance, but by being composed of many different, related, and yet constantly changing elements. The question of personal identity then becomes a matter of characterizing the loose cohesion of ones personal experience. The design argument One of the oldest and most popular arguments for the existence of God is the design argument – that all the order and purpose in the world bespeaks a divine origin. Hume gave the classic criticism of the design argument in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and though the issue is far from dead, many are convinced that Hume killed the argument for good. Part 2 a. I look at Hume as an atheist that spoke/wrote candidly and fearlessly. His conclusion on religion and the one on impression are particularly brilliant. Even though I am a religious person I admire his brilliance in putting forth these arguments. The strength of the power and robustness of his arguments are outstanding. He actually showed, using empiricism what he felt. He used mathematical methods to measure human response to hius environment and was able to conjure his philosophy. He definitely should be among the greatest thinkers of the last 300 years. b. The implication in my opinion of Hume’s argument is that man is the architect of his own destiny and must thus act in accordance to his own impression- This is what he feels at the time. He has also made it clear that there is nothing new. The whole world and the event s that occur are mere repetitions of a similar event that had happened. That there can be no idea without impression. c. In difference to my religious convictions, I would say yes I am well convinced by Hume’s arguments. d. The logic, power and sense of reason in Hume’s argument will convince every other person. Then looking at personal experience and the nature of humans, skepticism, as Hume puts it should be the best way of getting out the true picture of a situation. The way and manner he logically set aside the design argument which is one of the oldest and most popular arguments for the existence of God- that all the order and purpose in the world bespeaks a divine origin. His criticism of the design argument he gave in his books: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Many, including myself are convinced that Hume killed the design argument for good. Some of the points he raised are captured thus: i. For the design argument to be feasible, it must be true that order and purpose are observed only when they result from design. But order is observed regularly, resulting from presumably mindless processes like snowflake or crystal generation. Design accounts for only a tiny part of our experience with order and purpose’. ii. Furthermore, the design argument is based on an incomplete analogy: because of our experience with objects, we can recognise human-designed ones, comparing for example a pile of stones and a brick wall. But in order to point to a designed Universe, we would need to have an experience of a range of different universes. As we only experience one, the analogy cannot be applied. iii. Even if the design argument is completely successful, it could not (in and of itself) establish a robust theism; one could easily reach the conclusion that the universes configuration is the result of some morally ambiguous, possibly unintelligent agent or agents whose method bears only a remote similarity to human design. iv. If a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then Gods mind (being so well-ordered) also requires a special designer. And then this designer would likewise need a designer, and so on ad infinitum. We could respond by resting content with an inexplicably self-ordered divine mind; but then why not rest content with an inexplicably self-ordered natural world? Sources 1. Garrett Thomson, Bacon TO Kant: An Introduction To Modern Philosophy, 2nd Edition, ISBN - 1-577766-201-6 2. Rene Descartes, Mediations On First Philosophy Translated By D.A. Cress, 3rd Edition, ISBN - 9-780872-201927 3. Locke, Berkeley & Hume, The Empiricists, ISBN - 0-385-09622-4 Read More