hume final

8/22/2019 Hume Final

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Hume, David; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

4. Skeptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding

Leading questions:

What is the nature of all our reasonings concerning matter of fact?

What is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning that

relation?

What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience?

What is the nature of all our reasonings concerning matter of fact?

the relation of cause and effect

All the objects of human reason or enquiry:

Relations of ideas

Affirmations that are intuitively or demonstrably certain

e.g. 3 X 5 = 30 / 2, theorem of Pythagoras

Matters of fact

The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a

contradictionthe sun will not rise tomorrow is no more a contradiction than that it will rise.

What is the nature of that evidence which assures us of any real existence and

matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our

memory?

All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation ofCause

and Effect.

A man believes that his friend is in France. If you ask him why he believes this, he will

give you a reason that is another fact: perhaps a letter received from him or the

knowledge of a promise.

All our reasonings concerning fact suppose that there is a connection between the

fact and its cause

We hear a voice in the dark and we are assured of another person. Why? Because

that is the sound made by a person.


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What is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning that

relation?

experience

We must enquire how we arrive at the knowledge of cause and effect

Not by reasoning a priori; but, without exception, entirely from experience

An Adam -- even with rational faculties -- if given water could not conclude that it

could drown him or that a fire he was shown could burn him.

Causes and effects are discoverable by experience, and not by reasonUnassisted by experience, our reason can draw no inference concerning real

existence or matter of fact.

All the laws of nature are known only through experience and past observation

leading to custom

It cannot find the effect in the supposed cause by examining the cause because the

effect is totally different from the cause.

The motion of the second billiard-ball is distinct from that of the first.

What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience?

a negative answer

It is not reasoning or any process of the understanding. It is not our senses.

They can inform us of the colour and consistency of bread but neither sense nor

reason can inform us of the qualities that fit it for the nourishment of the body.

There is no known connection between sensible qualities and secret powers. And

there is no reason why past experience (eating bread and our body being nourished)

should be extended to the future.

Because bread nourished me at one time does not mean that it will do so at another

time. It is not a necessary consequence.

I have found in the past that an object has brought a particular effect; and

I will find that other objects of like appearance will be attended by like effects.

Two types of reasoning:


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Demonstrative reasoning concerning relations of ideas

it implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change

Moral reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence

since that would be a circular argument

It is, then, only the aid of experience which allows one to draw an inference; but that

inference is not a causal connection, for otherwise the causal connection could be

inferred from the first appearance.

5. Sceptical Solution of these Doubts:

Part 1:

Human beings reasoning:

all reasonings from experience, there is a step taken by the mind, which is not

supported by any argument or process of the understanding; there is no danger, that

these reasonings, on which almost all knowledge depends, will ever be affected by

such a discovery.

observing a continual succession of objects, and one event following another; but he

would not be able to discover anything farther.

he has acquired more experience, and observed similar objects or events to be

constantly conjoined together. He immediately infers the existence of one object

from the appearanceof the other.

Yet he has not, by all his experience, acquired any idea orknowledge of the secret

power.

Habit & Custom:

For wherever the repetition of any particular act or operation produces a propensity

to renew the same act or operation, without being impelled by any reasoning or

process of the understanding; we always say, that this propensity is the effect of

Custom.

For Example:

we assert, that, after the constant conjunctions of two objects, heat and flame, for

instance, weight and solidity, we are determined by custom alone to expect the one

from the appearance of the other.( draw from a thousand instances )


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Reason is incapable of any such variation.

All inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not of reasoning.

Experience , memory and senses:

Experience carry us beyond our memory and senses.

Yet some fact must always be present to the senses or memory, from which we may

first proceed in drawing these conclusions.

But did nothing of this nature occur to him, he could never form such an inference.

if we proceed not upon some fact, present to the memory or senses, our reasonings

would be merely hypothetical

However the particular links might be connected with each other, the whole chain of

inferences would have nothing to support it, nor could we ever, by its means, arrive

at the knowledge of any real existence.

Understanding:

All belief of matter of fact or real existence is derived merely from some object,

present to the memory or senses, and a customary conjunction between that andsome other object. (in many instances)

All these operations are a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning or process

of the thought and understanding is able, either to produce, or to prevent.

Part 2:

Imagination :

It has unlimited power of mixing, compounding, separating,

and dividing these ideas, in all the varieties of fiction and vision.

But it is not in our power to believe, that such an animal has ever really existed.

Belief:

belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object,

than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain.

For as there is no matter of fact which we believe so firmly, that we cannot conceive


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the contrary, there would be no difference between the conception assented to,

and that which is rejected, were it not for some sentiment, which distinguishes the

one from the other.

the difference between Imagination and Belief:

the difference between fiction and belief lies in some sentiment or feeling

The imagination has the command over all its ideas, and can join and mix and vary

them, in all the ways possible. It may conceive fictitious objects with all the

circumstances of place and time.

belief consists not in the peculiar nature or order of ideas, but in the manner of their

conception, and in theirfeeling to the mind. Besides, belief are very different to thefeeling, and have a much greater influence

Cause of Beliefthe sentiment of belief is nothing but a conception more intense and steady than

what attends the mere fictions of the imagination, and that this manner of

conception arises from a customary conjunction of the object with something present

to the memory or senses:

Three principles of connexion or associationNature has established connections among particular ideas, and that no sooner one

idea occurs to our thoughts than it introduces its correlative, and carries our

attention towards it, by a gentle and insensible movement.

1. Resemblance,Sensible objects have always a greater influence on the fancy than any other; and

this influence they readily convey to those ideas, to which they are related, and

which they resemble.

(eg: the picture of an absent friend, The ceremonies of the ROMAN CATHOLIC

religion)

2. ContiguityDistance diminishes the force of every idea, and that, upon our approach to any

object.

The thinking on any object readily transports the mind to what is contiguous; but it is

only the actual presence of an object, that transports it with a superior vivacity.


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(eg: A few miles from home VS Two hundred leagues distant;)

3. Causation,the belief of the correlative object is always presupposed; without which the relation

could have no effect.

This belief, where it reaches beyond the memory or senses, is of a similar

nature, and arises from similar causes, with the transition of thought and vivacity of

conception here explained.

This transition of thought from the cause to the effect proceeds not from reason. It

derives its origin altogether from custom and experience.

For example :

When I throw a piece of dry wood into a fire, my mind is immediately carried to

conceive, that it augments, not extinguishes the flame.

Conclusion:

There is a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the

succession of our ideas; and though the powers and forces, by which the former isgoverned, be wholly unknown to us

This operation of the mind, by which we infer like effects from like causes,

and vice versa.

7. Skeptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding

Main focus in this chapter:

What is Necessary Connection? Is there such a thing?

Necessary Connection: It means the (necessary) connection between cause and

effect. It explains how a cause necessarily leads to an effect.

The difficulties in finding out the Necessary Connection in external objects from our

own experience:

1. Back to our own experience, we cant explain how a cause leads to an effect fromwithin. We can only find that one (effect) follows the other (cause).

Eg. The impulse of one billiard-ball is attended with motion in the second.


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2. Also, from the cause itself, it cant explain the connection. We cant know theeffect of a cause when it appears at the first time. Moreover, there is no any

power or energy of cause discovered by mind to tell us the effect brought by the

cause, we can only know that by experience.

If we cant find out the connection in the external object, so maybe we can find it

internally in our own self (our own mind and reflection).

Will:

(Some people think) Will is a power that internally causes the effects of our body like

actions and our mind like thoughts.

But Hume thinks will is not the cause of effect of our body and mind. Will is just a

fact of experience that the effects follow from it. For this, He points out 6 points toargue.

Will and body:

1. We cant understand the mysterious connection between will and body.

2. Will itself cant explain how it causes the effect--The fact that we cant move all

our organs cant be told by will but experience.

3. The process of moving our organ is complicated but cant be explain in the way by

the claim of will.

Will and mind:

1. We cant understand the mysterious connection between will and mind.

2. The command of mind is limited; we cant control our sentiment and feeling freely

through the will.

3. The will in mind is different at different time, that we cant understand it.

God:

Other than will, some people think God is the immediate cause of every effect. Its

omnipotence makes everything possible.

But Hume disagrees with it. He put two points to argue it.

1. We cant experience or conceive how god causes all the effect.2. The connection that between the god and effect is mysterious.The conclusion of necessary connection provided by Hume:

In our understanding, there is no necessary connection between cause and effect

--Every cause and effect is just conjoined together.


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According to our experience and habitation, we will think that there is a

connection between cause and effect, and we will assign this connection to the

similar thing in the next time.

Re-definition of cause and effect according to above conclusion:

1. An object followed by another, and whose appearance always conveys thethought to that other.

2. An object, followed by another, and where all the objects, similar to the first, arefollowed

by objects similar to the second.

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