HUME AND EMPIRICISM - The Richmond Philosophy Pages

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Transcript HUME AND EMPIRICISM - The Richmond Philosophy Pages

HUME AND EMPIRICISM



David Hume – Scottish philosopher – 1711-1776. Epistemological approach set out in two key works:



A Treatise of Human Nature

(1739-1740),



Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

(1748)

 Key issues  Hume’s view that our senses provide the raw materials of thought and knowledge – impressions and ideas.

 ‘

Hume’s Fork

’ and the attack on Rationalism.

 Humean account of causation – the central and fundamental type of inference we employ when investigating and thinking about the world.

Constant conjunction

and Humean ‘projectivism’.

 The problem of induction.

David Hume (1711-1776)

EMPIRICISM – HUMEAN MOTIVATIONS

All knowledge begins with impressions: the deliverances of the senses.

Our mind makes ideas: faint copies of impressions that enable us to think off-line.

Hume’s Copy Principle:

“All our simple ideas in their first appearance are derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent” Proof ?

Impressions ‘enter with the most force and violence’ or are more ‘vivacious’ than ideas People lacking either a sensory modality (e.g. taste) or impressions (e.g. tastes of wine) cannot form ideas of these things.

Find me an idea that does not originate in experience.

What about necessary truths? And metaphysical concepts of God and cause and self?

EMPIRICISM – HUMEAN MOTIVATIONS

The books of metaphysics should be “consigned to the flames” There are no substantial (interesting, metaphysical) a priori knowable truths.

Hume’s Fork: Any truth is either a “relation of ideas” or “a matter of fact” Relation of ideas = analytic and necessary truth.

“All bachelors are unmarried” The idea of unmarried is analytically part of the idea of a bachelor.

Matter of fact = synthetic and contingent truth.

“Bernard is a bachelor” The idea of being a bachelor is no part of the idea of Bernard. It’s just a fact about Bernard that he is a bachelor.

But what about important metaphysical truths such as “God exists”? “Every event has a cause”?

Either they are mere truths of definition or they are, if true, only contingently so.

I can conceive of an uncaused event, so it is not necessarily true – not even by definition – that every event has a cause.

A priori

Hume’s Fork

Necessary Contingent

Bachelors are unmarried 2+2=4

RELATIONS OF IDEAS (Analytic truths) A posteriori

Bob is a bachelor The sun is at the centre of the solar system

MATTERS OF FACT (Synthetic truths)

Rationalists say that the concept of cause is an innate concept and that we live in a world where nothing happens without a cause.

What’s a necessary connexion? How can experience discover this?

X causes Y = (i) X and Y are spatiotemporally contiguous.

(ii) X comes before Y (iii) There is a necessary connexion between cause and effect.

HUME AND CAUSATION

We get the idea of a necessary connexion from seeing X and Y together many times.

So, what does it mean to say that one thing causes another?

The concept of cause is learned from experience.

Necessity is

psychological

that Y will follow X. not

metaphysical.

So, causation boils down to the expectation So reason cannot discover causal connections.

Furthermore, there’s no real relation of causation out there in the world.

Causation is a psychological relation between impressions/ideas.

Suppose that a brick is thrown at a window and it breaks. We say that the thrown brick caused the broken window.

But does it follow logically from the description of the first event – the thrown brick – that the second event – the broken window – would follow?

No!

 Fill in the gaps – ‘Hume’s motivations’ and ‘Hume, causation and induction’.  Consider why Hume says what he does. Make a note of any difficulties you think he might face  Sources - the video worksheet, Ch. 9,

Reason and Experience

booklet, Grayling handout.

 Bonus points if you can fill in the blanks about Pavlov…

Bonus points – Pavlov’s Dogs

 Pavlov -

stimulus-response

model of explanation  When dogs fed a bell was rung.

 The food (alone) sufficient to make the dogs salivate (unconditioned response).

 After a while the ringing of the bell alone causes the dogs to salivate.

 The conditioning history –

habit

response to the environment.

– of the dogs determines their  Basis for explanation and prediction .