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=== By the time Hume started work on his ‘’Treatise’’ the notion that an idea was the primary sort of mental content dominated European philosophy, due in part to the works of Descartes and Scientific Methodology ======= The Problem of Induction ====Aristotle drew a categorical distinction between Locke. Hume used the term '''scientific knowledge'perceptions'' or ''scientiato designate mental content of any sort. He supposed there are two sorts of perceptions, '' and 'impressions''belief'and '', or 'ideas'opinio''. Scientific knowledge This distinction was novel with him. Impressions include feelings we get from our senses, such as of a knowledge red tomato currently in front of causesme, as well as desires, emotions, passions, and sentiments, such as my current hunger for the tomato. Scientific explanation consisted Hume distinguished impressions from ideas by their degree of '''demonstration'''vivacity or force. Thus, I have an impression of the tomato that is currently present, in which a necessary connection between a cause and its effect was proven using intuitively obvious premises independently an idea of experiencea tomato I ate last week. Descartes and other corpuscularists retained this demonstrative ideal Hume supposed our ideas are copies of scientific explanationour impressions. [[CiteRef::Owen (2009)]][[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]] Descartes supposed that a mechanical cause is intrinsically and necessarily related to its effect. A demonstrative science was thus possible, because the general principles of physical nature could be deduced from mathematical principles concerning the shape, size, position, motion, and causal interaction among the ultimate corpuscular particles of matter. Newton's inductive method, in which general principles are derived inductively from observation and experiment, was not compatible with[[CiteRef::Biro (2009)]]
The problem Because of induction stems from the reasoning behind causal inference. This is a very important problem Hume brings up because the methodology his empiricist rejection of the time called demonstrative arguments for axiomatic schemes. These schemes were based largely on causal inferences. As such, Hume’s Problem of Induction threatened science at the time as it proved causal inferences were irrational. Given the previous distinction between relations of ideas and matters phenomena of fact, the connection within causal inference should fall under one of those categories. With this in mindnatural world, Hume found that causal inference cannot be a relation of ideas, and so must be a matter of fact. The reason he came to this conclusion was that each cause is independent of its effect. The two are not associated with each other. For example, never having seen an anti-biotic, and without being told of its effects, would a person be able to establish its effect through sole means of reasoning and senses? Quite simply, no. Without experience, a person would have no understanding to what the purpose of the medicine is, or that it is medicine at all. And herein, Hume concludes, since ''a priori'' reasoning cannot be the source of connection recast Aristotle’s distinction between causes knowledge and effects, the inference must be a matter of fact.[[CiteRef::Hume (1975)]] Describing causal inferences opinion as a matter distinction between ‘’’Relations of fact provides leeway to use experience to determine the effects of a cause. Using the example from before, if that same person had tried anti-biotics in the past ideas’’’ and had been cured, they begin to infer the reason for their getting better was the anti-biotic. Grasping this chain ‘’’Matters of events Hume attempts to formulate that person’s argument for their inference and states it as such: # In the past x has resulted in y.# Therefore, in the future x will result in y. Here however, Hume notices a gap in logic. How does (1) infer (2)? Hume sees that demonstrative reasoning cannot fill this gap, because a complete contrast where x does not result in y implies no contradiction within the inference. Herein, it seems that there is an underlying assumption within the first premise: the future will be like the past. This assumption is more commonly known as the uniformity principle. Using such an assumption would fill the logical gap within the current argument, however before it can be used, it must be established that the principle is either intuitive or demonstrable. Nonetheless, the only way to formulate an argument for the principle is to rely on the principle itselffact’’’.[[CiteRef::Hume (1975)]] With reliance on the uniformity principle the full argument would follow like this: # In the past, the future has been like the past.# Therefore, the future will be like the past. Within this argument, the premise assumes the conclusion and, as such, the argument is circular. In this sense, the first example shows an irrational train of thought. It seems then, that Hume established there is no way that reason could be the connection between cause and effect. Thus, Hume sought another connection between cause and effect1784| p. He eventually recognized this connection to be custom or habit. This is more commonly known today as induction. As a person experiences something repeatedly, they grow to expect it to happen again. However, despite being an adequate connection, this solution forces the abandonment of reason within causal inference. [[CiteRef:: DePierris (2006)]11] As previously mentioned, such a conclusion yields grave consequences for science of the time, which was heavily dependent on causal inferences.[[CiteRef::Hume (1975)]] ==== Hume's Fork ====In Hume’s entrance to the debate of causation, Hume translates the Aristotelean distinction between scientific knowledge and belief into his own terms. These are:* Relations of ideas. * Matters of fact. Relations of ideas are ideas ‘’a priori’’ truths that are absolutely certain through either demonstration or purely through intuition. They are ''a priori'', in that they are discoverable independent of experience. This categorization does not necessitate ideas to carry information dependent on the world , and thus ideas falling into this category are independent of any existing thingcan be shown with certainty by demonstration or intuition. They are universal constants in that Because they hold true in all possible worlds. It should be noted, relations of ideas they cannot provide any new information about the our own world. These types Relations of propositions ideas are simply a means used confined to help understand more complex ideas. They can be thought the formal sciences of as symbols or a series of simpler ideas describing a larger more complex idea. Common examples usually include mathematics, geometry or math as formal sciences fall within this categorization, and logic. Examples of such statements include 'a square’s sides add up to 360 degrees' or , '1 + 1 = 2'. Alternatively, a worded proposition may look something like 'when you run, you move your body,' or, 'all bachelors are unmarried'. Relations of ideas can never be denied as their denial would imply a contradiction in the their very definition of the terms within the proposition.[[CiteRef::Hume Morris and Brown (19752016)]] Matters of fact are the complete opposite of relations of ideas. Matters of fact are ''a posteriori'' statements and thus based on experience. Unlike relations of ideas, matters of fact do not hold true in all possible worlds. The contrary of matters of fact imply no contradiction and such statements cannot be established by demonstration. Matters of fact can show new information about the world but rely on the experience of the world. Examples of such statements include 'the sky is blue', or 'water is odourless', or 'all guitars have 6 frets.' It should be noted that false statements, such as the last example, can still be matters of fact. The level of coherence within false statements or contrary statements remains the same as within true statements despite being incorrect. In this sense, contrasting statements are, too, matters of facts.[[CiteRef::Hume (1975)1784| p. 11]]
The reason behind this distinction was simple; it was to provide criteria Matters of fact, by which to organize scientific statements. Through this distinctioncontrast, all are ''a posteriori'' statements were categorized into either matters of fact based on knowledge obtained from the world through observation or relations of ideasexperience. This also ultimately meant that there was no type Examples of idea which was certain and provided information about such statements include 'the worldsky is blue', or 'water is odourless'. In Note that the case contrary of matters a matter of factis not something impossible. The claim that ‘the sun will not rise tomorrow’ is just as intelligible as, propositions and no more contradictory than the claim that ‘the sun will rise tomorrow’. The two claims are reliant on senses only distinguishable by observation and experience. [[CiteRef:: Morris and due to the fallibility of the senses, have no certaintyBrown (2016)]][[CiteRef::Hume 1784| p. In the case of 11]] Unlike relations of ideas, propositions matters of fact do not hold true in all possible worlds and cannot be established by demonstration. They can never be proven known with absolute certainty through the use .Hume’s new categories of knowledge made it clear that natural philosophy, since it relied on knowledge of other relations matters of ideas. Unfortunatelyfact, howevercould never aspire to the kind of certainty that Aristotle supposed for scientific knowledge, these statements cannot give any new information about and should be content with the world. This distinction was often taken by the scientific community as a strike at modest sort of knowledge available through Newton’s theory of motioninductive method. [[CiteRef::Kant De Pierris (20072006)]] Such a distinction has large consequences in the fields of science, religion, and even philosophy due to its prevention of certain real world statements. As an example this distinction would make useless the attempt to try to prove non physical entities as matters of fact.
# α is a non-physical entity=== Hume’s problem of induction ===While championing Newton’s inductive method, Hume also exposed its limitations by showing that conclusions drawn by inductive reasoning could not be rationally justified. As discussed above, Hume argued that knowledge of cause and effect comes only from the constant conjunction of particular phenomena in experience, which allows the use of induction to draw conclusions about cause and effect.[[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]][[CiteRef::De Pierris (2006)]] Hume envisions such an inductive argument as follows:# It “•I have found that such and such an object has no observable alwayshad such and such an effect on .•I foresee that other objects which appear similar willhave similar effects.” [[CiteRef:: Hume (1748) |p. 16]]Newton supposed that the use of such inductive arguments could be justified by supposing the world and its not made up uniformity of a physical thingnature.# α is [[CiteRef::De Pierris (2006)]] Hume however, found a relation of ideasfundamental problem in rationally justifying inductive arguments.Consider the following argument, which might seem to justify our reliance on induction:# Relations of ideas are just assigned symbols helping to explain more complex symbols• In the past, the future has been like the past.# The statement ‘α exists’ proven or otherwise doesn’t say anything about • Therefore, the future will be like the world; it is just a play on wordspast.
Much akin But this argument itself relies on induction, the very mode of argument it seeks to justify. As Hume put it: “According to my account, all arguments about existence are based on the reasoning relation of cause and effect; our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience; and in drawing conclusions from experience we assume that the future will be like the analytic/synthetic distinction usespast. So if we try to prove this assumption by probable arguments, it is impossiblei.e. arguments regarding existence, according to Humewe shall obviously be going in a circle, taking for a proposition granted the very point that is in question.” [[CiteRef::Hume (1748)| p. 16]] He concluded that “the conclusions we draw from experience are not to fall within based on reasoning or on any process of understanding”. [[CiteRef:: Hume (1748) |p. 15]] But induction is necessary for the distinction. In Hume’s eyesconclusions that we draw, not only in Newtonian science, such a proposition would be completely meaningless but also in that it our daily lives, which would simply not be possible without it. Hume concludes that we are compelled to use induction by a rational powerful natural instinct, or reasonable endeavourmore specifically his principles of association. It “All these operations” he writes, “are species of natural instincts, which no reasoning… is in this binary categorizationable either to produce or prevent”. [[CiteRef::Hume (1975)| p. 46-47]] Humans must, Hume concludes, rely on “the ordinary wisdom of nature”, which insures that this distinction is historically importantwe form beliefs “by some instinct or mechanical tendency”, rather than trusting “the fallacious deductions of our reason”. Philosophers at the time were heavily reliant on innate meaningful ideas [[CiteRef::Hume (synthetic ''a priori'' statements1975)|p. 55]] In keeping with this naturalistic conclusion, but Hume’s distinction Hume devotes an entire section of the types of proposition did not allow for such ideas‘’Enquiry’’ to an argument that non-human animals also learn by induction. Hume believed He writes that “it seems evident that innate ideas cannot be meaningful in animals, like men, learn many things from experience, and infer that they never contain real world statements. This meant most axiomatic schemes were immediately broken down with Hume’s skepticismthe same outcomes will always follow the same causes”. [[CiteRef::DePierris Hume (20061748)| p. 53]]Hume’s conclusion is a radical challenge to the role assigned by rationalists like Descartes and Leibniz to reason in the production of our knowledge.
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By the time he started work on ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' at the age of 23, Hume had become skeptical of religious belief. [[CiteRef:: Morris and Brown (2016)]] The term '''atheism''' was coined by Sir John Cheke almost two hundred years earlier in 1540, to refer to a lack of belief in divine providence. The term assumed its modern meaning of disbelief in the existence of God, as divine non-existence emerged as a disquieting possibility in the seventeenth century. [[CiteRef:: Hyman (2007)]] Although Descartes' rationalism had a proof of God's existence at its foundation, it was nonetheless a challenge to the theological methodology established by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). This methodology stressed the limitations of human reason, and the necessity of reliance on divine revelation and the text of the Bible. Descartes instead stressed the human capacity to know God and nature through reason alone. Descartes' rationalist argument for God's existence and guarantorship of the certainty of scientific knowledge was soon rejected as circular. [[CiteRef:: Hyman (2007)]][[CiteRef::Cottingham (1992)]] It was supplanted by Newton's experimental philosophy and Locke's empiricism, both of which stressed experience and observation as sources of the limited knowledge to which humans could aspire. It eschewed metaphysics and speculative hypotheses. [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)]] Though they held non-standard beliefs, both Newton and Locke were devoutly religious. Like many natural philosophers associated with the Royal Society, they rejected traditional rationalist proofs of God's existence and instead espoused the '''design argument''', supposing that the experimental method could demonstrate that the universe was an artifact crafted by a cosmic Designer. Hume's ''Dialogues on Natural Theology'' (1779) was a response to such hopes, and was to raise devastating objections to them. Unlike Locke, Hume saw that empiricism must place God's existence among those speculative questions to be eschewed. [[CiteRef::Hyman (2007)]] Doubts about God's existence also arose among French intellectuals in the mid-eighteenth century, with the first to openly proclaim himself an atheist being Denis Diderot (1713-1784). [[CiteRef:: Hyman (2007)]][[CiteRef::Bristow (2011)]]
|Major Contributions=Hume's main philosophical contributions were made via several works. The first was ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' published in three volumes in 1739 and 1740, when Hume was 29 years old. It was not a success in his own time. sold poorly, and Hume wrote lamented that the work fell "deadborn from the press", . [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)|p. 4]] and he lamented that "I was carry'd away by the Heat of Youth & Invention to publish too precipitately So vast an Undertaking, plan’d before I was one and twenty, & compos’d before twenty five, must necessarily be very defective. I have repented my Haste a hundred, & a hundred times”. [[CiteRef:: Norton (2009)|p. 25]] It is however, today regarded as a major and important work. Hume recast the material into two later publications, ''Enquiries concerning Human Understanding'', published in 1748, and ''concerning the Principles of Morals'' published in 1751. Because of its controversial nature, Hume had ''Dialogs concerning Natural Religion'' published posthumously in 1779, three years after his death. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]][[CiteRef:: Norton (2009)]]
=== Hume and Moral Philosophy ===
The basic goal of the first three of these works is indicated by the subtitle of the ''Treatise''; "an attempt to introduce the experimental method into moral subjects". [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)|p.7]] An admirer of the Newtonian experimental philosophy, Hume sought to extend it from natural philosophy into what was then called '''moral philosophy''', which he defines as the "science of human nature". [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)|p.8]] The field of moral philosophy was much broader then than today, and included topics that a modern scientist we might classify as psychology or cognitive science, as well as epistemology. To Hume, an understanding of the workings of the mind was the key to establishing the foundations of all other knowledge, including "Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion". [[CiteRef:: Norton (2009)|p. 34]] Natural philosophers, like Newton and Boyle, he maintains, had cured themselves of their "passion for hypotheses and systems". [[CiteRef:: Morris and Brown (2016)|p. 8-9]] Hume sought to work the same cure for moral philosophy, which he saw as full of speculative metaphysical theories hypotheses and constant dispute. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]] He is noted as proposed an empiricist alternative to ‘’a priori’’ metaphysics and its speculative belief systems. He was a skeptic because naturalist who rejected any appeal to the supernatural in explanations of his rejection of speculative metaphysical human nature. For such beliefs, and because he argues argued that we cannot rationally justify many of our beliefs, he is noted as a skeptic. But he also observes observed that we have non-rational faculties which compel certain sorts of beliefs(such as the belief that there is a world external to my mind of which my senses provide knowledge), and it is these faculties of which he wishes to give a positive descriptive account. [[CiteRef::Biro (2009)]] Hume sought to found an empirical science of the mind, based on experience and observation. He noted that the application of the experimental method to "moral subjects" necessarily differed from its use in natural philosophy, because it was impossible to conduct experiments "purposely, with premeditation". Instead, knowledge would be gained "from cautious observation of human life...by men's behaviour in company, in affairs, and in pleasures". [[CiteRef::Biro (2009)|p. 42]] Experimental psychology in the modern sense, with controlled experiments in the laboratory, would not make its appearance until the late 19th century. [[CiteRef::Leary (1979)]]
Hume uses the term ''''perceptions'''' sought to designate mental content found an empirical science of any sortthe mind, based on experience and observation. He supposes there are two sorts noted that the application of perceptions, '''impressions''' and '''ideas'''. Impressions include feelings we get the experimental method to "moral subjects" necessarily differed from our senses, such as of a red tomato currently its use in front of menatural philosophy, as well as desiresbecause it was impossible to conduct experiments "purposely, emotionswith premeditation". Instead, passions, and sentiments, such as my current hunger for the tomato. Hume distinguishes impressions knowledge would be gained "from ideas by their degree cautious observation of vivacity or forcehuman life. Thus, I have an impression of the tomato that is currently present, and an idea of a tomato I ate last year. Hume supposes our ideas are copies of our impressions. Noting that there is a regular order to our thoughts, he asserts that the mind has the power to associate ideas. Hume posits three associative principles; by men'''resemblance''' (as when one recognizes that currently before me resembles the one s behaviour in my garden)company, '''contiguity''' in time and placeaffairs, and '''causation''' (as when one recognizes cause and effect). Hume believes that by thus anatomizing human nature, its laws of operation can be discoveredin pleasures". [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown Biro (20162009)|p. 42]]Experimental psychology in the modern sense, with controlled experiments in the laboratory, would not make its appearance until the late 19th century. [[CiteRef::Biro Leary (20091979)]] It was Hume's careful analysis of the mind that led to insights relevant to scientific methodology.
Noting that there is a regular order to our thoughts, he asserted that the mind has the power to associate ideas. Hume’s concepts about the association of ideas were novel. He posited three associative principles; '''resemblance''' (as when one recognizes that the tomato currently before me resembles the one in my garden), '''contiguity''' in time and place (as when one notices that the tomato is on the table to my left) and '''causation''' (as when one notices that bumping the table causes the tomato to tumble to the floor). Hume believed that by thus anatomizing human nature, its laws of operation could be discovered. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]][[CiteRef::Biro (2009)]] [[CiteRef::Owen (2009)]] Hume argued that the mind could not be an immaterial substance, though he was also critical of materialism. Regarding personal identity, he wrote that “what we call a ‘’mind’’ is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations, and supos’d, tho’ falsly, to be endow’d with perfect simplicity and identity”. [[CiteRef::McIntyre (2009) | p. 182]] It was Hume's careful analysis of the mind that led to insights relevant to scientific methodology.
=== Hume and Scientific Methodology ===
==== Hume’s Fork ====
Aristotle drew a categorical distinction between '''scientific knowledge''' or ''scientia'' and '''belief''', or ''opinio''. Scientific knowledge was knowledge of causes and proceeded through '''demonstration''', in which a necessary connection between a cause and its effect was proven using premises that were intuitively obvious independently of experience. Descartes and other corpuscularists retained this demonstrative ideal of scientific explanation. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]] Descartes supposed that a mechanical cause is necessarily related to its effect. A demonstrative science was thus possible, because the general principles of physical nature could be deduced from mathematical principles concerning the shape, size, position, motion, and causal interaction among the ultimate corpuscular particles of matter. The Aristotelian categories of knowledge were accepted by Hume’s contemporaries. However, Newton's method, in which general principles are derived inductively from observation and experiment, did not mesh well with this demonstrative view of science. Newton came to oppose the purely hypothetical explanations of the mechanical philosophy, because they stood in the way of his inductive arguments for universal gravitation. [[CiteRef::De Pierris (2006)]]
Hume took Newton’s opposition to demonstrative science much further, questioning the idea of a necessary mechanical connection between cause and effect. “Present an object to a man whose skill and intelligence are as great as you like;” he wrote, “if the object is of a kind that is entirely new to him, no amount of studying of its perceptible qualities will enable him to discover any of its causes or effects. Adam [the Biblical first man], even if his reasoning abilities were perfect from the start, couldn’t have inferred from the fluidity and transparency of water that it could drown him, or from the light and warmth of fire that it could burn him. The qualities of an object that appear to the senses never reveal the causes that produced the object or the effects that it will have; nor can our reason, unaided by experience, ever draw any conclusion about real existence and matters of fact.” [[CiteRef:: Hume (1748) |p. 12]] The connection between a cause and its effect was learned by observation and experience, and could not be shown by demonstrative argument. [[CiteRef:: Bell (2009)]][[CiteRef::De Pierris (2006)]][[CiteRef:: Morris and Brown (2016)]]
==== Skepticism about theological knowledge ====
