A Critical Appraisal Of The Empiricism Of David Hume And The Problem Of Induction

A Critical Appraisal Of The Empiricism Of David Hume And The Problem Of Induction

Chapter One

Background to the Problem

Preface

Once the task of the rationalists in establishing “ certain knowledge ” deduced from logic sounded set, Locke’s attempt to revive empiricism was needed. This allowed him to introduce into the scene the conception of tabula rasa or blank slate upon which experience imprints. This in turn sounded to have established the necessary foundations for Berkeley’s immaterialism to be set so that he showed how Locke’s empiricism could lead to dubitation of the external world and ultimately, immaterialism. When David Hume took the president of the empiric tradition, his own end was to show how wisdom was misinformed in their supposition that induction was the principle according to which laws of wisdom could be deduced. He sought to show the fault in the logic by declaring that induction was only grounded upon a uniformity in nature, one that’s incorrectly hypothecated to be valid. The conclusion was that Hume came a radical unbeliever for we ultimately see how his position will lead to saying knowledge can not be attained.

The gospel of David Hume

Attempts of the international rationalists to assert with some force of conviction the claim that it was only through logic that ultimate knowledge could be deduced, as can be seen in the rationalist propositions of Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza. They unanimously, directly or laterally subscribed to sundries of ingrain conception that helped them define their rationalism. Lockean empiricism also appeared to shatter whatever ‘ certain ’ foundations they had purportedly erected. This was followed by Bishop George Berkeley’s immaterialism. Accordingly, David Hume wrote his notorious Enquiry that laid bare his own generality of the distinction between knowledge deduced from logic and experience. Though the foundations for this has been gradationally laid since the time ofpre-Socratic gospel, and utmost especially in Descartes.

When John Locke developed his proposition of empiricism, he divided our knowledge as being deduced from sensations and reflection. He claims that knowledge from logic and the mind came from reflection while sensation had to do with knowledge acquired from the external world through experience. Berkeley had come in a veritably controversial manner to undermine Lockean proposition of perception. Hume still came also with a veritably different ideal in mind to wit “ David Hume was fed up with the feathers of abstract philosophical systems that had been constructed by Cartesians and other similar metaphysicians. He sought to condemn these( Cartesian) systems by demonstrating that they rested upon nothing other than “ sophistry and vision. ” The major point he wanted to argue is that as long as beliefs and doctrines are ungrounded in observation and sensitive experience, they must remain little further than superstitious fantasies that has no relation to reality. ” This gives us a hint into his ultimate conclusion of being an empiric, since he claims that any gospel not predicated in observation won’t amount to anything. It means in substance that any system that isn’t erected on substantiation gotten through the senses should be rendered to the dears he was himself an empiric after all.

Just like Locke had done, Hume divided the contents of the mind into two, he “ distinguished among the contents of the mind ‘ prints ’ and ‘ ideas ’. The first correspond( s) to what we should call sensations and comprehensions, the alternate to what we should call generalities, or ‘ meanings ’. When I perceive a steed, I’ve a particular print( in this case a visual print); when I suppose of a steed, I summon up an idea this idea belongs to a class which together constitutes the meaning( for me) of the word ‘ steed ’. ” Just like Locke had done, Hume distinguished between these two contents of the mind, for him this distinction lies in their separate ‘ force ’ or ‘ vibrance ’. The print is entered through the senses, and is pictorial and forceful during the moment of its event. Idea on the other hand is what remains later, when the vibrance and force of the print have downscaled. still, Hume also describes ideas as ‘ clones ’, ‘ representations ’ and ‘ images ’ of prints they’re “ the faint images( of prints) in thinking and logic. ”

Hume formerly again, like Locke made, a distinction between simple and complex ideas, claiming that “ all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deduced from simple prints, which are pressman to them, and which they exactly represent ”. Complex ideas on the other hand are erected from simple ideas; so that all ideas can be traced to the prints from which they were deduced. This inferred that no term is meaningful unless there’s an print from which its meaning can be inferred. The meaning of everything that can be said consists in its empirical content. Laying the foundation for the notorious Humean line “ all ideas in the mind have corresponding sense prints ” For case, the notion of complex ideas in Locke can be seen then, whatever obtains in the mind, must have been first in experience, indeed and including dreams where we see the mind plying its function in being suitable to “ abstract ” several ideas it got from experience.

Hume went ahead to divide all significant propositions into two kinds empirical and logical. In the first case the empirical decide what meaning they’ve from experience; in the alternate case they speak only of the relations between ideas. In his An Enquiry Concerning mortal Understanding the division was articulated therefore

“ All the objects of mortal reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of fact. Of the first kind are the lores of figure, Algebra, and computation.( which are) discoverable by the bare operation ofthought.Matters of fact, which are the alternate object of mortal reason, aren’t caught on in the same manner; nor is our substantiation of their verity, still great, of a suchlike nature with the foregoing. ”

The notorious Humean division between relations of idea and matters of fact is regarded to as ‘ Hume’s Fork’which we shall essay to describe in detail.

Hume’s Chopstick

As above mentioned, Hume divided all significant propositions two, while the first was knowledge from logic, known as knowledge from relations of ideas in Hume’s gospel; the other is knowledge from experience known as knowledge from matters of fact.

Relation of Ideas

According to Hume, knowledge from relation of ideas is all knowledge that’s deduced from logic. For him, knowledge from relations of ideas is certain, true. It can only be an analysis of the ideas that we have, ideas that must have been gotten from only one other source. “ first objects of reason, are propositions whose verity can be known by simply examining the ideas to see if the asserted relation holds. They’re trueness that are true because of the meanings of and the logical connections between the ideas ”, therefore we see that knowledge from the relation of ideas is pertaining to the notion of ‘ ideas ’, and due to that has to do with the mind, since ideas are the only ingredients of the mortal mind, thus knowledge from the relation of ideas is knowledge deduced the mortal mind, its demonstrative certainty and probity is only a consequence of its being reused by the mind on entering it from experience.

Propositions that are used to express knowledge from relations of ideas aren’t just true, they’re said to be inescapably true. The preface of this notion of ‘ necessity ’ is because of the fact that the else of a statement from relations of ideas can not be deduced except that we encounter a contradiction, all knowledge from relation of ideas are moreover inescapably true, or inescapably false once we essay to decide its else. Another way to express this is to say that the denial of knowledge from relation of ideas will involve a contradiction.

exemplifications of knowledge from relation of ideas are set up in mathematics, algebra, and figure( what passed for ‘ the lores ’ during Hume’s time). Mathematics actually asserts that when a proposition is given, and its contrary is assumed, a contradiction is generated. We shall consider exemplifications of knowledge from relation of ideas;

A forecourt has four sides

This is an illustration of knowledge gotten from the relation of ideas. To claim that a forecourt doesn’t have four sides is to contradict the term.

Every total is bigger than its part

This is also an illustration of knowledge from relations of ideas. To claim it’s else is to induce a contradiction. For also we shall be claiming that a total isn’t bigger than its part. Other exemplifications include; 2 2 = 4, every total is bigger than its corridor,etc.

These feathers of statement are absolutely certain, according to Hume. But its certainty still leads us to the conclusion of its incapability to tell us absolutely nothing about the state of the world outside of our minds. The trueness of mathematics, figure, and sense are trueness that hold only in the abstract world of study. Nowhere in the factual world of concrete reality will you find perfect circles or triangles, but it’ll always be certain. Which implies that Hume allowed since these kinds of statements are ideas and thus confined to the mind anyhow of their certainty, they would always remain confined to the walls of the mind, they may be true and certain but they’ve nothing to do with experience and thus are said to be uninformative as they don’t give us any new knowledge of the external world. They only break down( dissect) what was gotten through experience. So, Hume agrees with the rationalists that there are certain, provable trueness. But what we find out in his jottings is that he differed with them regarding their significance. He believed that “ Relations of Ideas ” were empty, devoid of information about matters of fact and actuality. Since they’re confined to the mind and can not relate to effects that live outside of it.

Matters of Fact

They’re the alternate objects of mortal reason. The kinds of statements derivable from then are ‘ true ’ because they correspond to a direct sense experience. Each matter of fact is contingent; its negation is distinctly conceivable and represents a possibility and thus doesn’t indicate a contradiction. Since dependent upon experience, its negation isn’t only conceivable but also possible. Stated else, they’re propositions whose ‘ trueness ’ can only be known by experience. By making an examination of the world to see if they’re true or false. In distinction from the relation of ideas thus, their own probity can not be deduced from a bare verbal generalities used to express them, trial has to be conducted before they can be checked.

As articulated in a literal passage byW.T. Jones, according to him, all our knowledge of what, is called ‘ objects ’ is simply knowledge of spatiotemporal relations among simple ideas or prints( plus an act of the imagination). This kind of knowledge according to Jones, Hume called ‘ knowledge of matters of fact. ’ We can only know that, a particular data is followed by some other data, or is above it, or is below it. We can noway know for certain that it as a matter of necessity has to be that way; this is because every fact could always be else. Its negative being matters of fact is still possible; it can noway indicate a contradiction. That the sun won’t rise hereafter for case is no less comprehensible a proposition, and implies no further contradiction than the protestation that it’ll rise. An attempt to show that it’s false thus will only amount to a vain feat.

exemplifications of knowledge from matters of fact include the following;

moment is Saturday

This is an illustration of a statement from matters of fact. We see that it can be false without any sundries of contradiction, moment can be Monday without any contradiction being generated.

Heavy objects fall when left unsuspended

This is another illustration of statements from matters of fact. It’s completely dependent upon experience and doesn’t have anything to do with the relations between the generalities involved in the assertion.

The Problem of Induction

In his distinction between relation of ideas and matters of fact, we see that Hume has shown that relation of ideas though certain, really relies on matters of fact. This is because it’s simply an analysis of the relation between generalities which still deductively certain don’t inform us of anything further than matters of fact. Matters of fact as explained is grounded upon experience experience, of course, of the external world, because this experience isn’t a priori, it isn’t seen to be certain. The consequence of this is that we can not be completely certain of the knowledge we get from experience, not only because its denial doesn’t induce contradiction but also because it’s grounded upon the principle of cause and effect, also known as the “ unproductive principle ”.

What the unproductive principle says is that every event has a cause, and every cause must have an effect. It’s from then that matters of fact derives its nature. To justify matters of fact, we’d bear a defense of the principle of cause and effect. There’s commodity wrong with the principle of induction, for it only assumes a connection between all causes and all goods and from there universal propositions due to this relationship are constructed. A macrocosm is defined. But the principle itself is problematic because it falsely assumes that an event once observed to have passed will always give rise to a conclusion. Now the conclusion that was redounded into is also falsely assumed to be the conclusion to always be deduced whenever the case that effects the conditions for the cause obtains. This is because matters of fact aren’t certain like relations of ideas.

In the natural lores, the scientist observes some data in the external world, notes it down, forms a thesis from there, and also proceeds to perform an trial grounded on the formulated thesis. Now once the trial is concluded, a conclusion is of course generated so that he makes a general, universal statement that ought to take care of all the cases in which whenever the trial is formulated, analogous conclusions as presently generated will always be generated. For Hume, there’s no defense for making similar consequences, for all that was observed were just particular cases in the present moment. Nothing in this moments indicate that the same conclusions as were presently discovered would be the same as will always be discovered, so there really is no defense for making such an inductive conclusion.

Whenever we perceive, all we perceive is the present moment as presented by experience. But we live our lives with the mind of being suitable to infer the future from the present. Having noticed in the history that certain conclusions do from certain circumstances, we assume that analogous conclusions will gain whenever similar circumstances do. The point was the relation between what we witness. For Hume our experience is grounded upon the principle of cause and effect, that every event is a cause which has an effect, another event that proceeds from it. According to Hume, if we could have noticed an event passing and another apparently pacing from it, also we ought to be suitable to have noticed as well a connection between the same events. Since it’s grounded upon experience, also to claim defense for connecting two events passing after the other, we ought to be suitable to regard for a necessary connection that can be empirically empirical and connects these two.

The defense of Induction

Despite the condition of the actuality of a necessary connection between cause and effect, there are some other conditions that ought to gain. The first is the spatiotemporal precedence which is the condition that every cause must be previous or come before its effect. It’s in its nature to beget the other and therefore couldn’t conceivably come any other time but ahead. The alternate condition is the spatiotemporal propinquity that both events must be close to each other in space, similar that we can due to propinquity in distance claim that this event caused the other. And the third is the spatiotemporal simultaneity which holds that cause and effect must be close to each other in time, they must do nearly at the same time. One conspicuous thing about this criterion is that they’re all discoverable through experience, therefore kind of defense that we seek for the last arm of the unproductive principle is the idea of necessary connection.

Now, it has to be a point of experience, but experience can not show us this connection for all we observe is just an event ‘ causing ’ another event with the first three conditions holding in quick race. This is no sufficient reason thus to assume that similar event will always beget similar conclusions. We don’t have any empirical substantiation of a connection between two events thus. Indulging us a bit, Hume asks that this connection should be established through relations of ideas. But if similar connection is discoverable through the relation also it must be one of certainty as is the character of the relation. This still isn’t the case, for it isn’t a necessary verity that the sun will rise hereafter as the possibility of its not rising isn’t only conceivable but also possible. Beget and prompt “ feel conjoined, but( are) noway connected ”( xvi) thus the connection can not be discovered from either means. If this is so also it implies that it can not be discovered at all since all we’ve at our disposal are the two means; relations of ideas and matters of fact.

“ At most, it’s a habit of our minds. Because it’s always possible that the unborn state of affairs in the world will change, our habit of allowing in terms of cause and effect really says nothing about the world itself. It only tells us about the effects that we ourselves anticipate on the base of what we’ve formerly observed about the world around us. ”

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV, Part I, 2nded., ed.L.A. Selby- Bigge Oxford Oxford University Press, 1902. Pg. 25

Marmysz, John The Path of Philosophy Truth, Wonder and torture. Wadsworth Cengage Learning Inc Boston, 2012;p. 191

Ibid 25

Marmysz, John The Path of Philosophy Truth, Wonder and torture. Wadsworth Cengage Learning Inc Boston, 2012;p. 191

Paul.prshockley.org/inc/refermail. recaptured March 05, 2017, fromprshockley.org. 2001p. 5

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV, Part I, 2nded., ed.L.A. Selby- Bigge Oxford Oxford University Press, 1902. Pg. 24

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 2nded., ed.L.A. Selby- Bigge Oxford Oxford University Press, 1902. Pg. 34

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 2nded., ed.L.A. Selby- Bigge Oxford Oxford University Press, 1902. Pg. 15

Scruton, R. A Short History of Modern Philosophy From Descartes to Wittegenstein. New York City Routledge Inc, Taylor and Francis Group. 1995 pg.27

Hume, D. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Chicago. 1927 pg. 45

Paul.prshockley.org/inc/refermail. recaptured March 05, 2017, fromprshockley.org 2001.p. 4

Paul.( 2001).prshockley.org/inc/refermail. recaptured March 05, 2017, fromprshockley.org.p. 5

Marmysz, John The Path of Philosophy Truth, Wonder and torture. Wadsworth Cengage Learning Inc Boston, 2012;p. 198

,J.( 1969). A History of Western Philosophy Hobbes- Hume. Belmont Cengage Learning,Inc.pg. 55

,J.( 1969). A History of Western Philosophy Hobbes- Hume. Belmont Cengage Learning,Inc. pg. 56

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1927, pg 17

Marmysz, John The Path of Philosophy Truth, Wonder and torture. Wadsworth Cengage Learning Inc Boston, 2012;p. 194