David Hume (1711-1776) is now being considered as one of the earliest proponents of method of scientific empiricism in philosophy, although during the course of his life, he was primarily known as historian and diplomat. We can say that the essence of Hume’s main philosophical achievement corresponds to the fact that had proven the method of empirical enquiry as leading to the “dead end of philosophy”, when being overly formalised. This was the reason why Hume’s philosophy later became the subject of fierce criticism, on the part of metaphysicians, such as Kant and Hegel.
Being born in the family of Scottish nobles, Hume was at liberty to indulge in intellectual pursuits, throughout his life, without having to be overly concerned about sustaining himself financially. By the time he reached twelve, Hume began attending University of Edinburgh, with Jurisprudence as his major. However, he did not take a particular pleasure in studying legal scholastics, while being increasingly attracted to abstract Philosophy, as the subject in which he felt he could really excel. After having received his degree in Law, Hume had spent six consecutive years in Edinburgh, with avid reading becoming his main preoccupation. During this period of his life, Hume had developed a particularly strong taste for the philosophy of Stoicism, which will affect his later writings. In 1734, Hume went to Paris to serve as Secretary to Lord Hertford, who was on diplomatic duty in France. While in Paris, Hume continued to work on development of his earlier philosophical ideas, which resulted in publishing of his most influential book “A Treatise of Human Nature” in 1739. However, this Hume’s work had failed to attract intellectuals’ attention, as he originally anticipated. In 1744, Hume applied for the Chair of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, but his candidacy was eventually declined, due to the fact that by this time, Hume had managed in acquiring the fame as uncompromising atheist. From 1746 to 1749, Hume served as Secretary to Lieutenant-General St Clair, although he was not a particularly enthusiastic about conducting his professional duties. It is during this period of his life that Hume had intellectually conceived his two other major works: “The History of Great Britain” and “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”. In 1752, Hume had finally settled in Edinburgh, while continuing to promote his philosophical ideas, although with little success, as public opinion tended to regard him as “godless atheist”, rather then a legitimate philosopher. Given Hume’s perfectionist attitudes, he never managed in finding the “lady of heart”, which would be his intellectual equal. This was the main reason why Hume never did get married, while remaining faithful to his own existential scepticism, in regards to people and to society, in general. He died in 1776, with the rumours that he laughed at propositions to have a priest being present at his deathbed, beginning to circulate immediately afterwards.
Being not just an empiricist but an extreme empiricist, in the true sense of this word, Hume strived for nothing less then undermining the scientific validity of so-called “metaphysical epistemology”, as such that operates with the ideas, which are nothing but a faint reflection of our sensual impressions. In the very beginning of “Treatise of Human Nature”, Hume establishes the perceptional subjectivity of ideas: “All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call IMPRESSIONS and IDEAS. The difference betwixt these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness, with which they strike upon”.Thus, Hume’s understanding of objective reality implies the absence of “substance”, within a context of philosophical reasoning, as whole. Since there can be no impression outside of objective circumstances, perception of which allows us to have such an impression in the first place, the ideas that closely relate to impressions, cannot have value in itself. People’s existential mode is defined by particularities of impressions, to which they are being subjected, throughout their lives. However, the process of perceiving irrational impressions cannot be categorized by definition, as they are being simply “sensed”, which in its turn suggests that it is quite impossible to realise what constitutes the objective properties of our minds operating with formal categories. For example, when we closely analyse the logical statement “A causes B”, it will appear that there are no particular reasons for us to think of A as reason and of B as the effect. According to Hume, the mentioned statement means that A had simply been noticed in close conjunction with B, but we cannot refer to A as such that causes B, as we continue to remain unaware as to A’s and B’s actual subtleties. Even after we had witnessed B being caused by A million times, we would still not be able to suggest with high degree of probability that A will continue to cause B in the future, as our empirical observations of subjects’ physical qualities have sensual essence, and therefore, do not relate to what these objects really are. In other words, our idea of B being caused by A is nothing but impression. We are all aware how an apple tastes, for example, but within a context of Hume’s philosophy, our assumption that apples taste the same, regardless of how many times we savour them, constitutes logical fallacy, as there is absolutely no objective reason as to why apples should not taste like a roast beef, on a millionth and one time we try them: “Our ideas upon their appearance produce not their correspondent impressions, nor do we perceive any colour, or feel any sensation merely upon thinking of them. On the other hand we find, that any impression either of the mind or body is constantly followed by an idea, which resembles it, and is only different in the degrees of force and liveliness. The constant conjunction of our resembling perceptions, is a convincing proof, that the one are thecauses of the other; and this priority of the impressions is an equal proof, that our impressions are the causes of our ideas, not our ideas of our, impressions”. Such Hume’s suggestion served as metaphysical foundation, upon which he based his argumentation, in regards to the method of inductive inquiry as being deprived of intellectual validity, because this method implies the existence of innate links between causes and effects. The proponents of method of inductive inquiry suggest that it is quite possible to get an understanding of subject’s innate qualities, by simply observing the particularities of subject’s interaction with the environment. However, as we have illustrated earlier, the factual properties of A causing B, do not imply the existence of imperative relationship between them. We had simply happened to notice that B follows A; however, this does not give us a right to suggest that such trend will also be seen in the future.
Thus, Hume’s outlook on epistemology appears to be utterly atomistic, in its essence. If we adopt his point of view, it will appear that, even though there might be a relation between causes and effects in theory, we are simply incapable of rationalising it, due to the inner workings of our mind: “There is nothing in any objects to perswade us, that they are either always remote or always contiguous; and when from experience and observation we discover, that their relation in this particular is invariable, we, always conclude there is some secret cause, which separates or unites them”. According to Hume, this “secret cause” is nothing but our idealised extrapolation of our irrational belief in rationality.
Such point of view, of course, could not win Hume many followers, simply because of its overly mechanistic quintessence. Neither could Hume’s philosophy have any socio-political implications, as it is being too complex to be associated with popular intellectual appeal. Hume himself had suggested on numerous occasions that the only value of philosophy, as intellectual pursuit, consists in its ability to serve as a tool of mental stimulation. The Hume’s role in European philosophy can be compared to Debussy’s role in European music – both individuals strived to rid their works of any links with objective reality, as “denobilising”. However, it would be wrong to refer to Hume as nihilist. He is the first European intellectual who was able to prove that only the empirical science can serve as firm foundation, for the establishment of truly effective socio-political policies in every particular society. In his article “Hume’s Lucretian Mission: Is It Self-Refuting?”, Paul Russell makes a good point when he says: “Hume’s famous and influential contributions to the philosophy of religion pursue two broad themes that have deep links with his general sceptical and naturalistic commitments throughout his philosophy as a whole. The first is his sceptical critique of the philosophical arguments and doctrines of various (Christian) theological systems. The second is his naturalistic account of the origins and roots of religion in human nature. Taken together, these two themes serve to advance Hume’s “Lucretian mission,” which was to discredit and dislodge the role of religion in human life”. Nowadays, the conceptual inconsistency of Christianity, or any other religion for that matter, has been well established in the eyes of people who are capable of utilizing their sense of logic, because, in order to partially restore its discredited credibility, religion always resorts to science, and not the other way around. Science might not have answers to all the questions, but the answers it has, are absolutely veritable, whereas religion does not provide people even with the single answer of any practical value. Hume was the first European philosopher to pin point at this fact, thus greatly contributing to the process of empirical science being freed out of Christianity’s intellectual imprisonment. The main motif of Hume’s philosophy is that the true intellectual must always posses a sceptical attitude towards unsubstantiated pseudo-scientific assumptions and to be able to cynically evaluate just about anything, in order to remain intellectually honest with itself: “Thus the sceptic still continues to reason and believe, even though be asserts, that he cannot defend his reason by reason; and by the same rule he must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, though he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity”.
The main weakness of Hume’s philosophy appears to be the fact that he tended to oppose “objective” and “subjective”, or “contextual” knowledge. He insisted that the only the application of method of empirical enquiry, within a context of dealing with highly abstract categories, can be appropriate as the practical tool of philosophy. However, as we now are well aware of – the possession of “factual knowledge”, on the part of any particular individual, does not necessarily corresponds to his or her “wiseness”. Many people with universities’ diplomas prove themselves utterly useless, when it comes to dealing with seemingly banal situations. This is because the possession of “hard knowledge”, on their part, corresponds to their ability to memorize rather then to understand. At the same time, people who lack the formal education, often appear as being more then adequate, in academic sense of this word. This is why people who were being incarcerated for prolonged period of time, often prove themselves as supreme psychologists, despite the fact that only few of them understand what the concept of psychology stands for. Therefore, even though Hume’s philosophy provides us with insight on why it were namely White people who pushed forward a scientific and cultural progress throughout the centuries (because of their ability to indulge in highly abstract philosophising, which in its turn, created preconditions for the emergence of theoretical scientific disciplines), it represents the dead end of European rationalism of 18th century. While declaring in the preface to his “A Treatise of Human Nature” that he would remain faithful to the principle of empirical inquiry, throughout the course of writing his book, the book’s ultimate conclusion can be defined as follows: “The empirical observations cannot lead a researcher towards realization of objective properties of the subject of his research”. According to Hume, every scientific notion is based on irrational belief, which cannot be objective by definition: “The only reason we believe that fire if hot and that water is wet is because the opposite opinion, in this regard, would have cost us our reputation”. While criticising Christianity, Hume has failed to realise that the absence of God up in the sky does nor necessarily corresponds to the absence of God within, which can be explained by the fact that Hume lived in time, before Darwinian theory of evolution had effectively changed Europeans’ understanding of the concept of divine, as such that relates to the process of humans gradually attaining a status of semi-Gods, by the mean of biological evolvement.
As we have stated earlier, the philosophy of David Hume can hardly be thought of as having a value of “thing in itself”, because despite its complexity and intellectual refinement, it is not visionary. Hume had never experienced the moments of “instantaneous enlightenment”, as it was the case with Isaac Newton, for example, prior to him discovering the Law of Gravitation. This is probably due to the fact that, although he possessed a supreme logical ability, Hume lacked any other motivation to indulge in philosophising, besides the fact that he was striving to gain a literary fame. In its turn, this is more then anything else proves Hume’s wrongness, in regards to his existential scepticism. Philosophy’s value is reflected in the extent, to which it affects the surrounding reality – despite the sheer power of his intellect, Hume had proven himself incapable of coming to this seemingly simple conclusion.
Bibliography
Hume, David “A Treatise of Human Nature”. 2003. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. 2008. Web.
Russell, Paul “Hume’s Lucretian Mission: Is It Self-Refuting?”. The Monist, v. 90, no. 2, 2007, p. 182-99.
Tierney-Hines, Robert “Hume, Romance, and the Unruly Imagination”. Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, v. 47, no. 3, 2007, p. 641-58.