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Note | Hume’s Skeptical Empiricism

Radical Skepticism

David Hume exhaustively criticized epistemology. He didn’t accept external things and the existence of the God as a cause of idea. He thought “Our perceptions can’t get out of our minds.” For John Locke and George Berkeley, experience is the path to catch ideas from the external world. But, by Hume, experience is movements themselves of ideas in a mind.

And Hume questioned identities of the world and personality, and their causality the basis of our ordinary life.

Perception, Impression and Idea

First, Hume called idea of Locke and Berkeley perception. And Hume divided perception into impression and idea.

Impression is perception has force and liveliness, and an original of idea , enters our senses, as a fondamental, original and vivid sensation in now and here. Idea is a copy of impression, remains in our minds.

Association of Ideas: Resemblance, Contiguity and Causality

Ideas reappear as a memory or an imagination. Ideas associate and unite each other, then make new impressions. Hume thought these associations or units are free also proper, and there is the universal principle of relation of ideasas resemblance, contiguity and cause and effect.

Ideas are produced by ideas and reflections called secondary impression. The process of impressions produce ideas, ideas produce impressions, and perceptions form themselves and develop continuously. This process of perceptions is experience of Hume.

Bundle of Perceptions

Hume thought perception is only certain thing. Also, even external object or personality isn’t a constant and unchangeable real existence.

Impressions which continue the same and changeless during our lives, isn’t exist. To observe internal of self, to deeply enter myself, we can grasp only perceptions of cool or warm, light and dark, love and hate, pleasure and pain. Hume stated “In any cases, we can’t grasp my self without perceptions in the least.”

For Hume, there is not a coherent mind or personality. Man is a bundle or collection of different perceptions in perpetual flux and movement, which succeed with an inconceivable rapidity.

Necessity of Cauality: Custum and Belief

Also Hume denied the objectivity of causality. There isn’t absolute necessity of unity of cause and result. Causality is only a subjective unity (one of a complex idea) based on custom (repetitions of experience). But by custom effects for imagination , we can infer another object from an object. Inference of causality is by the custom of mind. Causality is a connection of beliefs derive from custom, and is a kind of invention or fiction.

References

Jean-François Revel, Histoire de la philosophie occidentale (Nil Éditions, 1994)

Luc Ferry & Claude Capelier, La plus belle histoire de la philosophie (Éditions Points, 2014)

Roger-Pol Droit, Une brève histoire de la philosophie (Flammarion, 2008)

Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy (Simon & Schuster, 1972)

Nigel Warburton, A Little History of Philosophy (Yale University Press, 2011)

Roger Scruton, A Short History of Modern Philosophy (Routledge, 2002)

Gen Kida, History of Anti-Philosophy (Kodansha Academic Library, 2000)

Seiji Takeda & Ken Nishi, The First Histoty of Philosophy: To Think Profoundly (Yuhikaku, 1998)

Shigeto Nuki, Illustrated & Standard History of Philosophy (Shinshokan, 2008)

Shigeto Nuki, Philosophy Map (Chikuma New Books, 2004)

Sumihiko Kumano, The History of Western Philosophy: From The Modern Ages to The Present Day (Iwanami New Books, 2006)

Thierry Paquot & François Pépin, Dictionnaire Larousse de la Philosophie (Éditions Larousse, 2011)

Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Second Edition Revised), (Oxford University Press, 2008)

Robert Audi, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Second Edition), (Cambridge University Press, 1995)

Thomas Mautner, The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy (Second Edition), (Penguin Books, 2005)

‘Locke (A Very Short Introduction)’ by John Dunn, Oxford University Press

‘Locke: A Very Short Introduction’ by John Dunn is a short commentary on life, political thought and philosophy of John Locke.

Contents of each chapters are below.
First, in chapter 1, John Dunn introduces the life of Locke briefly with the process of his thought, the scientific situation in Europe and the political affairs in Britain. Three large movement affects thought of Locke. The first movement is he was familiar with Christianity. The second is career of the administration and finance. The third is the commitment to philosophical understanding, which made Locke to consider philosophical question of political authority and toleration, of ethics and the theory of knowledge.
In chapter 2, author comments political thought of Locke. Locke’s central conception of government is the idea of trust. Human beings can deserve each other’s trust, they help to hold together the community. Men are so aware of their need to trust one another and because they sense the aid which this concentrated power to execute the law of nature can offer to their lives.
And, in chapter 3, author summarized Locke’s philosophy of knowledge or epistemology. In the ‘Essay Concerning Human Understanding’, Locke attempted to show how men can use their minds to know what they need to know and to believe only what they ought to believe. Human beings are free, they must think and judge for themselves. Reason must be their last judge and guide in everything. Moral ideas were inventions of the human mind, not copies of nature. This contrast is the foundation in modern philosophical thinking of the presumption of a stark gap between facts about the world and values for human beings. The distinction between fact and value is both a product of Locke’s conception of human knowing and the subversion of his beliefs about human values.
Then, in ‘conclusion’, author concludes ‘for Locke the central truths about how men have good reason to live are just as independent of what at a particular time they happen consciously to desire’.

I think this book is not a introduction to John Locke and his philosophy, is a intermediate commentary on them. You must have some degree of preliminary knowledge of history, Christianity, political thought, history of philosophy and philosophy of John Locke. Comments of this book is entirely tough and unclear, and devote many pages to write background and surroundings of his philosophy. But this book helps you to develop a deep comprehension to Locke’s philosophy as second or third commentary.
The most valuable fruits I obtained by this book are I can grasp how Locke illustrated his system of epistemology, and understand Locke was a positive, optimistic, practical and religious thinker, he was not a negative, skeptical and Atheist thinker like David Hume.

Locke (Very Short Introductions)
John Dunn
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 31 July 2003
136 pages £7.99 $11.95
ISBN: 978-0192803948
Contents:
Abbreviations
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
1. Life
2. The Politics of Trust
3. Knowledge, Belief, and Faith
Conclusion
References
Further Reading
Index

‘Hume in 90 Minutes’ by Paul Strathern, Ivan R. Dee

‘Hume in 90 Minutes’ by Paul Strathern is a simple and brief introduction to David Hume and his empiricism philosophy. Former part of ‘Hume’s Life and Works’ comments Hume’s background and his solipsistic and skeptic view to the world and beings in ‘A Treatise of Human Nature’, and hid illness and private life. Later part of it describes from his public career, ethics and affairs of England, to the ambassador in France, his relationships with and influences to Rousseau and Adam Smith, and his end of life.
In ‘Hume, His True Successors, and Modern Science’, Strathern comments Hume’s epistemological thought impacted on the hypothesis based approach by Ernst Mach and the empirical proposition by logical positivism.
Strathern comments empiricist epistemology of Hume concisely as follows.
‘In Hume’s view, experience consists of perceptions, of which there are two types. “Those perceptions which enter with most force and violence we may name impressions; and, under this name, I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning.”’
‘He explains: “Every simple idea has a simple impression, which resembles it.” But we can also form complex ideas. These are derived from impressions, by way of simple ideas, but need not necessarily conform to an impression.’

This book is useful and interesting. Because Strathern comments splendidly Hume’s epistemology, ethics and political theory influenced to and were influenced by scientific, religious and political situations in his era. And his empiricist view to the world connected to today’s our view to the world.

Hume in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)
Paul Strathern
Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 15 August 2007
96 pages $9.95
ISBN: 978-1566632409
Contents:
Introduction
Hume’s Life and Works
Afterword
Hume, His True Successors, and Modern Science
From Hume’s Writing
Chronology of Significant Philosophical Dates
Chronology of Hume’s Life
Recommended Reading
Index