Paper PH

David  Hume  

Enquiry   Sec2ons  V  &  VII  

Sec2on  V   Skep2cal  Solu2on  of  These  Doubts  

Hume  asks  us  to  consider  what  a  man,  suddenly   brought  into  this  world,  would  conclude  based   on  his  first  experience  of  one  event  following   another.    

Sec2on  V  

Hume  argues  that  since  “the  par2cular  powers,   by  which  all  natural  opera2ons  are  performed,   never  appear  to  the  senses,”  and  it  would  be   arbitrary  to  conclude  based  on  one  succession   of  events  that  the  one  causes  the  other,  that  the   man  would  not  employ  his  reasoning  beyond   what  was  immediately  present  to  his  senses.    

Sec2on  V  

But  once  he  has  acquired  more  experience,  and   has  observed  a  constant  conjunc2on  of  two   objects,  he  immediately  infers  the  existence  of   one  object  from  the  appearance  of  the  other.    

Sec2on  V  

As  argued  before,  since  he  hasn’t  acquired,  in  all   his  experience,  any  idea  of  the  “secret  power”   by  which  one  is  aLended  by  the  other,  there  is  a   principle,  not  derived  from  a  process  of  the   understanding  or  argument,  that  determines   the  man  to  draw  the  conclusion.    

What  is  it?    

Habit  or  Custom  

It  is  habit  or  custom,  which  is  the  reason  behind   repe22on  of  any  par2cular  act  or  opera2on’s   producing  a  “propensity  to  renew  the  same  act   or  opera2on,  without  being  impelled  by  any   reasoning  or  process  of  the  understanding.”  

Habit  or  Custom  

This  is  not  the  ul2mate  cause  of  two  events   occurring  in  succession  (for  that  would  be   ascertainable  a  priori),  Hume  stresses,  but  a   principle  about  human  nature,  one  that  is  the   cause  of  our  conclusions  from  experience.    

Habit  or  Custom  

This  hypothesis,  Hume  thinks,  is  the  only  one   that  explains  why  “we  draw,  from  a  thousand   instances,  an  inference,  which  we  are  not  able   to  draw  from  one  instance.”    

Habit  or  Custom  

  Hume  concludes:  “All  inferences  from   experience,  therefore,  are  effects  of  custom,  not   of  reasoning.”  

“Custom,  then,  is  the  great  guide  of  human  life.   It  is  that  principle  alone,  which  renders  our   experience  useful  to  us,  and  makes  us  expect,   for  the  future,  a  similar  train  of  events  with   those  which  have  appeared  in  the  past.”    

“Without  the  influence  of  custom,  we  should  be   en2rely  ignorant  of  every  maLer  of  fact,  beyond   what  is  immediately  presented  to  the  memory   and  senses.  …There  would  be  an  end  at  once  of   all  ac2on,  as  well  as  of  the  chief  part  of   specula2on.”  

Hume  states  that  conclusions  from  experience   carry  us  beyond  our  memory  and  senses   legi2mately  only  if  some  fact  was  present  to  our   senses  or  memory,  from  which  we  are  allowed   to  make  those  conclusions.  

An  example  with  respect  to  the  senses:     a  man  may  not  conclude  that  a  desert  country   had  once  been  inhabited  by  sophis2cated   peoples  due  to  its  remains  of  “pompous”   buildings  unless  he  in  fact  saw  these  remains.    

Similarly,  with  respect  to  the  memory,  if  we   never  read  that  such  and  such  a  historical  event   happened  in  a  book,  we  would  not  have  the   requisite  tes2monial  chain  that  would  carry  us   up  through  eye-­‐witness  accounts  that  provide   the  founda2on  for  our  conclusion.  

Hume  says  that  our  conclusions  caused  by   custom  are  “the  necessary  result  of  placing  the   mind  in  such  circumstances”  and  are  “an   opera2on  of  the  soul,  when  we  are  so  situated,   as  unavoidable  as  to  feel  the  passion  of  love,   when  we  receive  benefits;  or  hatred,  when  we   meet  with  injuries.”  

“All  these  opera2ons  are  a  species  of  natural   ins2ncts,  which  no  reasoning  or  process  of  the   thought  or  understanding  is  able,  either  to   produce,  or  to  prevent.”  

Belief  

What  belief  is:     Belief  is  more  firm,  lively,  forcible,  and  steady  a   concep2on  of  an  object  than  what  the   imagina2on  is  ever  able  to  aLain  by  itself.    

Belief  

As  such,  since  belief  and  fic2on  can  share  the   same  contents,  yet  thought  does  not  confuse   them,  it  “is  evident  that  belief  consists  not  in  the   peculiar  nature  or  order  of  ideas,  but  in  the   manner  of  their  concep2on,  and  in  their  feeling   to  the  mind.”  

Belief  

So  beliefs  are  “something  felt  by  the  mind,”   which  dis2nguishes  them  from  the  fic2ons  of   the  imagina2on,  which  feeling  imbues  them   with  more  weight  and  influence,  makes  it  hard   to  forget,  and  renders  them  the  “governing   principle  of  our  ac2ons.”  

Belief  

So,  “sen2ment  of  belief  is  nothing  but  a   concep2on  more  intense  and  steady  than  what   aLends  the  mere  fic2ons  of  the  imagina2on,   and  that  this  manner  of  concep2on  arises  from   a  customary  conjunc2on  of  the  object  with   something  present  to  the  memory  or  senses.”  

A  reminder  of  the  three  principles  of   associa2on:     1.  Resemblance   2.  Con2guity   3.  Causa2on  

Resemblance  

With  respect  to  the  rela2on  of  Resemblance,   e.g.,  the  idea  of  a  friend  upon  seeing  a  picture  of   him  makes  the  passion  that  is  occasioned  by  the   idea  more  forceful  and  vigorous.  When  the   picture  is  not  of  him,  our  thought  is  not   conveyed  to  him.  

Con2guity  

Hume  says  “it  is  clear  that  distance  diminishes   the  force  of  every  idea.”  E.g.,  when  one  is  a  few   miles  from  home,  whatever  thoughts  rela2ng  to   it  come  to  one’s  mind  are  more  vivid,  than   when  one  is  few  hundred  miles  from  home.  

Causa2on  

E.g.,  the  son  of  a  friend  who  is  long  dead,  when   before  us,  revives  the  correla2ve  idea  of  his   father  more  clearly  and  vividly  than  if  he  hadn’t   been  before  us.  

Belief  

•  For  example,  when  we  throw  a  piece  of  dry   wood  into  a  fire  

•  it  “augments,  not  ex2nguishes  the  flame.”  

Belief  

This  transi2on  of  thought  proceeds  not  from   reason,  but  has  its  origin  in  custom  and   experience.  

Belief  

And  because  it  begins  from  an  object  present  to   the  senses,  “it  renders  the  idea  or  concep2on  of   flame  more  strong  and  lively  than  any  loose,   floa2ng  reverie  of  the  imagina2on.  That  idea   arises  immediately.  The  thought  moves  instantly   toward  it,  and  conveys  to  it  all  that  force  of   concep2on,  which  is  derived  from  the   impression  present  to  the  senses.”  

Belief  

Lastly,  since  custom  is  so  essen2al  to  basic   human  survival  needs,  Hume  argues  that  it  is   not  probable  that  it  could  be  a  species  of   reason,  reason  being  too  slow  for  the  opera2ve   quickness  needed  by  custom,  and  absent  in  a   child’s  early  years,  and  also  liable  to  error.    

Belief  

It  seems  to  comport  more  with  the  wisdom  of   nature  to  secure  this  act  of  the  mind,  so   essen2al,  in  some  ins2nct  or  mechanical   tendency,  which  is  infallible  in  its  opera2ons,   and  which  may  “discover  itself  at  the  first   appearance  of  life  and  thought,  and  may  be   independent  of  all  the  laboured  deduc2ons  of   the  understanding.”  

Belief  

This  is  comparable  to  nature’s  having  taught  us   the  use  of  our  muscles  and  limbs  without  giving   us  knowledge  of  the  muscles  and  nerves.  

Sec2on  VII   Of  the  Idea  of  Necessary  Connec2on  

The  chief  hurdle  to  improvement  in  moral  or   metaphysical  sciences  is  “the  obscurity  of  the   ideas  and  ambiguity  of  the  terms.”     Hume  says  that  in  metaphysics,  there  are  no   terms  more  obscure  and  uncertain  than  power,   force,  energy,  or  necessary  connec2on.  

Hume  reiterates  a  point  previously  made:  all  of   our  ideas  are  nothing  but  copies  of  our   impressions,  so  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to   think  of  anything  that  we  haven’t  antecedently   felt,  “either  by  external  or  internal  senses.”  

Since  complex  ideas  may  be  explained  by   enumera2ng  the  simple  ideas  of  which  they  are   composed,  yet  some2mes  these  simple  ideas   s2ll  are  ambiguous  and  obscure,  the  proper  way   to  throw  light  on  these  ideas  is  to  revisit,  to   “produce,”  the  impressions  or  original   sen2ments  from  which  the  ideas  were  copied.  

“To  be  fully  acquainted,  therefore,  with  the  idea   of  power  or  necessary  connec2on,  let  us   examine  its  impression.”  

Nothing  in  a  single  instance  of  cause  and  effect   suggests  the  idea  of  power  or  necessary   connec2on.  

This  is  the  general  point  made  before  that  the   sensible  quali2es  of  bodies  that  produce  ideas   of  sensa2on  in  us  are  complete  in  themselves,   and  do  not  suggest  any  other  ideas  outside   themselves,  and  thereby,  do  not  suggest  the   powers  or  principle  of  connec2on  in  them  that   we  take  to  link  them  to  their  effects.    

Hume  suggests  that  one  might  think  that  we  can   receive  ideas  of  power  or  necessary  connec2on   from  reflec2on  on  the  opera2ons  of  our  own   minds,  as  we  gain  ideas  of  power  or  energy  from   reflec2ng  on  the  simple  command  of  our  will,  by   which  we  “move  the  organs  of  our  body,  or   direct  the  facul2es  of  the  mind.”  

Hume  wants  to  examine  if  our  ideas  of  power  or   necessary  connec2on  come  from  internal   impressions.  

Even  there,  Hume  argues,  one  cannot  get  the   impression  of  necessary  connec2on,  as  the   influence  of  our  voli2on  on  the  organs  of  our   body  is  known  only  by  experience,  which   doesn’t  tell  us  what  the  powers  that  cause  it   are,  and  which  connect  them  to  the  effect   resul2ng  infallibly  in  voluntary  mo2on.    

      So  the  desired  analogy  to  the  will  doesn’t  work.  

The  principle  of  the  union  of  (supposed)   immaterial  soul  and  material  body,   and  how  one  exerts  influence  over  the  other,  is   the  most  mysterious  phenomenon  in  nature,   not  less  extraordinary  than  if  we  could  control   the  orbit  of  planets  just  by  wishing  it.  

If  we  could,  by  consciousness,  perceive  this   power  or  energy  in  the  will,  we  would  know  this   power,  and  how  it  connects  up  with  its  effect.    

We  would  also  know  the  “secret  union  of  soul   and  body,  and  the  nature  of  both  these   substances  by  which  the  one  is  able  to  operate,   in  so  many  instances,  upon  the  other.”      

But  we  evidently  don’t.  

Also,  if  we  knew  this  power  in  the  spirit,  we   would  know  also  why  though  we  can  move  the   fingers  and  our  tongue,  e.g.,  we  cannot  control   our  heart  or  liver,  e.g.  This  is  because  our   knowledge  of  these  maLers  is  based  on   experience,  not  any  process  of  the   understanding  or  reason.  

“Experience  only  teaches  us,  how  one  event   constantly  follows  another;  without  instruc2ng   us  in  the  secret  connec2on,  which  binds  them   together,  and  renders  them  inseparable.”  

The  preceding  establishes  that  “our  idea  of   power  is  not  copied  from  any  sen2ment  or   consciousness  of  power  within  ourselves.  …The   power  or  energy  by  which  [mo2on  is  effected  by   command  of  the  will]  is  unknown  and   inconceivable.”  

Occasionalists  

Hume  contrasts  the  “vulgar”  appeal  to  God   (deus  ex  machina)  to  explain  things  that  don’t   follow  the  usual  course  of  events  in  nature  and   the  Occasionalists  who  use  God  to  explain   everything  in  nature.  

Occasionalists  

“They  (Berkeley,  Descartes,  Malebranche)   acknowledge  mind  and  intelligence  to  be,  not   only  the  ul2mate  and  original  cause  of  all  things,   but  the  immediate  and  sole  cause  of  every   event,  which  appears  in  nature.”  

Deism  is  beLer  than  Occasionalism    

Occasionalism  diminishes,  “instead  of   magnifying,  the  grandeur  of  those  aLributes   which  [Occasionalists]  affect  to  celebrate.”  

Deism  is  beLer  than  Occasionalism    

Hume  says  that  it  is  more  befidng  of  the  Creator,   and  “argues  more  wisdom,”  for  him  to  “contrive  at   first  the  fabric  of  the  world  with  such  perfect   foresight,  that,  of  itself,  and  by  its  proper   opera2on,  it  may  serve  all  the  purposes  of   providence,  than  if  the  great  Creator  were  obliged   every  moment  to  adjust  its  parts,  and  animate  by   his  breath  all  the  wheels  of  that  stupendous   machine.”  

Occasionalists  

Hume  presents  two  arguments  against   Occasionalism.       First,  he  says  that  it  overreaches  the  limits  of   human  reason,  and  states  conclusions  that  are   too  remote  from  common  experience.  

Occasionalists  

Second,  he  thinks  that  Occasionalism  is  at  heart   an  argument  from  ignorance.    

Occasionalists  

But  if  we  use  God  to  explain  what  we  don’t   know  about  the  necessary  connec2on  of  mo2on   upon  two  bodies  due  to  our  ignorance,  we  also   have  to  appeal  to  something  else  to  explain  how   this  “supreme  mind”  operates  either  on  itself  or   on  bodies,  as  Occasionalists  say  he  does,  since   this  is  more  mysterious  than  the  problem  of   explaining  communica2on  of  mo2on.    

Sec2on  VII,  Part  2  

The  first  2me  we  see  a  billiard  ball  strike   another,  we  don’t  know  that  the  other  will  be   moved.  Thus,  when  we  observe  the  other   moved  by  the  impact,  we  only  think  that  the   one  event  was  conjoined  with  the  other,  not   that  it  was  connected.  But  afer  many  similar   instances  with  the  same  effect,  we  pronounce   them  to  be  connected.  

“When  we  say,  therefore,  that  one  object  is   connected  with  another,  we  mean  only,  that   they  have  acquired  a  connec2on  in  our  thought,   and  give  rise  to  this  inference,  by  which  they   become  proofs  of  each  other’s  existence.…”  

Conclusion  

Therefore,  we  have  only  a  very  weak   understanding  of  cause  and  effect,  on  which  all   our  reasonings  concerning  maLers  of  fact  or   existence  depend.  

Conclusion  

The  original  of  our  idea  of  cause  and  effect  is   simply  our  feeling  a  new  sen2ment  or   impression  of  the  customary  connec2on  in  the   thought  or  imagina2on  between  one  object  and   its  usual  effect.