Study Questions for Test Part Three: Hume

On his deathbed, what was Hume's response to Boswell's question?

" Yes, it is possible that the soul is immortal. It's also possible that if I toss this piece of coal into the flames of that fire, it will not burn. Possible, but there is no basis for believing it- not by reason, and not by sense perception, not by our experience.

What are Hume's three principle targets in his attack against religion?

1)The rationalistic proofs of the existence of God which the medieval theologians had developed, and which we found Descartes using after he had established the Cogito 2)Deism, the rational theology which was currently attracting most of the philosophers and theologians of Hume's day-in London, Edinburgh, Paris, and in the new colonies which were to become the US of America 3)The traditional religious belief in miracles.

Why does Hume believe that people accept the argument from design?

1. they learned these beliefs in early childhood 2. by the process of socialization they continue to hold them

What is Hume's definition of the idea of the cause and effect relation?

A cause is an object in constant spatial and temporal conjunction with another such that the experience of the one compels the mind to expect the other.

What is Hume's fundamental principle?

All our simple ideas in their first appearance are derived from simple impressions which are correspondent to them and which they exactly represent

Why do empiricists reject Descartes

All the empiricists rejected what they came to call Cartesian ism- The rationalistic building of great deductive systems of philosophy purporting to have grasped by the powers of reason alone the nature of total reality- man, nature, and god - and to have achieved complete mathematical certainty in this knowledge by the use of logical deduction from self-evident axioms.

What was Berkeley's day job?

Bishop of Cloyne

Why is causal necessity not an objective relationship but a subjective compulsion?

Casual necessity has no source in sense impressions but only in the laws of our own psychology

How is it that relations of ideas are analytic propositions?

Certainty is the exclusive property of analytic propositions, propositions about formal relations of ideas

Why does Hume reject Aquinas' argument from design?

Deism

What is the relationship between Newton's worldview and Descartes' mechanism?

Descartes', Kepler, and Galileo had shown the power of human reason to penetrate the laws of nature. But their discoveries had been limited to specific areas only. Could mathematical physics explain the whole of the physical universe and not only isolated parts? Newton proved that it could.

Why can experience never give us the idea of necessary connection between cause and effect?

Each impression is a separate experience

Where was David Hume from?

Edinburgh, Scotland

According to empiricists, what is all knowledge based upon?

Empiricism is thus basing knowledge upon the senses, upon the flux of the sensible world, which the two great rationalist, Plato and Descartes, rejected as an inferior way of knowing.

Why is empiricism an epistemology and not a metaphysics?

From the very early days of empiricism in the work of John Locke, empiricism shows itself to be deliberate and defiant rejection of philosophic rationalism, especially of Descartes

Why do we think that a particular cause must necessarily have a particular effect if we cannot know this by reason?

He restricts reason to the areas of mathematics and logic

According to Hume, does human life seemed designed or orderly?

Hume's analysis of causality showed that the casual order within the universe is nothing but constant conjunction of our impressions

What is the relation between impressions and ideas?

Impressions enter our consciousness with more force and violence, ideas are only images of our impressions which occur in our thinking, reasoning, and remembering.

How does Berkeley call upon God to solve problems in his philosophy?

In his philosophy

Describe how Isaac Newton's work was the greatest achievement of the Enlightenment era.

It was so tremendous a work of synthesizing the scattered fragments of existing knowledge in astronomy and physics under a few simple principles that it stands forth as one of the greatest scientific achievements of any age.

Name the three most important British empiricists

John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume

What is Hume's opinion of metaphysics?

Metaphysics must be shown to be pretentious nonsense, along with the doctrine on which it rests

What are impressions?

Our immediate sensations, passions and emotions, the immediate data of seeing, touching, hearing, desiring,loving,hating

What is Hume's opinion of rationalistic knowledge?

Philosophers who foist this notion upon a gullible public are guilty of fraud and deceit. Metaphysics such as that pf Plato or Saint Thomas or Descartes is the product, says Hume, of "rash arrogance," "lofty pretensions," and of "superstitious credulity" on the part of those who believe them.

What was the most important principle of the Age of Enlightenment?

RAtionalism, as we have already seen is the claim that reason is the most important source and test of truth

According to Locke, what is the rubbish the philosopher removes?

Rationalistic rubbish, of course, such rubbish as Plato and Saint Thomas and Descartes wrote.

What was the period from 1650-1770 known as?

The Age of Enlightenment/ The Age of Reason

What are perceptions?

The contents of consciousness in general

Why does Hume claim that we cannot say that substances exist?

The idea of substance is nothing but these qualities which we experience. We cannot, therefore, say that substance exist.

According to John Locke, what was the law of nature for human beings?

The law of nature for human beings, John locke argues, was that all human beings are rational, all are equal, in possessing the same natural rights of life, liberty, and property, and the same obligations not to infringe upon the rights of others.

How does Hume describe the mind?

The mind is a kind of theater, where perceptions successively make their appearance, pass and re-pass, glide away and mingle in a infinite variety of postures and situations

How is it that propositions of matters of fact are also synthetic propositions?

The truths of mathematics assert relationships between ideas, between abstract symbols. They are formal abstract truths. They tell us nothing about matter of facts, and on the other had, matters of fact cannot refute them.

What are our sense impressions of God?

They tried to prove God exists as the only possible cause of my idea of him and of my existence as a thinking substance. But we have no sensory impression of God as cause, nor do we have any impressions of thinking substance as effect.

Why is a miracle a kind of self-contradiction?

To claim a miracle has occurred is to stand in opposition to all human experience, to all scientific knowledge, to all of the orderly and constant conjunction of human impressions.

During his lifetime, what was Hume famous for writing?

Treatise of Human Nature

Are we able to know the ultimate nature of reality?

We can never know the nature of ultimate reality

What was Hume's breakthrough?

Why not extend this view, that moral beliefs are neither divine nor rational but only express our feelings, to all our beliefs?

What does Hume mean by "bundle of perceptions"?

a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.

What is the difference between simple and complex impressions and simple and complex ideas?

a simple idea with a complex impression- consisting of many sensations a simple-idea with complex ideas- corresponds in all its details to the original complex impression

How does Hume define a miracle?

a violation of the laws of nature by a divine, supernatural being.(i.e. a man coming back from the dead)

What does the term "blank tablet" or "tabula rasa" mean?

an absence of preconceived ideas or predetermined goals; a clean slate

What is Hume's most original contribution to philosophy and his greatest influence?

analysis of the cause-effect relationship

What are ideas?

are copies of faint images of impressions, such as we have in thinking about or recalling any of our immediate impressions.

What is the only test of truth for empiricism?

began with observation facts, with the data of sensory experience aided by new scientific instuments.

How are we misled into belief that we are each separate, single selves?

by memory

From what impression do we derive the idea of necessary connection between cause and effect?

by necessary connection is meant the relation between cause and effect in which the cause necessarily produces the effect.

Why does Hume reject the arguments of Aquinas, Anselm and Descartes?

cannot prove anything about existence, about matters of fact. It can only offer only logical, and mathematical, proofs, it can tell us only about relations of ideas. The existence of god is not a self-evident idea, nor a logically demonstrable truth.

What is the nature of all our reasoning about matters of fact?

casual reasoning, scientific reasoning

What were the sources of the self-confidence of this period?

celebration of human reason,rapid growth, vitality, and progress of the new sciences

What three relationships must be present in our everyday idea of cause and effect?

contiguity, temporal priority, necessary connection

What distinguishes an empiricist epistemology from a rationalist epistemology?

empiricism- re guards observation by the senses as the only reliable source of knowledge. rationalism- a theory of the method used by the new sciences, the most important intellectual development of the modern world.

Why are relations of ideas only trivial knowledge?

empiricists maintain that no synthetic proposition can have certainty.

Why do we believe in the universality of cause and effect relations?

everything must have a cause, that nothing is uncaused, that something cannot come from nothing

What is the one source of all our ideas?

experiences

If material substances do not exist, what sort of mental substances exist?

finite minds and also in form of God as infinite mind

Where does the idea of necessary connection come from?

from the mind

What are the sensory impressions of relations between objects from which the idea of cause arises?

impressions of two kinds of relations between objects

According to Hume, where are the roots of religion found?

in human feelings

Berkeley's famous dictum esse est percipi (being is perceived) means that the existence of physical substances is only in their being perceived. How is Berkeley's empiricism more radical than Locke's?

is more radical than Locke's in that Berkeley destroys the belief in the existence of physical substance to which Locke was still clinging

Why is metaphysics impossible?

it attempts to transcend the limits of our understanding, to know that which we cannot know, that of which there are no possible impressions.

Why is science impossible?

it cannot provide objective casual explanations of events or predict the future, since there is no justification for assumption that regularities observed in the past will continue in the future.

What is the only kind of knowledge, according to Hume?

knowledge by sense perception

What are the two kinds of knowledge according to Hume? Why can neither of them move us to action?

knowledge of relations of ideas as in the formal, abstract statements of mathematics and logic; and knowledge of matters of fact which is derived from sense impressions.

What is the outcome of Hume's driving, consistent empiricism?

leads to the conclusion that we have no knowledge. We cannot know that any scientific law will be true in the future, no matter how often it has been confirmed in the past.

What do propositions of matters of fact consist of?

mathematics and logic

How is it that relations of ideas are the domain of certainty?

mathematics gives us absolutely certain knowledge

Which one is most important?

necessary connection

How did Francis Hutcheson influence David Hume?

new scene of thought which led him to feel that he was the master, conqueror, and destroyer of all past philosophy. Our moral beliefs rest only on our feelings, our sentiments of approval or disapproval.

Why can no miracle be an adequate foundation for religion?

no human testimony can have enough force against the bulk of human experience of the laws of nature to prove that a violation of these laws has occurred, that is, to prove a miracle.

What is Hume's conclusion concerning necessary connection?

no impression, no idea- the idea of a necessary connection between causes and effects is worthless as knowledge and is meaningless, a fraud, nonsense

What are the atomic elements of our experience?

of distinct and separable impressions and ideas, each an atom constituting our experience.

What is the most powerful connection between our ideas?

of the three laws of ideas, the association or connection of ideas by cause and effect is the most powerful connection between our ideas

Where do our scientific laws have their source?

only in feelings

According to the empiricists, how did Newton's scientific method proceed?

only on the basis of the order which he discovered by observation of the data of experience was Newton able to construct a logical system out of the laws he discovered.

How did Hume's philosophy combine ideas from Locke, Berkeley and Hutcheson?

our best knowledge, our scientific laws, are nothing but sense perceptions which our feelings lead us to believe. Therefore it is doubtful that we have any knowledge; we have only sense perceptions and feelings

According to Hume, what is it that does move us to action?

our desires, feelings, sentiments, the prospect of what will give us pleasure or pain.

How is this an indictment of innate ideas?

people can learn to understand such ideas does not mean that such ideas have to be born with them, or be innate in them, but only that human beings are rational and are capable of learning

How did the age of Enlightenment or Age of Reason perceive itself?

perceived itself as a time in which human reason was shedding its great light upon nature and humanity, banishing the darkness of the middle ages with its scholastic philosophy, religious dogmatism, and political absolutism

What is the most important source and test of truth for rationalism?

reason

What does Hume mean by saying reason is the slave of the passions and should serve and obey them?

reason provides the means, the instuments or devices, for gaining what the passions desire; he isists that reason cannot criticize my motives, it cannot find fault with the passions and feeling which move me to act, no matter what they are.

What does "necessary connection" mean?

relation is of much greater importance than any of the other two

What are the three laws of the association of ideas?

resemblance, contiguity, cause and effect

What are the natural rights of human beings?

same natural rights of life, liberty, and property, and the same obligations not to infringe upon the rights of others.

What is the fundamental principle of empiricism?

sense perception is the only reliable method for gaining knowledge and for testing all claims to knowledge.

According to Berkeley, what is my actual experience of substance?

sensory qualities of of material substance

From what impressions does the idea of substance arise?

the answer cannot claim to be from and impression of substance, but only from impressions of qualities we experience, such as qualities as size, shape, color

What is ethics or moral philosophy?

the branch of philosophy which is concerned with the meaning of good and evil, of right and wrong action.

How does Locke also take over the subjectivism of Descartes?

the chasm or gap between my own mind with its ideas and the physical objects and human beings to which my ideas refer, and which are external to me, in the physical and social world.

Why does Hume reject the idea of a fixed self?

the idea of a self which is permanent, identical, continuously the same must be derived from an impression that is permanent, identical, continuously the same. It cannot,therefore, be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is derived; and consequently there is no such idea

From what impression does the idea of cause come?

the idea of causation must arise in the mind from the way in which objects are related to each other

Is there rational proof of the causal principle?

the rationalists have not shown, he says, that the causal principle is absolutely certain, self-evident to reason, and needs no further proof, as is the case with propositions like 2+2=4

What is the crucial concept in all our thinking about factual matters?

the relation of cause and effect

Inspired by Newton's discoveries, 18th century philosophers moved on to a new model for philosophy. What were their goals?

the search for order, harmony, and lawfulness in all of nature physical and human.

According to empiricists, what is the limit of knowledge or what sort of information is it that we can't know?

there perhaps limits as to what the mind can know, limits set by the origins of its ideas, limits as to the certainty it can acheive.

What is the foundation of all knowledge, according to Hume?

to study the science of man, the science of human nature

What are the limits of our knowledge of the world of facts?

we are limited to our atomistic impressions and the

Is it possible to know anything of which we have not had a prior sense experience?

we cannot know anything which we have not had a prior impression of in sensory experience.

Why does Hume claim that substance, mind, and self all have no meaning?

we find that there are no impressions of any of them(substance,mind,self), but only of particular qualities which we experience. And so these words, substance, mind , self, have no meaning, since they come from no impression.

What meaning does the term "constant conjunction" have for Hume?

we have the idea of a necessary connection between a particular cause and effect after we experience their conjunction repeatedly