david humes

Hume’s begins by describing the different kinds of statements that we can know to be true, or the way we can justify certain statements. He explains the difference between “Relation of Ideas”, and “Matter of Fact”. In the simplest of definition Hume’s describes “Relation of Ideas” as statements that can be known with absolute certainty by thought and by definition. “Matters of Fact” can not be known with the same degree of certainty, and are not known by thought or definition but rather depend upon how things actually are in the world.

Hume’s argues against Induction: The principle of Induction teaches us that we can predict the future based on what has happened in the past. An inductive argument uses simple information to make a broader generalization that may be considered probable, however this allows inaccuracy in the conclusion. An example of an inductive argument would be to say: “Robert is a teacher. All teachers are nice. Therefore Robert is nice”. This is an assumption not a fact; we have no true reason to believe that “Robert” is nice, because we don’t know that all teachers are actually nice. Inductive arguments are based on past experiences and observations, making them not necessarily true.

This leads to Hume’s argument against the concept of causation. He believes that to think cause and effect are causally connected is not a valid way of reasoning. He claims that causation is a habit of association. We believe that because a certain cause has repeatedly happened followed by the same effect that when this cause occurs again the effect will continuously be conjoined in time. An example of this would be if I were to drop a pencil then we expect that it will fall on the floor. This assumption of causal relationshi...

... middle of paper ...

...ng them. However they do not tell us anything about the world, but only about how certain our ideas are related to other ideas. At best these claims can be known with a high degree of probability, but never with absolute certainty.

Overall Humes is saying that the things we know merely by thinking are simply logical truths that are in most senses “true by definition”. Claims about what really exists, about matters of fact, can never be justifies simply by comparing ideas, but depend instead upon sense experience. This ties into his overall argument that if what really exists is based on experience. Then experience would be used to expect what is to come, and that is not reasoning that is habit, and association through causality. In conclusion we can never really exspect anything to happen because we base the future on the passs and that is not logical reasoning.