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Hume's Defence of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Fred Wilson
Fred Wilson
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

It is incorrect to construe Hume as a Pyrrhonian sceptic. Or so I have argued elsewhere. To the contrary, Hume in fact offers a detailed defence of the thesis that the norms of scientific inference, that is, the “rules by which to judge of causes and effects”, are reasonable rules to follow in forming our beliefs. Conforming to these rules in its formation of causal beliefs is a strategy the understanding employs in order to satisfy the end of curiosity (T271). Science is reasonable because, so far as we can, within our fallible limits, discover, it is the strategy of belief formation that is the best means of achieving our end of truth, insofar as the latter is, within our fallible limits, attainable.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , Winter 1986 , pp. 611 - 628
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1986

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References

1 Wilson, F., “Is Hume a Sceptic with regard to Reason?”, Philosophy Research Archives 10 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “The Origins of Hume's Sceptical Argument against Reason”, History of Philosophy Quarterly 2 (1985)Google Scholar; “Was Hume a Sceptic with regard to the Senses?”, Journal for the History of Philosophy, forthcoming.

2 Wilson, F., “Hume's Defence of Causal Inference”, Dialogue 22/4 (1983), 661–694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Hume, D., Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge, L. A. (London: Oxford University Press, 1888), I,Google Scholar III, XV. Hereafter this work will be referred to as “T”.

4 Hume discusses the motive of curiosity in detail, TII, III, x.

5 For details, see Wilson, “Hume's Defence”.

6 Hume, D., Enquiry concerning Hainan Understanding, ed. Selby-Bigge, L. A. (2nd ed.: London: Oxford University Press, 1902), Section III, Part I.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Hume, D., The Natural History of Religion, ed. Root, H. E. (Stanford, C A: Stanford University Press, 1956), 27,Google Scholar 29. Hereafter this work will be referred to as “NH”.

8 Cf. Cleanthes' remark that “Religion, however corrupted, is still better than no religion at all”; for, “The proper office of religion is to regulate the hearts of men, humanize their conduct, infuse the spirit of temperance, order and obedience; its operation … only enforces the motives of morality and conduct.” Hume, D., Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, ed. Smith, N. Kemp (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1947), 219–220.Google Scholar Hereafter this work will be referred to as “D”.

9 Jones, Peter, Hume's Sentiments (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 1982)Google Scholar— hereafter referred to as “J”. I have discussed some aspects of Jones' book in a Critical Review of it in Nous 20 (1985).Google Scholar

10 Cicero, , Acadcmica, in vol. xvii of Cicero's Works in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914)—hereafter referred to as “A”; De Finibns, vol. xvii of Cicero's Works—hereafter referred to as “F”; De Natura Deorum, in vol. xvii of Cicero's Works—hereafter referred to as “ND”.Google Scholar

11 Árdal, P. A., “Some Implications of the Virtue of Reasonableness in Hume's Treatise”, in Livingston, D. and King, J., eds., Hume: A Re-Evaluation (New York: Fordham University Press, 1977), 157–162.Google Scholar

12 This notion of reason is, as Árdal insists, only implicit in Hume. For Hume, reason, in its most general sense, is “the discovery of truth or falsehood” (T458). More specifically it is identified with the use and deployment of arguments “from cause and effect” (T231, 266). That is, reason is a strategy for the discovery of truth or falsehood. And yet more specifically it is contrasted to superstition (T110–111, 271–272), so that reason is a strategy that is good or efficient in the discovery of truth. It is a strategy that is reasonable to adopt relative to the goal of discovery of truth or falsehood. It is this which makes judgments of virtue fundamental to Hume's philosophy. Ardal takes up this theme, but while he emphasizes the role of reason as a strategy, he makes Hume more a pragmatist than I think he is just by de-emphasizing the role of truth, that is, the discovery of truth or falsehood.

Wright, John (The Sceptical Realism of David Hume [Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1983[)Google Scholar in contrast emphasizes reason as that which aims to grasp truth, but mysteriously holds both that Hume claims we do not observe necessary connections (which is correct) and that Hume nonetheless holds that these exist and that reason aims at knowing them (which is incorrect). The result is an incoherent Hume, who cannot even think about what he aims to know (cf. F. Wilson, “Wright's Enquiry concerning Humean Understanding”, Dialogue, this issue) and who is a sort of rationalist with a pre-established harmony between human reason and its intended but unthinkable objects (cf. Ardal, P., “Critical Notice of Wright's The Sceptical Realism of David Hume”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 16 [1986], 157–162).Google Scholar Wright is correct in emphasizing against Ardal that reason aims at truth in the sense of a correspondence between our ideas and reality, but is wrong in failing to recognize that this reality consists only of the world which we know through sense experience— though, of course, the world we experience we also have good reason to believe contains unexperienced parts (TI32). The point is that these parts are like (generically at least, if not specifically [T68]) the impressions we experience, whereas the objective necessities of the rationalists are not among nor are like anything among the entities we experience.

On some of these points, cf. also Wilson, F., “Acquaintance, Ontology and Knowledge”, New Scholasticism 54 (1970), 1–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Effability, Ontology and Method”, Philosophy Research Archives 9 (1983), 419–470; and on Hume specifically, Wilson, “Was Hume a Sceptic?“.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

In the context it is perhaps also worth mentioning that reason is sometimes identified by Hume with a priori reason (T97, 157) and is then contrasted (T170) to causal reason which proceeds by “proofs and probabilities” (T124). In this sense, it is reason, and reason alone, that (T70) yields the sort of knowledge that is infallible and has that absolute certainty which causal reason, being fallible, cannot attain (T79–80, 165–166). This use of “reason” ties in with the traditional idea, deriving from Aristotle and passing down to and through Descartes, that knowledge must be scientia, and infallible. It was the effect of Locke's work to untie the connection between reason and infallible certainty, and make room for (what is contradictory in traditional terms) fallible knowledge or probable knowledge. Cf. Wilson, F., “The Lockean Revolution in the Theory of Science”, in man, S. Twey and Moyal, G., eds., Early Modern Philosophy: Epistemology, Metaphysics and Politics (New York: Caravan Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Hacking, I., The Emergence of Probability (London: Cambridge University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; and Wilson, F., “Critical Notice of Hacking's The Emergence of Probability”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 8 (1978), 587–597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

If this note has a moral it is that one must try to keep Hume's various uses of “reason” distinct. Most “Philosophy 100”—type discussions of Hume do not do this, and take “reason” to be the reason of the traditional rationalist scientia. As a consequence the traditional misreading of Hume as a Pyrrhonist is easily perpetuated.

13 Jones (J174), like Árdal, emphasizes the role of moderation in Hume's philosophy, both in morals and politics and in epistemology.

14 Hume, D., Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays, ed. Lenz, J. (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965)—hereafter referred to as “LE”.Google Scholar

15 Cf. Wilson, “Is Hume a Sceptic?”.

16 Cf. Hume, , Enquiries, 69, 73–75.Google Scholar

17 This is the point of Hume's first definition of causality (T172).

18 Cf. Wilson, F., “Hume's Theory of Mental Activity”, in Norton, D. F. et al., eds., McGill Hume Studies (San Diego, CA: Austin Press, 1979).Google Scholar

19 Popkin, R. H., “David Hume: His Pyrrhonism and his Critique of Pyrrhonism”, in Chappell, V. C., ed., Hume (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1966)— hereafter referred to as “P”;Google ScholarPassmore, J., Hume's Intentions (London: Duckworth, 1968)Google Scholar —hereafter referred to as “HI”; and Smith, N. Kemp, The Philosophy of David Hume (London: Macmillan, 1941)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Cf. Wilson, F., “Mill's Proof that Happiness Is the Criterion of Morality”, Journal of Business Ethics 1 (1982), 59–72,CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a proof that this principle is indeed the converse of ought implies can. I have shown how Hume defends accepting this principle in “Hume's Cognitive Stoicism”, Hume Studies, 1985 Supplement, 52–68Google Scholar.

21 Cf. Wilson, “Hume's Defence”.

22 Jones does not appeal explicitly to the must implies ought principle, but as I read the passages cited they jointly and cumulatively make the relevant points.

23 Lenz, J., “Hume's Defense of Causal Inference”, in Chappell, Hume; Capaldi, N., Hume, David (Boston, MA: Twayne Publishing, 1975)Google Scholar; Wilson, “Hume's Theory”, “Hume's Defence”. Also Wilson, “Hume's Cognitive Stoicism”.

24 Cf. Wilson, “Mill's Proof”.

25 Cf. Wilson, , “Hume's Theory”, and “Is There a Prussian Hume?” Hume Studies 8 (1982), 1–18.Google Scholar

26 Cf. Wilson, “Hume's Theory”.

27 Malebranche, N., De La Recherche de la Vérilé, ed. Rogin-Lewis, G. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1962Google Scholar —hereafter referred to as “R”.

28 Wright, The Sceptical Realism of David Hume, also emphasizes the connections of Hume to Malebranche.

29 Arnauld, A. and Nicole, P., The Art of Thinking, trans. Dickoff, J. and James, P. (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964Google Scholar —hereafter referred to as “AN”.

30 Cf. Wilson, “The Lockean Revolution”.

31 Cf. Wilson, “Critical Notice of Hacking”.

32 Cf. Wilson, “The Lockean Revolution”.

33 Cf. Wilson, “Acquaintance”.

34 I have defended this account of causation in detail in Wilson, F., Laws and Other Worlds (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Wilson, F., Explanation, Causation and Deduction (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Cf. Wilson, “Hume's Theory”.

36 Hume distinguishes a natural tendency as something essential or necessary (T484) and a tendency being natural as a malady is natural (T225–226). It is natural tendencies in the former sense that constitute Hume's naturalism, that is, the naturalism that provides the reply to the sceptic; tendencies which are natural in this sense of “necessary” provide the starting point of the must implies ought inference that we have discussed above. The rationalist idea of cause or of necessary connection is not natural in this sense. But it is natural in the other sense. The clear thinker can, in principle at least, keep the two definitions of “cause” distinct and not fall into the illusion of the existence of an objective necessary connection (T170); but there are tendencies in thought that lead the inattentive mind (which is what most of usare, most of the time) to fuse, that is, confuse the two distinct ideas of “cause” (T168–169). That most of us most of the time speak as if there were objective necessary connections—even Hume acknowledges that he so speaks (T273–274)—is thus understandable in naturalistic terms. It is natural as diseases are natural.

37 Recall Malebranche's jugements uaturels that “se font en nous, sans nous, et meme malgre nous” (RI, 52; italics added).

38 For greater detail, cf. Wilson. “Hume's Cognitive Stoicism”

39 Malebranche, however, does discuss the passion of curiosity; cf. RII, I4ff.

40 Wilson, “Hume's Defence”. See also “Mill on the Operation of Discovering and Proving General Propositions“, Mill News Letter 17 (1982), 59–72: andGoogle Scholar“Kahn and Goodman: Revolutionary vs. Empirical Science”, Philosophical Studies 44 (1983), 369–380Google Scholar.

41 Stroud, B., Hume (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), 91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Cf. Wilson, “Hume's Theory”.

43 Jones (J79) does discuss this essay, but he does not take up the points we shall be making.

44 Hume, D., History of England. 10 vols. (London: 1808–1810)—hereafter referred to as “H”.Google Scholar

45 Cf. fn. 8, above.

46 Hume, D., “Of the Original Contract”, in Essays Moral, Political and Literary (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), 464.Google Scholar

47 Cf. Wilson, F., Review of Jay Newman, Foundations of Religious Tolerance, Bulletin of the Canadian Association of University Teachers 30 (02 1984), 62.Google Scholar