Philo of Science

DAVID HUME
Hume's Scepticism
David Hume extended and made consistent Locke's sceptical approach to the possibility of
a necessary knowledge of nature. Hume consistently denied that a knowledge of atomic
configurations and interactions-even if it could be achieved-would constitute a necessary
knowledge of nature. According to Hume, even if our faculties were fitted to penetrate into the internal fabric of
bodies, we could gain no knowledge of a necessary connectedness among phenomena. The most we could hope to
learn is that certain configurations and motions of atoms have been constantly conjoined with certain macroscopic
effects. But knowing that a constant conjunction has been observed is not the same thing as knowing that a
particular motion must produce a particular effect. Hume held that Locke was wrong to suggest that if we knew the
atomic configuration of gold then we would understand without trial that this substance must be soluble in aqua
regia.
Hume's denial of the possibility of a necessary knowledge of nature was based on three explicitly stated
premisses: (1) all knowledge may be subdivided into the mutually exclusive categories relations of ideas and
matters of fact; (2) all knowledge of matters of fact is given in, and arises from, sense impressions; and (3) a
necessary knowledge of nature would presuppose knowledge of the necessary connectedness of events. Hume's
arguments in support of these premisses were widely influential in the subsequent history of the philosophy of
science.

Subdivision of Knowledge
Hume maintained that statements about relations of ideas and statements about matters of fact differ in two
respects. The first respect is the type of truth-claim that can be made for the two types of statements. Certain statements about relations of ideas are necessary truths. For instance, given the axioms of Euclidean geometry, it could
not be otherwise than that the sum of angles of a triangle is 180 degrees. To affirm the axioms and deny the theorem
is to construct a self-contradiction. Statements about matters of fact, on the other hand, are never more than
contingently true. The denial of an empirical statement is not a self-contradiction; the state of affairs described could
have been otherwise.
The second point of difference is the method followed to ascertain the truth or falsity of the respective types of
statements. The truth or falsity of statements about relations of ideas is established independently of any appeal to
empirical evidence. Hume subdivided statements about relations of ideas into those which are intuitively certain and
those which are demonstratively certain. For example, the axioms of Euclidean geometry are intuitively certain;
their truth is established upon examination of the meanings of their component terms. The Euclidean theorems are
demonstratively certain; their truth is established by demonstrating that they are deductive consequences of the
axioms. Any appeal to the measurement of figures drawn on paper or in sand is wholly irrelevant. Hume declared
that though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain
their certainty and evidence.
The truth or falsity of statements about matters of fact, on the other hand, must be established by an appeal to
empirical evidence. One cannot establish the truth of a statement that something has happened, or will happen,
simply by thinking about the meaning of words.
Hume thus effected a demarcation of the necessary statements of mathematics from the contingent statements of
empirical science, thereby sharpening Newton's distinction between a formal deductive system and its application to
experience. Albert Einstein later rephrased Hume's insight as follows: as far as the laws of mathematics refer to
reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. Hume's demarcation placed a
roadblock in the path of any naive Pythagoreanism which seeks to read into nature a necessary mathematical
structure.

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Philo of Science

The Principle of Empiricism

Hume maintained that Descartes was wrong to hold that we possess innate ideas of mind, God, body, and world.
According to Hume sense impressions are the sole source of knowledge of matters of fact. * He thus echoed
Aristotle's dictum that there is nothing in the intellect which was not first in the senses. Hume's version was that all
our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions, or, in other words, that it is impossible for us to think of am,
thing, which we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or internal senses.
Hume's thesis is both a psychological hypothesis about the genesis of empirical knowledge and a logical
stipulation of the range of empirically significant concepts. Hume restricted empirically significant concepts to those
which can be "derived from" impressions." Thus stated, Hume's criterion is quite vague. Elsewhere in the Enquiry
(Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding), he suggested that the role of the mind in generating knowledge is
restricted to the compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing, of the ideas copied from impressions.
Presumably, any concept is excluded which is neither a copy of an impression nor the result of a process of
compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing. Concepts excluded by Hume himself include a vacuum,
substance, perduring selfhood, and necessary connectedness of events.
Hume's analysis has been interpreted as reinforcing Baconian inductivism, a tradition that perhaps owes as much
to Hume's epistemological investigations as to the counsel of Francis Bacon himself. Thus interpreted, Hume has
been held to claim that science begins with sense impressions and can encompass only those concepts which are
constructed somehow out of sense data. Such a view is consistent with the Method of Analysis, but not with
Newton's axiomatic method.
But although this reading of Hume has been influential it fails to do justice to the complexity of Hume's position.
For Hume acknowledged that the formulation of comprehensive theories, such as Newton's mechanics, is achieved
by a creative insight not reducible to a compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing of ideas copied
from impressions. What he did deny, however, is that any such theories could achieve the status of necessary truth.

Analysis of Causation
Bacon and Locke had discussed the question of a necessary knowledge of nature from a scholastic standpoint.
Both had recommended the study of the coexistence of properties. Hume shifted the search for necessary empirical
knowledge to sequences of events. He asked whether a necessary knowledge of such sequences was possible, and
decided that it was not. Hume held that to establish a necessary knowledge of a sequence of events one would have
to prove that the sequence could not have been otherwise. But Hume pointed out that it was not a self-contradiction
to affirm that although every A has been followed by a B, the next A will not be followed by a B.
Hume undertook to examine our idea of a causal relation. He noted that if we mean by a causal relation both
constant conjunction and necessary connection, then we can achieve no causal knowledge at all. This is because
we have no impression of any force or power by means of which an A is constrained to produce a B. The most that
we can establish is that events of one type invariably have been followed by events of a second type. Hume
concluded that the only causal knowledge that we can hope to achieve is a knowledge of the de facto association
of two classes of events.
Hume conceded that we do feel that there is something necessary about many sequences. According to Hume,
this feeling is an impression of the internal sense, an impression derived from custom. He declared that after a
repetition of similar instances, the mind is carried by habit, upon the appearance of one event, to expect its usual
attendant, and to believe that it will exist. Of course, the fact that the mind comes to anticipate a B upon the
appearance of an A is no proof that there is a necessary connection between A and B.
Consistent with this analysis, Hume stipulated definitions of `causal relation' both from an objective and from a
subjective standpoint. Objectively considered, a causal relation is a constant conjunction of the members of two
classes of events; subjectively considered, a causal relation is a sequence such that, upon appearance of an event of
the first class, the mind is led to anticipate an event of the second class.

Hume included among sense impressions desires, volitions, and feelings, as well as visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory
data.

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Philo of Science
These two definitions appear both in the Treatise (A Treatise of Human Nature) and in the Enquiry. However, in
the Enquiry, Hume inserted after the first definition the following qualification: or in other words where, if the first
object had not been, the second never had existed. Replacing the term object by event, which is consistent with
Hume's own usage, it is evident that this new definition is not equivalent to the first definition. For instance, in the
case of two similar pendulum clocks arranged to be go degrees out of phase, the ticks of the two clocks are
constantly conjoined, but this does not imply that if the pendulum of clock 1 were arrested, then clock 2 would cease
to tick.
Hume's inclusion of this qualification in the Enquiry may indicate that he was not quite satisfied to equate causal
relation and de facto regularity. Another likely indication of his uneasiness is the fact that he included in the
Treatise, tersely and without comment, a list of eight Rules by which to judge of Causes and Effects. Among these
rules are versions of the Methods of Agreement, Difference, and Concomitant Variations, later made famous by
Mill.
The Method of Difference, in particular, enables the investigator to judge causal connection upon observation of
just two instances. It would seem, in this case, that Hume contradicted his official position that we term a relation
causal only upon experience of a constant conjunction of two types of events. Hume denied this. He maintained
that although belief that a succession of events is a causal sequence may arise even after a single observation of the
sequence, the belief nevertheless is a product of custom. This is because the judgement of causal connection in such
cases depends implicitly on the generalization that like objects in like circumstances produce like effects. But this
generalization itself expresses our expectation based on extensive experience of constantly conjoined events. Hence
our belief in a causal connection invariably is a matter of habitual expectation.
Having thus accounted for the origin of our belief in causal connection, Hume was quick to point out that no
appeal to the regularity of past experience can guarantee fulfillment of our expectations about the future. He stated
that it is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the
future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Hence it is not possible to
achieve a demonstrative knowledge of causes from premisses which state matters of fact.
Hume thus completed a sweeping attack on the possibility of a necessary knowledge of nature. Such knowledge
would have to be either immediate or demonstrative. Hume had shown that no immediate knowledge of causes is
possible, for we have no impression of necessary connection. He also had shown that it is not possible to achieve a
demonstrative knowledge of causes, either from premisses which state a priori true relations of ideas, or from
premisses which state matters of fact. There seemed to be no further possibility. No scientific interpretation can
achieve the certainty of a statement such as the whole is greater than each of its parts. Probability is the only
defensible claim that can be made for scientific laws and theories.
Although Hume's scepticism was apprehended as a threat to science by those who were not satisfied with merely
probable knowledge, Hume himself was quite ready to rely on the testimony of past experience. On the practical
level, Hume was not a sceptic. He declared that custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle
alone which renders our experience useful to us ... Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant
of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses.
Source: John Losee, A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, 4th ed. (Oxford University Press, 2001).

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