Hume Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by faminconnue

Hume was grasped by "a new scene of though­t".
He was influenced by empiri­cism, especially in the thought that there are no innate ideas or externals structures and no necessary ethics

He wrote two works concerning human nature:
1. A Treatise of Human Nature, Being an Attempt to introduce the Experi­mental Method of Reasoning into Moral subjects (1739)
-> goal: become the Newton of the human sciences, to use the experi­mental method of the natural science to invest­igate human beings
2. Enquiry concerning Human Unders­tanding (1758)
-> goal: instead of justifying knowledge (Desca­rtes), he wants to invest­igate the nature and boundaries of human knowledge, to save us from the false claims of metaph­ysics and theology

causality is useful for expanding our knowledge of the external world and concerns matter of fact, and we learn causality through experience

However, since matters of facts are contingent causality could still be different; we can't see causality, only events
(i.e. just because the sun rose today and yesterday, does not guarantee it will rise tomorrow; cause does not guarantee effect)

Requir­ements for causality:
1.spatial contiguity
2.temporal contiguity
3. causation
4.simi­larity
→ we only see the 1 and 2
example: billard balls A and B
1. A touches B
2. changes in A happen simult­ane­ously with B
3. a necess­arily caused the movement B
4. this is how billiard balls move

According to Hume, there are two types of philos­ophers:
1. philos­ophers of action:
- they partic­ipate in life
- sentim­ent­/mode of expression is important: they are more focused on style (rather than content)
- strive to promote the notion of virtue
- were well-liked by the public
- not so concerned with argume­ntation
-> ancient example: stoicists

2. philos­ophers of reason:
- concerned with gaining an unders­tanding of the human being, rather than cultiv­ating the human being.
- try to find a foundation of knowledge in principles
- claim that abstract principles are unrelated to actual life
- lends itself to enduring error because willing to accept strange and unpopular ideas
→ ancient example: Socrates

Humes invest­igation starts with percep­tions, these percep­tions are divided into two main catego­ries:
1. impres­sions: are direct experi­ences of the world or reflec­tions of ourselves
2. ideas: are derived from impres­sions
-> Simple ideas come directly from simple impres­sions
->C­omplex ideas can be formed errone­ously; complex ideas can be formed by simple ideas (e.g. a pegasus comes from the idea of a horse and wings)

both ideas and impres­sions can either be simple or complex:
simple idea: e.g. the colour red
complex idea: e.g. an apple

Uniformity of Nature entails that "­things stay the same" and is required for induction, natural laws, and inductive empirical knowledge (aka any kind of causality)

But, Hume claims, uniformity of nature is a matter of fact which is contin­gent; so saying that things have been uniform in the past is circular
He argues that causality* is not in the world (as far as we know), but in us (custom and habit)
Hence, empirical knowledge are just expect­ations that allow us to live

the relati­onship between proble­mat­izing causality and the two types of philos­ophers:
Recent philos­oph­y/p­hil­oso­phers cannot get us anywhere and there are things that we cannot gain knowledge about (causa­lity)

According to Hume, man has a craving for knowle­dge­/sc­ience.
But, science is limited, and alone always leads to unhapp­iness
Hence, we need a better unders­tanding of the human being, as it will allow us to have a better appeal to virtue
-> we can gain this unders­tanding through anatomy and painting
A better unders­tanding will eventually save us from our tendency to do metaph­ysics

= the study of the human
it studies the human being's capacity to study and focuses on unders­tanding requir­ements, rather than debating positions

According to Hume, dogma (fixed beliefs) brings suffering, as it fixates us on things that are wrong or makes us spend time and worries on topics that are outside of our capaci­ties. (also known as problem of induction)
-> thus we should be sceptical

He was influenced in his scepticism by Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus:
-> we can only reach a state of ataraxia by suspending our judgement
-> while we are skeptic practical life and subjec­tivism remains: we can know about the human mind through research, we can find out what it means for us to know (partial scepti­cism)

Hume introduces two types of propos­itions:
- propos­itions concerning relations of ideas which are necessary but don't teach us anything about the world and can be either true or false
e.g. 1+1=2, a bachelor is unmarried, the ball is round
- propos­itions concerning matters of fact which are not necessary but teach us something about the world
e.g. it's raining today, the apple is red

3 principles of associ­ation of ideas
1. resemb­lance
2. contiguity of time and place
3. causation
-> causation is the strongest as it establ­ishes links between our present and past experi­ences and our expect­ations about the future

Hume claimed that from his research a few results followed:
- external world is no proper topic for science
- internal mind is a proper topic for science
- knowing the mind is being able to work the mind
- knowing the mind is limiting the mind for its own good