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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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October 1, 2007
by Kile Jones
Many Hume scholars throughout history have noticed a certain tension within Hume's epistemology. On the one hand Hume allows for 'natural beliefs' [1], such as the existence of an external world, causality, and inductive reasoning, while on the other hand he seeks to prove that all of these are without foundation or proper justification. How then does Hume balance this apparent difficulty? Does he think that these natural beliefs are tentative and useful only in a pragmatic sense, or does he think there is some natural warrant (though not enough) for forming these beliefs? Should we, in light of Hume's scepticism, conclude that these basic beliefs are more likely to be true than false, or the other way around? Early in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (which is the summary of his larger Treatise) Hume spends time discussing how custom is what drives us to expect future connections amongst sensible qualities:
After noting the process by which our mind expects similar connections amongst objects, Hume says something quite interesting:
What Hume seems to be indicating is that the expectant belief in future similarities amongst objects is necessary and unavoidable. Pflaum succinctly sums it up by saying "we cannot help judging". [4] This is because the mind is habitual and thus cannot help producing certain deliverances. These deliverances are what is now thought of as 'natural beliefs', because they are what the mind naturally produces under the circumstances of a seemingly uniform environment. What is interesting is that Hume spends the rest of his time attacking the notion that there is proper warrant for such beliefs, and concludes that such beliefs are only reducible to custom and habit. [5] Hume scholarship has had a field day attempting to situate natural beliefs within Hume's sceptical empiricism. Some have concluded that Hume was a sceptical realist (Strawson, Wright) because he not only speaks in a realist fashion, but acknowledges these beliefs to be foundational in all of our reasoning. Other more traditional Humeans (Winkler, Blackburn) have sought to show that these beliefs are only pragmatic and tentative at best, for Hume does not allow these beliefs to be warranted. To help clear up this issue, a few central Humean teachings must be laid out:
The first point seems simple enough; when Hume speaks about an external world or causality he seems to be assuming a realist epistemology. McBreen takes this to show Hume's inconsistency:
I am not of the opinion that because Hume (or anyone else) uses realist language that they must hold to a realist view of the external world. It seems perfect plausible that Hume uses realist language without actually believing that we can know anything positive about things like causality and a mind-independent external world. Just because one uses realist language and has natural beliefs does not mean that these beliefs are warranted, they could merely be pragmatic, improvable, or even illusory. This is not the place to get into debates over language and truth; suffice it to say that it is not a strong argument to say that Hume was a realist because he used realist language. The second point is widely accepted as the orthodox Humean criteria for knowledge. Since natural beliefs are not contained in one of these two ways of justification then it seems clear that Hume does not think of them as provable. A simple objection to this is that we directly experience causality and the external world and thus they can be verified by experience. Hume's response is simple: we do not experience causality or the external world directly; rather, it is mediated by senses and mental states. According to Hume we only directly experience our ideas of the world, which are copied from prior impressions. How accurately these ideas represent impressions cannot be known, and thus we are left trusting in our senses to deliver correct data. We can never step outside of our senses in order to objectively verify that our ideas and impressions are completely accurate and correspond perfectly with the external world. The way Hume puts it is that we can never "conceive a specific difference betwixt an object and impression" and thus that "any conclusion concerning the connexion and repugnance of impressions, will not be known certainly to be applicable to objects". [7] The third point follows directly after the second. Hume, as is well known, does not think that causality is observable; it is an inference from observing the constant conjunction of entities or events: "No object ever discovers, by the qualities which appear to the senses, either the causes which produced it, or the effects which will arise from it". [8] Neither is causality a relation of ideas, because it is not necessary; it is possible that nature could change her course and not remain uniform: "Let the course of things be allowed hitherto ever so regular; that alone, without some new argument or inference, proves not that, for the future, it will continue so". [9] So since causality, which is an inferred natural belief, does not fall under the criteria for justification than it is simply not warranted. Likewise with inductive reasoning; once induction steps from the observed to the unobserved, the present to the future, the particular to the universal, it ceases to fall under Hume's criteria for justification. This means that our natural belief in inductive reasoning cannot be proven as well. [10] Since Hume considers natural beliefs to be unavoidable and yet non-justifiable we must ask how they, as any belief, fit into an epistemological system. Specifically we must ask how Hume would handle them in light of his overarching empiricism. My past argument seems to fit better within a traditional interpretation of Hume's scepticism than any sort of realism. Yet it should be noted that because Hume, due to his criteria for knowledge, cannot justify natural beliefs, it doesn't necessarily force one to conclude that Hume was not a realist of some sort. It is only a defeater regarding any argument that says that because Hume regards natural beliefs as necessary that he must be a realist. If natural beliefs cannot be justified, than they are left in some form of epistemic neutrality (or basic scepticism), which means, that they could or could not be true. There is an objection to this made by Alvin Plantinga and others, which says that properly basic beliefs (i.e. natural beliefs) are justified on account of their privileged position: they are what is needed prior to any belief being justified at all. They are defined as 'basic' because they do not rely on other non-basic beliefs to establish their warrant; rather, non-basic beliefs require basic beliefs as their foundations. Plantinga defines basic beliefs saying that "if I believe a proposition A but do not believe it on the evidential basis of other beliefs I hold, then A is basic for me" [11], and that we "do not reason to them from other propositions, or accept them on the evidential basis of other propositions". [12] Basic beliefs include mental states and processes like memory, perception, induction, and necessary truths, all of which would fit nicely into Hume's natural beliefs. Although Hume never spoke about or responded to foundationalist arguments per se, his epistemological system has something to say about them. There is of course the traditional Cartesian demon argument which says that we cannot know whether our natural beliefs are justified because there is a possibility of something 'other' (God, demon, force) deceiving us into thinking that our mental faculties convey accurate information about the external world, when in fact they do not. This is not where I think Hume (let alone most modern philosophers) would wish to go in this discussion; it is much too extravagant. Another, more straightforward Humean critique could be that the idea of a 'privileged position' providing warrant is not truly satisfactory because it relies on probability. The argument would run as such: our cognitive faculties have been observed to convey accurate information (scientific, empirical, and logical) most of the time and up to this point; due to this they have ample warrant for assent. This is equivalent to saying that we cannot prove 100 percent that our natural beliefs are warranted but it is highly probable that they are. Hume was most likely aware of this kind of argument, being around many who argued for 'common sense' in this same fashion, and thus Hume's typical responses to them applies here. Probability relies upon the belief in the uniformity of nature, which cannot be proven because it makes a claim about the way the world will be in the future, and the future cannot be observed. You may respond by saying that the uniformity of nature may not be certain but is highly probable, but this is circular. If we are required to think of natural beliefs as probable and not certain than this claim of knowledge must be mitigated and proportionate to the evidence given thus far. A fair response to this seemingly stringent empiricism is that we cannot expect 100 percent certainty to provide warrant for any matter of fact. Stroud concludes something along these lines:
The question here is whether Hume thinks that in order for beliefs to be justified they must meet his strict logical and empirical criteria. Regarding matters of fact, can we warrant beliefs, specifically natural beliefs, by their probability of being true? Or, like Plantinga, does the fact that these beliefs are 'natural' provide them with intrinsic warrant? Wright, a New-Humean, takes Hume to be giving two unique answers to these questions: he says on the one hand "Hume does think that the existence of a natural belief provides some prima facie justification for that belief", but on the other hand Hume "does not think that such beliefs in themselves provide real insight into the nature of reality". [14] This seems like epistemic vertigo to me. What exactly is 'some prima facie justification'? If this means that Hume thinks of these beliefs as naturally assented to, then I am in complete agreement. Yet this does not handle the issue of warrant. It seems to me that Hume does not allow anyone to say with certainty that natural beliefs are warranted. Any contingent fact, in my reading of Hume, must be held to in proportion to its degree of probability (even though it cannot be justified). In matters pertaining to contingent fact there must always be openness to being proven wrong. This specifically applies to natural beliefs. Obviously Hume (though he takes them for granted, as we all do) does not think that natural beliefs are incorrigible, but on the other hand he knows that we must rely upon them in all of our acquisition of data. This seems to me to be a position between naïve realism and Pyrronism, one where Hume realizes that natural beliefs cannot be proven but can be tentatively assumed to be.
Notes: 1. This phrase was first coined by Norman Kemp Smith in The Philosophy of David Hume, Macmillan, 2005. 2. Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principle of Morals, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge and P.H. Nidditch, 3rd edition (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1975) pg 46. Hereon referred to as EQHU&PM. 3. Ibid, pg 45, Italics mine. A few other statements similar to this one are: "I may, nay I must yield to the current of nature, in submitting to my senses and understanding; and in this blind submission I show most perfectly my sceptical disposition and principles" (T 269), and "thus the sceptic…must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, tho' he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity. Nature has not left this to choice" (T 187). 4. Pflaum, K.B., "Hume's Treatment of Belief," published in David Hume: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, Routledge, 1995, pg 167. 6. McBreen, Bernard, Realism and Empiricism in Hume's Account of Causality, Philosophy, 82, 2007, pg 427. 7. Hume, David, A Treatise on Human Nature, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge and P.H. Nidditch, 3rd edition, (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1975) pg. 241. 8. EQHU&PM, pg. 27, Italics mine. Hume makes a similar comment a few pages later: "the particular powers, by which all natural operations are performed, never appear to the senses" (pg 42, Italics mine). 10. As is well known Hume is credited for reviving the now famous 'Problem of Induction' where he shows that when we attempt to justify inductive reasoning we use inductive reasoning, and thus end up in vicious circularity. This does not mean that inductive reasoning cannot be highly probable, only that it is not certain knowledge. 11. Plantinga, Alvin, Warrant: The Current Debate, Oxford University Press, 1993, pg 70. 12. Plantinga, Alvin, Warrant and Proper Function, Oxford University Press, 1993, pg 61. 13. Stroud, Barry, Hume, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, pg 57. 14. Wright, John, The sceptical realism of David Hume, Manchester University Press, 1983, pg 39. © 2007 by Kile Jones. Published with permission of the author. Kile Jones lives in Glasgow and studies epistemology, analytic philosophy, and religious epistemology. He holds a B.A. in theology, a Masters of Theological Studies from Boston University, and is a Ph.D. in philosophy candidate at the University of Glasgow. Visit his website at www.kilejones.com.
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