APSS1A02 Introduction to Western Theories of Human Nature

Lecture Six
Enlightenment Philosophy (2):
Hume and Kant
 Reactions to Cartesian
rationalism:
David Hume’s empiricism
 Empiricism

• ‘The view that all knowledge is based on or

derived from experience.’ (Penguin Dictionary of
Philosophy, 1999)
Hume’s major philosophical works

• A Treatise of Human Nature

• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
• An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
• Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

David Hume
(1711-1776)
Main Issues in Hume’s Philosophy

• The psychological foundation of knowledge

• The analysis of causation
• The limits of reason
• Customs as a guide to knowledge and morality
 Hume’s analysis of causation

• Knowledge of the world is grounded in the

assumption that things have causal relationships.
• On Hume’s account, when we say ‘C causes E’,
we mean:
1. C and E are temporally and spatially continuous with
each other;
2. C happens before E;
3. C and E are ‘necessarily connected’ with each other, i.e.,
one happens whenever the other happens.
 Constant Conjunction

• But we can never observe ‘necessary connection’,

because we never see things in the future.
• Thus, causation is the relation between two types
of things which are ‘constantly conjoined’.
 Hume’s explanation

• Case 1: C1 happened. E1 happened.

• Case 2: C2 happened. E2 happened.
• Case 3: C3 happened. E3 happened.
• Case 4…
• If we constantly observe similar cases like these,
we will naturally ‘imagine’ that C (as a type of
event, not token) is the cause of E.
 Is human nature rational?

• People have to live with their ideas about

knowledge, goodness and beauty; but all these ideas
are all derived from the customs of imagination.
• These customs are merely facts of our human
psychology.
• So our nature can only be defined by our
psychological nature: we are less rational than Plato
and Descartes thought.
 Critical philosophy:
Kant’s synthesis of rationalism
and empiricism
 Kant’s response to Hume
• If knowledge is derived from
experience, it cannot have
certainty.
• But it is undeniable that some
knowledge is absolutely
certain but not derived from
experience.
• Absolute certainty is founded
Immanuel Kant
on the structure of human
(1724-1804)
cognition.
What do we know about the world?
• Kant makes a distinction
between two kinds of reality:
1. Noumena:
Noumena
• things-in-themselves
2. Phenomena
• things as they appear to
us
• Only (2) can give us certain
knowledge.
Pheno
mena
 The grounds of scientific
knowledge
• Kant argues that we can know nothing about the
noumena; and yet the phenomena necessarily
appear to us in certain manners, and this is in virtue
of the human cognitive structure.
 But moral knowledge is different
In the world of experience,
But we can at least conceive a
humans can be selfish,
world where people are guided
emotional, or outright irrational.
by reason to treat others as
There’s no guarantee that the
observed human nature will guide
equals. I call this ideal world
them to follow the same moral ‘the kingdom of ends.’
law.
 Human nature as a synthesis of
sensibility and reason

In searching for scientific But in searching for the moral

knowledge, I relies on law, I must leave the
sensory experience and empirical world, and rely only
on reason to work for an ideal
the guides of pure
of the perfectly equal society.
concepts (logic).