A Treatise on Human Nature

David Hume

Umar Hashmi 20-10696

Uzair Gul 21-10688
David Hume - Who He Is

Scottish philosopher, historian, economist

Known for empiricism and skepticism

His work chiefly deals with philosophy conceived as the science of human nature

He builds upon the scientific method of Newton and the epistemology of Locke to construct his arguments
A Treatise of Human Nature (Abstract)

- Follows on from Locke

- Philosophical spirit — Empiricism

- Radical in the sense that he completely flips reason in favor of ‘custom’ as the main
guiding factor of human life

- This work is concerned chiefly with the ‘reasonings of cause and effect’
Definitions Hume uses

- Perceptions are things that are in the mind, whether these are passions, reasons,
general thoughts, usage of senses

- Two kinds: impressions and ideas

- Impressions are stronger, ideas weaker

- Ideas follow on from impressions

Hume’s premises

- Agrees with Locke that no ideas are innate, everything is experiential

- His usage is different from Locke’s, however

- Innate is used as things/impressions/ideas obtained directly from experience

- Things reveal themselves are impressions, but then gradually become thought
Hume’s premises (cont’d)

- To explain cause and effect, he says impressions are causes, ideas are effects

- Cause and effect are always linked

- Billiard ball example

- Three rules derived from the collision of two billiard balls

Contiguity in time and place, priority in a series of events, constant conjunction

Hume’s argument
- Although we can imagine what will happen if one ball is on a collision course with
another, this speculation is derived from experience and is based in history. The human
mind infers from either cause to effect or from effect to cause and all philosophy is
founded upon this inference with the exception of only geometry and arithmetics.

- Habit, thus, becomes the main feature of knowing.

- The belief that things will be uniformly the same

- Although he admits nothing can be proven, probable arguments are built on the
supposition that the future will conform to the past
Hume’s argument (cont’d)
- Thus, it is not reason, but custom or habit that determines our belief in the future
conforming, or resembling the past.

- The hypothetical case of Adam, a man devoid of any experience, is a case in point. He
would never be able to demonstrate that effect follows from cause or vice versa from
cognition.

- When the billiard ball hits the second ball, we just not imagine or conceive what will
happen, but also believe that it will, i.e. that the second ball will move surely and it could
not be otherwise

- Hume is thus also a skeptic

Belief
- Belief is based on experience as well, according to
Hume

- Very radical for his time, employed the inductive

reasoning in science for philosophical purposes
Hume is not, however, a denialist of belief, but of
certainty. He posits that the human mind works by
custom and habit rather than reason as it pertains
to cause and effect. Through this exercise, he
helped give birth to a new form of skepticism that
would prove very influential in the times to come.