David Hume's An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Have you ever wondered about the world beyond its original state? How we know that electricity produces a light bulb to light up or causes the sort of energy necessary to produce heat? But in the first place, what is electricity? Nor have we seen it and not we encountered it; however, we know what it can do, hence its effects. To help us better understand the notion of cause and effect, David Hume, an empiricist and skepticist philosopher, proposed the that there is no such thing as causation. In his theory, he explained the deliberate relationship between the cause and effect, and how the two factors are not interrelated. Think of it this way: sometimes we end up failing to light a match even though it was struck. The previous day, it lit up, but today it did not. Why? Hume’s theory regarding causation helps us comprehend matters of cause and effect, and how we encounter the effects in our daily lives, without the cause being necessary. According to Hume, since we never experience the cause of something, we cannot use inductive reasoning to conclude that one event causes another. In other words, causal necessity (the cause and effect being related in some way or another) seems to be subjective, as if it solely exists in our minds and not in the object itself.

Stephen Hume’s essay titled ‘The Spirit Weeps’ appeared in the Edomonton Journal and in some of the southeren newspapers between February and June 1988.The essay disscuss about the pathetic condition of Canadian aboriginals.The exhibition named ‘The Spirit Sings’conducted as a part of 1988 Winter Olympics shows the inhuman behavior of the officials towards aboriginals. The authorities were celebrating with the ruins of aboriginal culture. Colonization entirely damaged the culture and tradition of natives. Now they took the role of preserver and show their interest to materials rather than humans.Hume presents his views about the descriminations of authority towards the natives of Canada.

In chapter 11 Humes focuses on one of the greenest cities in the USA Portland, Oregon. In Portland everyone’s main focus is being green in some parts of the city there are more bicycle parking spots then there are parking spots for cars. Coming from a small time in Kentucky this is something I’m most definitely not familiar with since we have no bicycle parking spots. Humes talks about the many different ways to get around the city that doesn’t require a car, and the use of gasoline you can ride a bike, walk, or one of the cable cars. These are all green ways to help the environment while still allowing you to get out and interact with the city. Even with all of the green acts that our done in this city its still hard not to have trash and

Hume’s notion of causation is his regularity theory. Hume explains his regularity theory in two ways: (1) “we may define a cause to be an object, followed by another, and where all the objects similar to the first are followed by objects similar to the second” (2) “if the first object had not been, the second never had existed.”

     Knowledge is gained only through experience, and experiences only exist in the mind as individual units of thought. This theory of knowledge belonged to David Hume, a Scottish philosopher. Hume was born on April 26, 1711, as his family’s second son. His father died when he was an infant and left his mother to care for him, his older brother, and his sister. David Hume passed through ordinary classes with great success, and found an early love for literature. He lived on his family’s estate, Ninewells, near Edinburgh. Throughout his life, literature consumed his thoughts, and his life is little more than his works. By the age of 40, David Hume had been employed twice and had failed at the family careers,

     Hume analyzed the idea of causality by emphasizing the three demands that can be verified through observation. First he argued the aspect of constant conjunction. In this aspect, the cause and effect must be spatially and constantly existent. Secondly, he

One objection to Hume's definition of causality was written by a fellow (omit) named Thomas Reid. His problem with Hume's definition was that it led to absurd conclusions. The example Reid uses is one of night and day. Reid asserts that if one follows Hume's definition of cause, then one can postulate that day is the cause of night, and night is the cause of day, which goes on forever and is circular. Thus, by Reid's account, the definition of cause is absurd, and cannot hold (sp) any value.

In explaining Hume’s critique of the belief in miracles, we must first understand the definition of a miracle. The Webster Dictionary defines a miracle as: a supernatural event regarded as to define action, one of the acts worked by Christ which revealed his divinity an extremely remarkable achievement or event, an unexpected piece of luck. Therefore, a miracle is based on one’s perception of past experiences, what everyone sees. It is based on an individuals own reality, and the faith in which he/she believes in, it is based on interior events such as what we are taught, and exterior events, such as what we hear or see first hand. When studying Hume’s view of a miracle, he interprets or defines a miracle as such; a miracle is a

. Argument against identity: David Hume, true to his extreme skepticism, rejects the notion of identity over time. There are no underlying objects. There are no “persons” that continue to exist over time. There are merely impressions.

Most of an essays written by David Hume discussed a great deal with virtues, it had rarely mentioned to a happiness conception. Even though, some relevant issues in happiness was included in few last pages of the Treatise. The main original of happiness derived from our passion and its utility outcome.

Imagine you want some tea, so you put a kettle of water on the stove. You turn on the gas, and shortly after, the water boils. In looking at what just happened, can you say that turning on the gas caused the water to boil? Or instead, would you say that there were two events – gas going on, and water boiling – but there is no real connection between the two? This dilemma plagued Hume throughout his life, and Section VII of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding deals exclusively with the subject of necessary connection and causality. Typically, the tradition of causality – saying A causes B – has been held as such: A is prior to B; A and B are contiguous (close in time and space); A and B are constantly conjoined; and A and B are necessarily connected. Hume took issue with this last condition – to say that would be to say that A has the power to produce B, therefore stating a causal necessity. Hume instead endeavored to eliminate this fourth condition, and reduce it to the first three, and constant conjunction. Hume’s central thought is that all we get to find out about the world is regularity, one thing following another, and one thing following another again, and so we conjure up beliefs about what causes what – through constant conjunction. Helen Beebee, a professor of philosophy at the University of Birmingham, says Hume was trying to do away with the “the thought that we can know a priori just by reflecting on concept, just by reflecting on the nature of ideas,

Although Hume’s definition of necessity and its association to human actions seems to be progression well, his abrupt argument that constant conjunction between human motives and actions is problematic; therefore, making his whole argument thus far faulty. He states that any apparent

The ultimate question that Hume seems to be seeking an answer to is that of why is that we believe what we believe. For most of us the answer is grounded in our own personal experiences and can in no way be justified by a common or worldly assumption. Our pasts, according to Hume, are reliant on some truths which we have justified according to reason, but in being a skeptic reason is hardly a solution for anything concerning our past, present or future. Our reasoning according to causality is slightly inhibited in that Hume suggests that it is not that we are not able to know anything about future events based on past experiences, but rather that we are just not rationally justified in believing those things that

     Hume is an empiricist and a skeptic. He develops a philosophy that is generally approached in a manner as that of a scientist and therefore he thinks that he can come up with a law for human understanding. Hume investigates the understanding as an empiricist to try and understand the origins of human ideas. Empiricism is the notion that all knowledge comes from experience. Skepticism is the practice of not believing things in nature a priori, but instead investigating things to discover what is really true. Hume does not believe that all a posteriori knowledge is useful, too. He believes “all experience is useless unless predictive knowledge is possible.” There are various types of skepticism that Hume

Hume did not deny causation. He embraced it. But he did say that empirical methods could not logically prove its necessity, as observations only show a "constant conjunction" of events, a "regular succession" of A followed by B, which leads the mind to the inference of cause and effect. For Hume, causality is something humans naturally believe.