David Hume

Hume believed that causation is a human fallacy created in our mind based on perception and probability. Hume said that everything we know is based on knowledge gained through experience and we are born without any prior knowledge, like Locke’s Tabula rasa theory. His causation theory said that if a human experienced a cause and effect a number of times then they will believe that the same result occur every time the object interact, but he questions whether the cause brought about the connection. For example Chris gave the example of a billiard ball, when the white ball hits a red ball we believe that the white ball will cause the red ball to move away from it by transferring force. But this is only because this is all we have experienced, Hume argues that the balls could stop dead, or that the white could hit the red and bounce off; just because we believe the white to cause the red to move does not mean it is so. 

This is Hume’s main thought on causation, this it is built up from experience, which makes up believe that there is a relationship between causation and the reality of what has happened. He also believes that the expectation of an object to constantly act the same way is foolish, for example you should not expect the sun to rise every day just because it has done all the days before, although it is very probable it does not mean it is infallible but instead could just be a random occurrence.

Hume expands on Locke’s idea of induction and reflection in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by discussing how the impressions of the properties of objects affect the way in which we react to them. Hume said that when we have an experience our mind will break the object down into its simplest impressions and once this has happened we can use these impressions to create and build new ideas. Hume said that there are 4 ways in which our mind can manipulate impressions, these are: 

• ·         Compounding:  Man + Wings = Angel
• ·         Transposing: Woman + Fish = Mermaid
• ·         Augmentation - Making things larger
• ·         Diminishing - Making things smaller

These ways in which our mind manipulates experiences allows us to have an imagination and create new ideas based on past experience, but if there is no past experience then the idea cannot be synthesized. He gives an example of a man who has seen every shade of blue bar 1, if he is shown all the shades of blue he will be able to see that one shade is missing but because he had no experience of this colour he cannot synthesize the idea of this missing colour.

Hume’s ideas about self and knowledge are in direct opposition to Descartes, who believes I think therefore I am, so everything comes from this idea of self. Hume rejects this argument and said that within a person there isn’t such a thing as a self or prior being, there is just the impressions which have come from the persons senses and the ideas that they have synthesized from these impressions.