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2 David Hume’s Theory of Knowledge ( ) Scottish Empiricist

3 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Foundation of all knowledge is in sensory experience

4 Can we have certain knowledge? YES!

5 Relation of Ideas How our ideas relate to one another Analytic Truths Tautologies Mathematical Truths

6 Always can involve a contradiction “An unmarried man is not a bachelor” Why is this a contradiction? Because of how we define the terms

7 All other knowledge?

8 Matters of Fact Synthetic Truths Never can involve a contradiction We can only have a high degree of probability

9 Example “The sun will rise tomorrow”

10 2 Types of Perceptions

11 Impressions From sense data of of mind independent reality

12 Thoughts / Ideas From Our memory of ImpressionsorImagination

13 Difference between the two? Impressions are more lively than thoughts or ideas

14 Example Which is more lively: Actually burning your finger or The memory of burning your finger?

15 Empirical Criteria of Meaning 1. All meaningful ideas must be traced back to sense impression (Experience)

16 2. Ideas and beliefs that cannot be traced back to sense impression (experience) are meaningless

17 Example A golden mountain A unicorn God

18 How would you explain color to a blind person? You can’t They have no impression reference

19 Cause and Effect

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21 Cause and Effect Cannot be traced back to impressions It involves no contradiction

22 For Example Let’s take the sentence: “X causes Y” Where X and Y are both events

23 X is the event of billiard ball A striking billiard ball B Y is the event of billiard ball B moving after being struck

24 Question: Is the sentence “X causes Y” analytic? That is to say, is the sentence “X does not cause Y” a self-contradiction? Like: “A unmarried male is not a bachelor”

25 Answer: NO! This sentence is not analytic!

26 Is this sentence synthetic? It seems that the answer will be yes because this is the only alternative But Hume had a problem with this answer too!

27 When he analyzed the concept of causality, he broke it down into three components: 1. Priority 2. Contiguity 3. Necessary Connection

28 Priority Means that X precedes Y This can be traced back to sense data

29 Contiguity Means that X touches Y This can also be traced back to sense data

30 Necessary Connection? Means that if X happens, Y MUST happen No matter how many times Hume looked he could find no necessary connection Therefore, causality cannot be traced back to sense data

31 Implications? Causality means that whenever we say that one thing (X) causes another thing (Y) We are really only reporting our own EXPECTATIONS that X will be followed by Y

32 This is a psychological fact about us and not a fact about the world Even if X was followed by Y innumerable times in the past, that does not justify our claim to know that it will do so again in the future

33 And we assume that (A) caused (B) But all we have seen is two distinct events that happen in succession

34 Example The rooster always crows just before the sun rises Does that cause the sun to rise? NO!

35 Causality is a matter of CUSTOMandHABIT