The Limits of Science: Hume and Kant on Human Knowledge
Hume’s Philosophy
- Believed human knowledge was very limited
- Scientific knowledge & universal natural laws might not be possible
- Scientist from the epoch of enlightenment: debates about religion had to be
overcome, and reason should be at the forefront to establish a new foundation for
knowledge (what kind of knowledge is within our reach?)
- Thinking for oneself and rejecting authority and determining limits of the potential of
science(lined up with scientists of the enlightenment school of thought)
- Passions rule reason “reason is just a slave to the passions” - Hume
- When reason fails…Our habits are our guide to life (actions and thinking derive from
our habits)
- Exaception: for books & mathematics. Abstract reasoning concerning quantity or
number is deemed acceptable and necessary.
- Notions of cause and effect (causal relation exists between two things or events)
- Billiard table example (collisions of billiard balls)
- Contiguity:
- Priority: motion that will cause prior to the motion that will cause effect
- Constant conjunction: Same kind of situation will always find that the impulse
of one produces motion in the other
Human beings believe that the red ball will move after a collision; this belief is called
“Operation of the mind”. Basis of sense impressions; one thing is the cause of
another thing
Experience teaches us how to think “Anticipation”
Causal effect if a form of reasoning that has taught to anticipate the world & events around
us
Limitation: we cannot anticipate every instance. Therefore cannot anticipate how the world
will behave uniformly
- We have no reason to believe in anything (like causal connections) but
humans nature prevents us from getting stuck with radical scepticism
Free will and notions of cause and effect
If a person is in the same situation, they will always react the same way
No free will. Freedom is a feeling is backed up that if a stranger knew your motives character
and specific situations he could easily predict your actions “necssity in the domaine of our
actions”
- Two types of actions
- Actions we want to perform and could have
- Actions we wanted to perform and could not have
That means Hume's idea of free will derived one is free if one could have done otherwise.
Hume & universal scientific knowledge
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