Daniel Sanders

Philosophy of David Hume

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher who practiced the ideas of empiricism and
skepticism, these beliefs thread into the rest of his philosophy. David Hume was often referred to
as the Scottish skeptic because he never trusted things with blind faith; he wanted to have the
proof. His philosophy only confirms that nickname he was given because he questioned many
readily accepted ideas. I have chosen to write about David Hume because, as I learned about him
in class, he seemed to think about things the same way I do. David Hume was born on April 26th
of 1711 in Edinburgh, and passed away 65 years later leaving his philosophical legacy behind
him. An interesting side fact that Hume and I share the same birthday, I did not know this until I
started researching him.
The epistemology, the rationale structure of David Humes argument, of his begins with
him talking about the a priori ideals that Rene Descartes believed to be true. Hume on the other
hand could not disagree more with Descartes. He does not like this interpretation of human
knowledge at all and simply says they do not exist. The a priori ideals refer to the idea that the
human brain comes into the world with some form of knowledge already plugged into the brains
memory. Some examples of this would be the theory that there is a set of universal emotions that
we are all able to understand. Studies have been done in indigenous communities that have never
had contact with outsiders, after asking those questions about emotions on pictures. It became
clear that their study could be confirmed when they had the same answers as other participants.
Another example would be when someone buys a brand new smart phone; the memory card that
comes with the phone has an operating system preinstalled that will only activate once the phone
is turned on. This software provides basic functions that you then can fill with your own new
ideas, things you experience in life and the ideas you construct could very easily find their way
here.

As mentioned earlier Hume is quick to say that Descartes is wrong and that the a priori
ideals dont exist, he begins to elaborate and states that the brain at birth is tabula rasa. Once
translated you can understand that Hume means the mind of a newborn baby is a blank slate, and
that there is no sort of preinstalled information. To Hume, this means that every baby that is born
comes into the earth with the same amount of knowledge as every other baby. Hume knows that
with saying this he is going to need an explanation on why he thinks this way, this is where
Humes ideas on empiricism come in.
Hume believes that human knowledge originates in sensual experience and that is the
way empiricism is defined. He does not simply believe anything with blind faith and is always
one to want to see proof. As Hume talks more about human knowledge, he gives us a structure of
what he precisely thinks human knowledge consists of. The first part of this structure of human
knowledge mentions is that you must first sense the data before you are able to do anything else.
With the new found data you then compare it to other knowledge you have so that you can
generalize the knowledge into some sub-category. A simple example of this would be if you had
seen a dog before and now you see a different dog with different fur, you still know that the new
animal you see is a dog. Even though the dogs look different visually, you are able to compare
the body of the dog and the way it behaves to the memory of another dog. If you are seeing
something you have never seen, you will not have any previous data to compare it to. When this
occurs, you just make a new folder in your brain to organize the new information you have come
across. You can then turn these generalizations into their own ideas or you can apply them to
knowledge you had before the experience. If new found evidence is contradictory to the previous
knowledge you may end up changing your mind about the old idea and accommodate the new
information.

The structure of knowledge and verification Hume teaches reminds me of the scientific
method I learned in junior high because the two are so similar. The first step Hume talks about is
to sense data; where as the first step of the scientific method is to make an observation. You
proceed to turn these observations into generalizations to form an idea; similarly, you can use the
observations you make to generate a hypothesis. Continuing, you need to verify this new idea or
hypothesis to ensure the speculative idea is either correct or incorrect. When all of this is said
and done you can complete the final step and accept or reject the idea. I find it interesting that I
was taught the scientific method in junior high, but I never even heard the name David Hume
until college. It seems to me that the man had a major role in the structure of the scientific
method and I think he should be recognized for his thoughts.
Abstract ideas are everywhere and I believe Hume would agree with me when I say that
these abstract ideas are often accepted with blind faith. It is unacceptable to Hume as it goes
against his step of verification. Verification is when you take these abstract ideas and use your
sensual data to check and see if it works according to your sensual data. To say the least Hume
would argue that verification is an absolute necessity for any speculative idea. This is where
Hume begins to talk about skepticism, which is not a rejection of speculative ideas but more like
a strong doubt or mistrust to these ideas. This can be a bad thing to not practice in certain
circumstances; like if someone tried to sell you magic beans that would solve all your money
problems so you bought them. What if you take those magic beans home and they end up being
nothing but regular beans, you may not only waste time, but money as well just for blindly
trusting someone. I believe events where you can possibly get the bad end of a deal are exactly
what Hume attempts to prevent with his step of verification.

Hume also has his own practice of organizing statements that he believes is absolutely
required. That is that all statements must be divided into three categories; true, false, and
meaningless. He continues this by saying that ideas of a god, the universe and the self are all
meaningless. I agree with many things Hume teaches, but this is one of his teachings I dont
really agree with. I personally think ideas about the self are very important, even if you dont
know if they are right or wrong. I feel like I have had a lot of positive personal growth due to
ideas about myself and evaluating if I am standing by morals I value. I also value ideas about the
universe; however, I can understand why Hume thought they were meaningless. Only because
when he was living the exploration of the universe wasnt really a realistic option at the time, I
am curious to know if he would have a different opinion if he was alive today.
David Humes moral philosophy is very interesting to me because I can see some of the
elements of his philosophy in action in everyday life. When I first learned about his moral
philosophy I immediately noticed the similarities it has compared to Protagorass teachings. Both
talk about conventionalism, situationalism, pragmatism and relativism; but each philosopher
does have their own unique teachings that clearly separate the two from one another. Hume does
not mention subjectivism where as Protagoras does not mention situationalism or altruism. It
makes me wonder how seriously Hume respected Protagorass philosophy, because he does
agree to some extent with him.
Humes first talks about moral sentimentalism; he states that our morality is not based off
of reason, but rather our emotions or our sentiments. I think that this is common in our society as
a way people try to be moral. When these people go to make a decision they think about how
they feel about the situation or how it would make them feel. In most cases if doing something
would cause someone to be unhappy or angry, they may choose otherwise. They may also take

the time to consider how the decision would affect the people that are emotionally important to
them. If the result would make affect these people in a negative way their decision may be
swayed because of that.
Moving on to Humes moral hedonism, this is where Hume suggests that our morality is
centered around our personal happiness; this happiness is a sum of our individual pleasure. The
definition Hume uses seems to me to be a generalization of the Cyrenaic form of hedonism that
consists of two branches; Hedonism and High Hedonism. Hedonism as defined by Aristippus
says that happiness is an intensive physical pleasure such as sports or physical activities. High
Hedonism as defined by Epicurus says that happiness is an intensive intellectual pleasure
through things like learning and reading. Humes version; however, summarizes hedonism into
the product of our individual pleasure.
Switching over moral relativism, this is translated into as many people as many truths. I
could not agree more with this statement because to me it seems to be everywhere in our society.
People are born into things like religion and they believe their church is the only true church or
that other religions have a bad interpretation of the religious material. This happens over several
religions and no one knows if they are right or wrong, but they all continue to believe that their
church is true. I think this is a major reason why there are so many forms of Christian religions
because of all of the different circumstances people have. Growing up in Utah I find this
especially true because of the LDS church; the church heavily influences the people here. I
remember growing up that it was super crazy and weird if your family was not an LDS family.
Once outside of Utah; when you look at the big picture, the LDS faith isnt nearly as big as other
Christian religions.

Moral situationalism states that truth is always situational; meaning that truth is not tied
down and that it can be flexible in more than one circumstance. An example would be if a kid
asked their mom what was for dinner and the parent said pizza, but when the two arrive home
they see that the dad had picked up fried chicken instead. Although the mom thought pizza was
for dinner and that she was telling the truth, she didnt realize she had told a false truth.
Unknowing to her the dad had changed plans without communicating it to her so she told her kid
the wrong dinner plan.
Moral conventionalism classifies as things that are agreed to be true, even if silently. In
our society I see this policy operating almost daily, a recent example I saw was at a football
game when a player got injured. Everyone knew to stand up and be quite as a sign of respect and
to help the medical professionals focus quietly. Another thing I noticed that same day is that for
the national anthem everyone took off their hats and put their hand over their heart. These are
things we were taught when we were just kids and it is such a common occurrence that not many
people even think twice about it. I remember once watching the Olympics growing up; my
family was in own home watching them but when they had the American ceremony we all got up
and waited through the whole ceremony.
Moral pragmatism in my opinion is the most common of Humes teachings to see in
America. The truth has to be practical/useful/helpful; this causes America to be extreme sugar
coaters. No matter how bad the situation, it seems people will find a way to see a good and a bad
side. Another example would be if someone had to break bad news to someone; I am sorry to
tell you that we cannot accept you into our university, but you can always try next year! We
spend our days shielding people from possible pain of the truth. People already know the bad
news will hurt the person they tell, they just want to try and make it less hurtful.

The last part of Humes moral philosophy is his moral altruism which illustrates a
strategic investment when helping your neighbor out. You would have the understanding that the
person you are going to help would have something they could help you with in return. My dad
use to help my neighbor rake his leaves in the fall and in return during the winter, the neighbor
would shovel our driveway with his snow blower. It is important to know that Humes moral
altruism is not contradicting his moral hedonism because you are not being moral by helping the
person be happy. This is actually a way that moral hedonism relates to moral altruism because
you can help increase your individual happiness by investing a small amount of time to later get
a reward that could increase your personal happiness.
Now that I have finished addressing Humes epistemology and moral philosophy, I will
make some comparisons to other philosophers. About thirty years after the death of David Hume
John Stuart Mill was born. After receiving an incredible education as a child Mill practiced his
own kind of philosophy that shared many of the same principals with Humes philosophy. His
philosophy also stresses empiricism and verification, outside of his epistemology, his moral
philosophy also has things in common with Humes. Mill talks about a social contract; this social
contract has many similar concepts as Hume such as relativism, situationalism, conventionalism
and pragmatism.
There is no doubt to me that David Hume was one of the best philosophers that have ever
lived, and I think the lessons we can still learn from his philosophy justifies that statement. I
think his moral philosophy isnt quite as important as his epistemology; however, I do think that
there is relevant and irrelevant parts we can use from each. Regardless of Hume living in the
1700s, I think that his teachings are very important in order to help people ask questions. It

honestly makes me worry about the future generation because they seem to not even care about
learning, but rather what celebrity of the week is famous.