Enquiry David Hume Analysis

David Hume, a highly influential Scottish empiricist philosopher and historian in the 18th century, is well known in philosophy for his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, in which he discusses many philosophical matters, including epistemology, moral theory, miracles, free will and determinism. Hume follows the arguments regarding these topics wherever they lead without hesitation, resulting in many disturbing, but well-grounded conclusions. In Section IV of the Enquiry, Hume makes several claims: all of our reasonings concerning matters of fact are derived from cause and effect, all knowledge of cause and effect is based on experience, and any reasonings based on cause and effect depend on the assumption that the future will resemble

One ball moves towards the other and strikes it, and then the second ball starts moving. One could know nothing regarding what that second Billiard-ball would do without consulting prior experience. A multitude of speculations could be put forth, all of which would be equally conceivable and therefore possible, which is of importance considering this is a matter of reasonings a

Consider the following question: how does one know that the sun will rise tomorrow? Well, he might think that (1) in the past, the sun has always risen, and that (2) the future will resemble the past; therefore, the sun will rise tomorrow. However, how is the second premise justified? If he attempts to justify the claim that the future will resemble the past, then he must reason that (1) in the past, the then futures resembled the then past, and that (2) the future will resemble the past; therefore, the future will resemble the past. This reasoning blatantly begs the question by assuming what it aims to prove, and clearly shows that any argument that uses past experience to justify a claim about future matters must commit this same offense. One counter-argument that might be raised is that one could know with certainty that the sun will rise based on the mechanics of the solar system, as these statements are based on scientific endeavors. However, this counter-argument would fail within the context of this discussion, because even scientific endeavors would beg the question by asserting the principle of induction. Therefore, we may also conclude that scientific knowledge about the future cannot be certain, and only probable at best. Hume’s reasonings are consistent with strict empiricism, however his conclusion has some further implications. Since we may only think of impressions