David Hume’s Empirical Kind of Philosophy

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Some things that we considered obvious were issues of controversy in the past. This could have been born from the first philosophers’ efforts to explain our complex universe on their own. To do this, they needed to think beyond our limited perceptions of the world based on our senses. They therefore formulated traditions and superstitions to explain things. Basing all his arguments on experience, David Hume developed an empirical kind of philosophy. This philosophy gives us room to understand things confidently and in our capacity. (Burnham)

Empiricism is one among many views on how we know things. According to this theory of knowledge, knowledge comes from the experiences that we perceive through our senses. It emphasizes the role of experience and evidence in the formulation of ideas. Innate ideas are thus discarded by this theory except in instances where these ideas can be deducted from empirical reasoning. Science is one area that has greatly embraced empirical evidence. It relies on evidence from experiments to draw conclusions and come up with laws and hypotheses. Besides basing all his arguments on empiricism, David Hume extends empirical reasoning by insisting that our knowledge of things we consider facts in the world are ultimately based on our experience. (Grose)

Earlier thinkers including Aristotle, who came up with a second-generation philosophy widely known as metaphysics did not base their arguments entirely on Empiricism. Metaphysics tried to explain the origin of things on something that is beyond our scope of reasoning when measured against our capacity to understand things with respect to our senses. Hume rejects Metaphysics as a part of science since it involves speculation of things beyond our sensual capacity. According to him, Metaphysics includes theories that cover superstitions and speculations that are hard to prove. Therefore, the only way to fight and reject metaphysics is for one to ask critical questions about how humans understand the world hence show that human capacity to understand is not fitted for metaphysics. (Burnham)

Considering Hume’s arguments and conclusions, one will see that they are empirical. Having laid a foundation for knowledge that is entirely based on experience, Hume went ahead to differentiate statements of definition and knowledge. This was necessary to invalidate some statements that were considered true although they could not be verified. Hume argued that statements built from relations of ideas that identify characteristics implicit in a meaning of a subject e.g. matter occupies space are called analytic statements. These are simply matters of definition and do not, therefore, provide real knowledge apart from what they mean. (Mesick)

What about statements of knowledge that may appear to be entirely derived from our thinking? Hume suggests that when these statements are broken down, they are actually formed and built from ideas that reflect our experiences. These experiences are understood from information and that is fed to our minds through our senses. (Grose)

The copy principle is one of the most important theories developed by Hume which showed that knowledge and understanding of things are based on experience rather than the cognitive knowledge principle presented by metaphysics. Hume presented and emphasized the Copy Principle by offering a contradictory phenomenon. He tells us to consider a person who has enjoyed good eyesight for thirty years and is familiar with all colors except one shade of blue. Blue shades are put before he arranged from the deepest to the lightest shade. The person will see a blank space and an unusual distance at the position of the unfamiliar shade. How can we explain this? Through experience which is specifically based on eyesight experience, this person had seen a number of colors including certain shades of blue color at various instances. His knowledge is like relating a copy to an original that he had seen earlier. This shows that our understanding and knowledge are entirely based on experience. (Burnham)

Hume also came up with an account of the definition that is considered to be the most distinctive and innovative part of his system. To understand the real meaning of statements, he argues that we break from words to true and real subjects. We begin with a term and ask what idea is derived from the term. In the process, we may find that a single term can be broken down into a number of ideas. This term is complex since there is an idea derivable from the term which we can break into simple ideas that compose it. We consider a term not to have cognitive content if no idea can be derived from the term. In turn, these ideas must be related to our experience or our capacity to understand through sensual experience. (Cahn)

Conclusion

Hume based all his arguments and theories on sensual experience hence empiricism. Following his approach, it would be obviously impossible for us to study and understand things in our environment that we can physically perceive without relating them to experimental data relatable to our senses. While many intellectual minds feared to challenge revered thinkers like Aristotle who proposed metaphysics principles, our understanding was limited. Metaphysics was more of superstitions and non-verifiable ideas that could not help us to be scientifically creative and enhance true understanding and knowledge. Hume’s arguments provided a kind of philosophy that was necessary for this development. This is the philosophy that has promoted intellectual capacity and amazing creativity in science and other disciplines to very high levels.

Works Cited

Burnham, Peter. Berkeley’s Argument from Relativity. 2009. Web.

Cahn, M.Steven. Classics of Western philosophy. (7^th Ed.). Hackett Publishing, 2002. Print.

Grose, T.H. Hume’s Treatise. Oxford, 1978. Print

Mesick, H. Challenges to Empiricism, Hackett Publishing. Indianapolis, 1980. Print.

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David Hume’s Empirical Kind of Philosophy

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