David HUME (1711-1776) (Portraid le Allan Ramsay)
§ 2 - RIOCHD SICEÒLACH MONASACH A' GHRUNND-IDÈA THAR-CHEUMNAIL DHAONNAIRICH FO PHRÌOMHACHAS AN IDÈAL-SHAIDHEINS.
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§ 2 - THE MONISTIC PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPE OF THE HUMANISTIC TRANSCENDENTAL GROUND-IDEA UNDER THE PRIMACY OF THE SCIENCE-IDEAL
However, before the transcendental Humanist ground-Idea could acquire this final turn and before Humanistic thought could really follow the transcendental direction which is peculiar to KANT'S "Critiques", it had to endure a serious crisis in which it would appear, that a radical psychologism in epistemology must undermine the foundations both of the ideal of science and of the ideal of personality.
The credit for having performed this preparatory critical work must unquestionably be given to HUME. This keen thinker had inwardly outgrown the spirit of the "Enlightenment". Nevertheless he continued to accept the primacy of the science-ideal in its psychological turn. LOCKE had previously undermined the metaphysical conceptions of nature and human personality. By means of his psychological critique of knowledge, HUME reduced them to absurdity .
The fact that HUME in his psychologism proceeded from the standpoint of the Humanistic science-ideal is evident from the announcement of the aim of his research in the second book of his main work, Treatise upon Human Nature. Here he states, that he desired to achieve the same result in the field of the phenomena of human nature as had been attained in astronomy since COPERNICUS. He desired to reduce all phenomena to the smallest possible number of simple principles (1).
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(1) A Treatise of Human Nature II, Part I, Sect. III, p. 81. I am quoting from the 4 vol. edition of GREEN and GROSE.
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The principle of the economy of thought took a central position in this ideal of science. This same principle had been praised by LEIBNIZ, in his essay on the philosophical style of NIZOLIUS, as one of the treasure troves of Nominalism (2).
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(2) This principle has in itself nothing to do with nominalism. ARISTOTLE referred to it in his criticism of the Platonic ideas. And ARISTOTLE, to be sure, was not a nominalist.
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The psychologized conception of the science-ideal in HUME. Once again the nominalistic trait in the ideal of science.
The science-ideal, however, now received a radical objective-psychological turn. All abstract concepts, which are expressed in general symbols of language must in the last analysis be reduced to individual sensory "impressions" as the simplest elements of consciousness. There may not remain a rest in our supposed "knowledge" which is not resolved into these simple psychological elements. If it does, the psychological ideal of science is still subjected to a dogmatic limitation. And the latter must be overcome by sovereign analysis.
In this is evident the strong nominalistic tenor of HUME's psychologism. I would here like to point out once more the misconception in the traditional opinion which presumes that modern nominalism manifests itself only in this so-called empiricist form. That this view is erroneous is apparent, if we remember that the so-called "rationalism" desired as much as "empiricism" to discover by analysis the simplest elements of knowledge. It was just by this method that rationalism thought it had found the guarantee for the creative continuity of mathematical thought.
The difference between HUME and LEIBNIZ consists only in the basic philosophic denominator chosen by "sovereign reason" to bridge over the diversity of the modal aspects of our cosmos. In LEIBNIZ the ultimate origin of empirical reality is creative mathematical thought, in HUME it is to be found in psychological analysis.
As we have seen before, a moderate nominalism is quite compatible with the recognition of a necessary and foundational function of universal concepts (according to the ideal significance of symbols). The only condition is that universal concepts and their mutual relations must he recognized as having their origin in creative thought itself. They may not be thought of as having a foundation "in rē", outside of mind (3). HUME, however, is not a moderate nominalist but rather a radical one.
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(3) With respect to this, BERKELEY'S Alciphron furnishes a convincing proof. In it he overcame the extreme sensationalist nominalism of his earlier writings. He even recognizes the logical conformity to laws in the relations between the Ideas, although, in a nominalistic fashion, the function of universality is only ascribed to the signs. But the signs, which constitute the material and instrument of all scientific knowledge, are now for BERKELEY no longer arbitrary names. On the contrary the representative character of symbols has now become the foundation of the possibility of our knowledge. They represent the validity of the relations in our thought.
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In an individualist manner he resolved the "universal representations" into "impressions", as the simplest elements of consciousness. Nevertheless, this resolution was actually the exact psychological counterpart of the resolution of complex concepts into the simplest conceptual elements by mathematicism (4).
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(4) Compare in particular LEIBNIZ' exposition in his Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis (1664) (ERDMANN, p. 79) of the relation of the primitive (that is simple and basic) concepts to the complex.
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What HUME viewed as the "simplest elements" of consciousness, and therefore as "data", no more belongs to the real data of our experience than a single mathematical concept does.
In his penetrating critique of the "abstract Ideas" which LOCKE still maintained, even BERKELEY had overlooked the fact that the concept of a "simple psychical element of consciousness" is itself no less abstract than that of a "triangle in general".
HUME began by demolishing the barriers which LOCKE in his dualistic conception had raised between "sensation" and "reflexion". This dualism in LOCKE was in the last analysis founded on his belief in the existence of a material and a spiritual substance. For without the latter the entire distinction between external and internal experience in his epistemology would lack a foundation.
But even BERKELEY, from his "idealist" psychologistic standpoint, had completely resolved "nature" into the sensory psychical impressions. His well-known thesis "esse est percipi" became the psychological counterpart of LEIBNIZ' mathematical idealism in respect to the world of phenomena. Therefore, he must also discard the distinction between primary and secondary qualities of matter that had been made by LOCKE in accordance with GALILEO'S and NEWTON'S physics.
HUME subsumed all of cosmic reality, in all of its modal aspects of meaning, under the denominator of sensation. In a much more radical sense than in LOCKE, psychologism began to resolve the cosmos into the sensory contents of psychical consciousness, into perceptions (5). It must be granted, however, that in this respect HUME'S Treatise proceeds in a much more radical line than his Enquiry.
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(5) Treatise I, Part II, Sect. VI p. 371) : "To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive. Now since nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions, and since all Ideas are deriv'd from something antecedently present to the mind, it follows, that 'tis impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an Idea of anything specifically different from Ideas and impressions. Let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appear'd in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination."
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HUME and Pyrrhonic scepticism. SEXTUS EMPIRICUS.
This radical psychologism had an outward point of contact in ancient philosophy, just as Humanist metaphysics had. The Pyrrhonic scepticism which had been transmitted to modern thought especially in the writings of SEXTUS EMPIRICUS: Pyrrhonic Hypotyposes and Against the Mathematicians, had methodically turned down the same path. But it had a purely negative tendency and the ultimate intention of denying every criterion of truth (6).
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(6) The Pyrrhonic thesis taken over by HUME and BERKELEY: "Being is appearance" can be found in SEXTUS EMPIRICUS, Pyrr. Hyp. Ic. XIV, 8th trope.
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Recent investigations have made it very probable, that HUME was strongly influenced by the method of SEXTUS EMPIRICUS, even though his defective knowledge of Greek presumably kept him from reading the Hypotyposes in the original (7).
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(7) B. M. LAING, David Hume (1933), p. 74 f. I refer to this book also for the following particulars. In his Dialogues concerning natural religion (W .W . II, 376 ff) HUME repeatedly mentions the sect of the Pyrrhonists.
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However, in 1718, SEXTUS EMPIRICUS' work had been published in a Latin translation and in 1725 it was published anonymously in a French translation which is now ascribed to HUART.
During this period HUME studied in Edinburgh, where much of his time was occupied with the study of classic writers. In addition, a noteworthy harmony has been discovered between HUME and the connoisseur of Pyrrhonism, CROUSAZ, in the theory of perceptions, in the psychological treatment of logic, in the doctrine of imagination and of habit in the association of impressions. CROUSAZ was professor of philosophy and mathematics at the University of Lausanne, and had devoted an extensive work to Pyrrhonism (8).
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(8) Examen du Pyrrhonisme, ancien et moderne, 1733.
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Sceptical doubt in HUME, as in DESCARTES, has only methodological significance. Nevertheless, HUME did not have the slightest intention of following MONTAIGNE and BAYLE by ending in a destructive Pyrrhonistic scepticism. On the contrary, in him scepticism had no other significance than it had in DESCARTES; it was only intended to be methodological, that is to say, methodological in the sense of the psychological ideal of science, which in order to carry through its principle of continuity must also repudiate the dualistic division between "sensation" and "reflection" (9).
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(9) See Treatise I, Part I Sect II (p. 317) : "...the impressions of reflexion are only antecedent to their correspondent ideas; but posterior to those of sensation, and deriv'd from them." (I am italicizing).
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Reflexion with its impressions and their corresponding "ideas" (representations, which, in HUME, are identical with "concepts") must be reduced to a dependent function, to a mere image of "sensation" with its sensory "impressions".
It is precisely this reduction which, according to HUME, makes it possible to conquer scepticism by discovering an unassailable criterion of truth.
The criterion of truth.
HUME seeks this criterion of truth in the demonstration of the "original impression" from which the idea is derived (10).
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(10) Enquiry concerning human understanding, Sect. V, Part i.
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In him "impressions" include all sensations, passions and emotions as they originally appear in the psychical function (11).
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(11) Treatise I, Part 1, Sect. I (p. 311). Thereby, passions, desires and emotions are conceived of by HUME as impressions of the "reflections". The latter themselves arise from ideas of pleasure and displeasure, and these Ideas, in turn, are copies of sensory impressions of hot, cold, hunger and thirst, etc.
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But they are not conceived of by him in their subjective actuality; rather, in the line of the ideal of science, they are comprehended according to their objective content, as the elements of phenomena.
The "impressions" are the sole data in human experience. By "Ideas" or "thoughts", HUME understands only the apperceptions of thought and reasoning which are derived from sensory impressions; they are nothing but copies of impressions, which in their elementary forms only distinguish themselves from the latter by a decreased sensory intensity. Even "Ideas" which at first sight do not appear to have any connection with "impressions", upon closer examination give evidence that they have arisen from them. How, according to HUME, does a false Idea come into being? The answer is that either the original sensory impression is related to an Idea which is the image of another impression, or, vice versa, an idea is brought into relation with an impression of which it is not the copy.
With respect to the Ideas which he considered to be false, HUME set himself the task of discovering the sensory impressions from which these Ideas are actually derived.
Now, according to him, there are two methods of uniting impressions and Ideas. In the one case they are united by a purely reproducing memory, and in the other by the free combining and variegating of fantasy or imagination.
The Ideas of memory are much stronger and livelier than those of fantasy, but the former are bound precisely to the same order and position as the impressions from which they were derived, whereas fantasy, in contrast, can freely combine and vary its Ideas, and is entirely independent of the original order of impressions (12).
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(12) Treatise I, Part I, Sect. III. Of the Ideas of the Memory and Imagination.
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However, the Humanist science-ideal does not allow this activity of fantasy to be conceived of as completely arbitrary. Even in its psychological form it possesses a concept of order which excludes any Idea of arbitrariness (13).
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(13) Cf. Treatise I, Part I, Sect. IV (p. 319): "As all simple Ideas may be separated by the imagination, and may be united again in what form it pleases, nothing would be more unaccountable than the operations of that faculty, were it not guided by some universal principles, which render it, in some measure, uniform with itself in all times and places."
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And as we shall subsequently demonstrate, this concept of law serves in HUME, as well as in LEIBNIZ or DESCARTES, as the ὑπόθεσις, as the foundation of empirical reality. In HUME it is the concept of necessary connection or association (relating to impressions as well as to the Ideas).
To understand in HUME'S nominalist course of thought this transition to the psychological concept of order, we must remember that HUME, following in LOCKE'S footsteps, divides Ideas into simple and complex. The latter are connections between simple Ideas. In part at least, they are grounded in sensorily perceived relations between impressions. For HUME also divides the impressions into simple and complex.
The natural and philosophical relations. The laws of association.
HUME thought that he could reduce all associations in the succession of Ideas to three basic laws, namely, the law of resemblance, the law of spatial and temporal coherence (contiguity), and the law of cause and effect.
These laws of association are thought of as being purely mechanical, and concern only the so-called natural relations between the Ideas by which "two Ideas are connected in the imagination and the one naturally introduces the other," when a natural succession of ideas takes place (14).
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(14) HUME called them (Ibid. sect. iv) a sort of law of attraction "which in the mental world will be bound to have as extraordinary effect as in the natural."
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In his Treatise (I part 1 sect. vi) HUME writes: "This we may establish for a general rule, that wherever the mind constantly and uniformly makes a transition without any reason, it is influenced by these relations" (i.e. by resemblance, contiguity and cause and effect).
These natural associations, according to HUME, cannot be perceived in a sensory manner. They do not connect impressions, but Ideas. The product of these associations are the complex Ideas of relations, substances and modi, which are the ordinary objects of our thought and judgments. It is true, that these complex Ideas are founded in sensory relations of resemblance and contiguity or coherence between the impressions. But the associations, which the faculty of imagination produces upon the basis of these sensory relations, exceed that which is given; they are an "order of thought." And they can lead thought astray, because they go beyond that which is directly given in the "impression".
HUME distinguished the "natural" from the "philosophical" relations. The latter do not determine the associational transition of one "Idea" to another, but simply compare "Ideas" or impressions which are not connected by association (15).
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(15) Treatise I, Part 1, Sect. V: "The word Relation is commonly used in two senses considerably different from each other. Either for that quality by which two Ideas are connected together in the imagination, and the one naturally introduces the other, after the manner above explained; or for that particular circumstance, in which even upon the arbitrary union of two Ideas in the fancy we may think proper to compare them. In common language the former is always the sense in which we use the word relation; and 'tis only in philosophy that we extend it to mean any particular subject of comparison without a connecting principle" (p. 322).
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It is very confusing that HUME in summarizing the seven classes of philosophical relations, mentions causality once again. When we put aside this natural relation which, incorrectly, is mentioned in this connection, we can list the following six classes of philosophical relations:
1 - Resemblance, a relation, which is the foundation of all the other philosophical relations. No impressions or Ideas can be compared with each other which do not display a certain degree of resemblance. As a mere philosophical relation it does not produce any association of Ideas or any sequence in the Ideas, but is rather related to a simultaneous sensory relation of resemblance.
2 - Identity, the most universal relation. It is concerned with constant and unchangeable objects.
3 - The relations of space and time, which are the origin of an infinite number of comparisons, such as distance, contact, above, below, before, behind, etc....
4 - The relations in quantity or number.
5 - The degrees in common quality; thus two objects can both possess the common quality of weight, yet one can be lighter than the other. Thus in the same colour, e.g. red, two shades can be compared with each other etc.
6 - The relation of contrast, a relation, which only seemingly affords an exception to the rule that there cannot be any philosophical relation, unless a certain degree of resemblance exists between the impressions or Ideas; for in reality, this relation, as well, always presupposes a point of resemblance, if a comparison is to be possible. In his Enquiry HUME reduces this relation to a combination of the relations of resemblance and causality.
The reader observes how in this table of relations not only are the basic mathematical principles reduced to psychological ones, but also the laws of logic (i.e. the principles of identity and contradiction).
HUME divided the philosophical relations into two classes: the variable and the invariable. The invariable include the relations of resemblance and contrast, and the degrees in quantity and quality. They are the ground of certain knowledge.
According to HUME, this certainty rests upon the fact that the relations in question are unchangeable and at the same time are directly sensorily perceivable together with their terms; and such without reasoning, which always consists in a succession of Ideas. They are "discoverable at first sight, and fall more properly under the province of intuition than demonstration."
The same also holds good for the variable philosophical relations of identity and time and place. The latter do not go beyond that which is actually given in the sensory impressions. The reason why we say that an object A is at a distance from object B is that we perceive them both at that distance. Here the relation itself is given in the complex sensory impression.
It is entirely different, however, in the case of the natural relations. The latter rest upon a veritable association in the sequence of Ideas. According to HUME, it is only on the ground of the relation of causation that the relations of time, place, and identity can really exceed that which is directly given by the senses and can play their part in an associational process of thought (16). But we will explain this point later.
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(16) Treatise I, Part III, Sect. II (p. 376): "'Tis only causation, which produces such a connexion, as to give us assurance from the existence or action of one object, that 't was follow'd or preceded by any other existence or action; nor can the other two relations be ever made use of in reasoning, except so far as they either affect or are affected by it."
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(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I/ Part 2/ Chapt 3/§2 pp 271-280)
