Debunking Design - A Conclusion to Hume

We have finally reached the end.  I know it has been a long journey, but at last we today finish David Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.  I thank you all for your patience as we go through this remarkably important book.  You may wonder why I have bothered with this book on a science-religion blog; the answer is that, by refusing to be content with knowledge derived solely from philosophy or revealed religion, Hume paved the way for the empirical experimental method.  More specifically, though, Darwin cited Hume as a ‘central influence’.  You can readily see why: Darwin was up against a standard view of the world, which saw both the design of God in the complexity of nature and the goodness of God in the harmony of nature, as revealed through the opening lines of Genesis.  To question the standard interpretation of revealed religion, to wonder if our experience of the world could possibly address the question of life’s origins, was a very Hume-ian thing to do.

Miraculous Stories - Can We Trust Them?

Imagine someone were to run into your classroom or workplace and shout out, ‘I just saw a dead man come back to life!’  Would you believe him?  Even if you believe in the possibility of miracles, would you trust his testimony?  In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume argues, quite powerfully, that miraculous stories can never be trusted.

Miracles - Real, or Delusions?

Are miracles possible?  They are certainly a common enough phenomenon, if you believe the reports of others.  People claim to have had visitations from angels, they see Mary’s face in pretty much everything, there are claims of faith healings and people rising from the dead.  Miracles are foundational to many religions but take an especially central place in Christianity, with the resurrection of Jesus.

Odds are none of us have experienced what we would consider a bona fide external miracle.  (At least, I have not).  Without such experience, though, with the only evidence of miracles being the reports of others, is there any rational reason for believing in the possibility of miracles?

No other thinker has had such an influential effect on the philosophy of miracles than David Hume.  Written in the 1700s, his arguments against the possibility of miracles and against the credibility of testimonies concerning miracles still reverberate with us today.  Here, I summarize his arguments against miracles, and suggest where I think Hume went wrong.  (You may need a Hume refresher - read Hume's Arguments in 10 Points)

The Animal Mind (Thinking About Thought - Part 4)

Chapter XI: On the Reason of Animals

How similar are we to the animals?  What makes us uniquely human?  Is it our ability to think and learn about the world?  As Hume has already shown, we do not understand the world through reason, we understand it through experience.  In this chapter, Hume expands his theory to include non-human animals.  In doing so, he knocks down at least part of the wall that separates us from our animal kin. 

What Is Free Will? (Thinking About Thought - Part 3)

Hume has so far developed a fairly convincing argument for how the human mind forms ideas about anything.  You can read his theory in Part 1, Part 2, and the Summary.  Now Hume devotes the rest of his book, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, to applying his theory to various philosophical problems.  If you are wondering why I am bothering to go through this book, it is because, first of all, I find Hume to be fascinating and convincing; secondly, his arguments shaped how later influential philosophers and theologians thought; thirdly, he is often quoted today by the new 'militant' atheists (like Richard Dawkins), and finally, this book provides his argument against miracles, which is often quoted but can only be understood and critiqued in light of the whole book.  With that said, today we will look at the problem of free will.  Argues Hume, free will (liberty) is not opposed to necessity - in a common sense outlook on life, both work together to give us true freedom.

Hume's Arguments in 10 Points

I understand that my last two posts summarizing David Hume's arguments from the 1748 book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding have not been of considerable interest to most.  I trust it is because my chapter summaries were rather long, as I summarized each page rather than each chapter (Part 1, Part 2).  This was more for my benefit that for your own.  So here I present a one-page, 10-point summary of his theories regarding human knowledge, and hopefully you will find it more rewarding.

Thinking About Thought (Part 2)

Here I continue to read through An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume.  You can read Part 1 here.  This will likely be a five-parter.  I have been finding this book to be quite interesting, and I hope you will agree.

Chapter IV – Sceptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Understanding

Part I

So far Hume has focussed on the different perceptions of the mind: impressions, which include things like hearing, seeing, feeling, willing, loving, etc, and ideas, which are copies (recollections) of impressions.  Then he dwelt on associations of ideas, and defined them as resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect.  In this chapter, he turns to those objects that we actually think about.  He divides the chapter into a series of questions:

Thinking About Thought (Part 1)

Several years ago I was at an amazing used bookstore in downtown Halifax when I stumbled on a small work of philosophy written by David Hume.  About the only thing I knew about Hume was that everybody quoted him all of the time, both Christians and non-Christian scientists, sometimes positively and sometimes not.  Whoever he was, he seemed to be pretty important.  A character on Lost was even named after him, so I knew it had to be pretty serious.  It was somewhat of a shock, then, to discover that he wrote what he did in the mid-1700s.

It took me two or so years, but I finally sat down to read his book, and I more devoured it than read it.  He wrote, not like a philosopher, but like a kindly grandfather showing the way.  His English was surprisingly modern, and his thoughts were even more so.