David Hume’s Philosophy Doctrine In the fourth section of his famous writing An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume suggests that “even after we have experience of the operations of cause and effect, our conclusions from experience are not founded on reasoning, or any process of the understanding.” In other words, Hume suggests that our inference that one particular event should follow the preceding event are not at all grounded on reason. Yes, we may know, based on our experience of cause and effect, that we fail the classes if we do not study properly. The rational conclusion here is “I will fail the course if I do not study properly.” At first glance, the second phenomenon, failing the course (the effect) logically falls out of the first one, not learning the material (the cause), and we allegedly subconsciously apply our reasoning to conclude that if we do not study, we will fail. David Hume asserts this last idea to be false, meaning that it is the custom, the habit that makes us believe that failing the course would follow improper learning. David Hume points out that it is our mind (driven by experience and habit) that associates two consecutive events to be linked, i.e. the effect must follow the cause. However, this association is false, and it is not based on reasoning at all, because even if two absolutely different, independent events happen one following the other with no rational link between them, human brain would still falsely draw a connection between these events, associating them with cause and effect. For example, we know that we should eat when we are hungry. And so based on our past experience we conclude that if we eat, hunger vanishes. However, if taken separately, cause and effect are not really linked with one another, and it is only our habit which makes us think that the effect is actually caused by eating. The hunger vanishes not because we actually ate, but because of some other much more complicated reasons, which can occur even without eating. And on the other side of the spectrum, do we always eat to quell hunger, or do we sometimes just eat to enjoy? Plus, is eating always causing hunger to disappear? Surely not. But because during all our lives we have been noticing that eating results in becoming replete, we have linked these two events so heavily that for us it is natural to apply elementary moral reasoning, and conclude that eating makes us full. Moreover, Hume asserts that there is not a single proof that if you had been becoming replete after a meal during your lifetime, this next meal would also satisfy you. There is no contradiction in suggesting that I would not get satisfied if I eat. To put it in simple terms, there is a possibility that I am right if I say that I would not get satisfied if I eat. For example, a single donut would not satisfy a big athlete; there is no contradiction in this statement. But nonetheless we infer that because we eat we get replete. David Hume defends his arguments with the primitive biological concept called conditioning. While we think that we apply reason when we anticipate cars to stop before a red light (i.e. “because there is red light cars will stop”), this is not reason at all, but a single conditioned reflex. If it were really rational reasoning, than it is logical to conclude that a person has to be able to think rationally and reason to draw such conclusions. A three-year-old child is not likely to be prominent in logic and reasoning. If he or she at least once catches fire, he or she would store that experience in mind, and will avoid such occurrences in future. Why? Because the baby knows physical properties of plasma? Not at all. What the baby knows is that it hurts to catch fire. Therefore this so-called reasoning is so easy that a three-year-old baby can perform it. This is, of course, not true, because the baby is too young to apply logic and reasoning. What then makes the baby avoid fire? The answer conceals not it logic, rational thinking, or reasoning, but in the conditioned reflex that has been formed with the actual experience. Therefore, the cause (catching fire) and the effect (pain) in our minds become two inseparable parts of one phenomenon, but in reality they are absolutely distinct. Ultimately, when we incidentally drop a thick book we anticipate a sound, which would result from collision of book and floor. This knowledge is questionable, because there is nothing in the falling of the book that can suggest that clap. But we still expect this clap, because we base cause and effect series on past experience. But not only Hume asserts that past experience is insignificant evidence to believe that the exact sequence would actually occur again, but he also states that we anticipate the effect only and only because we witnessed this cause and effect in the past. However, the cause and the effect are two different events, and even with the experience, our conclusion about the sequence is not grounded on reasoning, but rather habits and conditioned reflexes. Bibliography 1. Hume, D. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 1748. Reprinted at Secular Lab Library. 2. Empiricism. Wikipedia the free encyclopedia. 2005. 3. Egan, D. SparkNote on An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Sparknotes. 2005.