|
 Building
a home philosophy library
Lyn
May and Steve Deery
The
fifth in a series of articles advising on how to build your own
home philosophy library.
No.
5 David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
David
Hume's approach to the basis of knowledge in the Enquiry
Concerning Human Understanding took a different tact (). As an empiricist he subscribed to the view that
knowledge was based on the experience of the senses, not first principles.
His approach emphasised the complex relationship between ourselves
as knowers, and what is known. Hume's legacy was to show, all too
vividly, our limitations.
Our
everyday beliefs about the world assume the uniformity of nature
- that the future will resemble the past. But how do we justify
this belief? Reason alone cannot support this claim for it is always
possible the future will not resemble the past - the sun may not
rise tomorrow. But neither can experience, pointing to many previous
sunrises, support the uniformity of nature as it presupposes the
uniformity it is trying to show.
Far
from providing us with a basis for knowledge, it looks as if Hume
has led us into an epistemological desert. So what are we to do?
Hume claims it is in our psychological nature to rely on custom
and habit, so whatever our philosophical reservations we just do
act as if the world is uniform. Were this not so, 'all discourse,
all action would immediately cease; and men remain in total lethargy'.
However, 'so fatal an event is very little to be dreaded. Nature
is always too strong for principle.'
Enquiry
Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume (OUP) £6.99/$8.10
A
new book will be featured from April 1st 2001.
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