Philosophy of Science
David Hume On Causality and Science
Is scientific and philosophical knowledge possible? Yes and no, is what Hume’s philosophy tells us.
David Hume’s (1711–1776) philosophy was the culmination of the trajectory of British empiricism (see Chapters 8 and 11). Hume’s shocking conclusion was that the long quest for understanding had reached no true understanding at all. Descartes was not a true skeptic because he believed that knowledge is possible. Hume was a true skeptic in that he genuinely doubted that real knowledge was possible. Is scientific and philosophical knowledge possible?Yes and no, is what Hume’s philosophy tells us.
In Hume’s time, science was rebuilding the structures of knowledge, but he was disturbed by the looseness he saw in these structures. He was in no way against science, but he became aware that science makes assumptions that are on shaky ground. Like Berkeley’s argument against matter, Hume’s arguments against scientific reasoning have no easy refutation.
Hume says that there are three main assumptions of science: that the present and future behave like the past, that we have impressions of causation, and that we can reason from effect to cause. On the first assumption, our default, unthinking way of dealing with the…
