David Hume is a figure of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. He is celebrated for his wit, irony, and profound insights into the study of knowledge or epistemology. Hume significantly propelled the Enlightenment, a movement that sparked a revolution in thought and encouraged people to think for themselves, prioritising reason and empirical research. In Kant's words, he was the one who shook people from their “dogmatic slumber”.
Born in Edinburgh on 7 May 1711, Hume had a challenging start to life. His father, Joseph Home, passed away in 1713, leaving Hume and his siblings in the care of their mother, a devout Calvinist. Despite the strong influence of his mother's religious beliefs, Hume's independent thinking and resilience shone through. In his teenage years, he boldly rejected all forms of Christianity, a testament to his strong character and determination to think for himself.
At the age of 12, Hume embarked on a transformative educational journey, accompanying his elder brother to the University of Edinburgh in 1723. This period, spanning nearly three years, was a crucial foundation for Hume's future philosophical work. Despite not earning a degree, the courses they undertook , including Greek, logic, metaphysics, and natural philosophy (physics), played a pivotal role in shaping Hume's intellectual development. The lectures, though basic, provided Hume with a solid understanding of the foundational work of John Locke, which would greatly influence his later philosophical views.
Hume is known as the great sceptic. He was sceptical of rationalism and advocated empiricism, believing all human knowledge arises from experience. He argued that our concepts and beliefs must be grounded in sensory perception of the world. According to him, all ideas are ultimately derived from impressions, which are the direct results of sensory experiences. This approach is drastically different from rationalism, which believes in innate ideas existing independently of sensory experiences. Hume’s empiricism resonates with evidence-based practices in fields from medicine to psychology to public policy, prioritising observation and experience. In today’s data-driven world, his advocacy for empirical evidence as the basis for knowledge remains relevant, encouraging a healthy dose of scepticism and seeking experiences to refine understanding.
But his scepticism cuts both ways—against rationalism and theistic religion. He did not assert that God does not exist but rather sought to remove the issue of God's existence from the Enlightenment, rendering it irrelevant. His sceptical arguments targeted two claims made by scientists and secular philosophers since the Enlightenment.
Firstly, human reason (science) could comprehend nature and potentially everything else because the world was governed by knowable laws created by God. Secondly, the idea of intelligent design. It is based on the analogy that creation is like a sophisticated watch or machine. Just as a watch has a maker, so must the world. This idea suggests that there is an intelligent creator behind the creation and includes the idea that the creation was designed for the benefit and flourishing of humans.
But Hume objected. He contested that we cannot conclude that nature had a “creator,” that nature has any perceptible consistent “design,” or that nature is “beneficent” toward humans or even created with humans and human life in mind at all. Hume's primary objection to "intelligent design" is that we can only reason from experience. As a true empiricist, he argued that while we have experienced the creation of a watch, we have no experience of making worlds from which we can draw such conclusions. He had no issues with someone believing in God—don’t do so in the name of reason and science. For Hume, the only way to support theistic religion is by appealing to miracles. But Hume argued that miracles could never give religion much support. He understood miracles as a violation of the laws of nature and consequently have a very low probability of occurring. He posited that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
When Hume completed writing his most important book on religion, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, he shared it with Edinburgh intellectuals, including Adam Smith. They strongly advised, almost pleaded, with him not to publish it until after his death. His publisher also echoed these warnings because a young man had recently been executed in Edinburgh for blasphemy, and Scotland last hanged a witch when Hume was seventeen. Hume followed their advice and requested that his good friend Adam Smith take care of its publication after his death.
It turned out that there was not a lengthy delay. Hume died of abdominal cancer a few years later, in 1776. The book was published in 1779 without Hume’s name. However, when Hume was identified as the author, the book was quickly added to the list of books by Hume that had been banned starting in 1761. Hume was one of those authors, alongside Descartes, whose books were added to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the official list of books that Catholics were banned from reading, which was officially discontinued in 1966.
*First Published in Touchstone July 2024
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