David Hume could out-consume

6. Locke, Hume and empiricism: In what ways do these thinkers differ from Descartes?

It seems the empiricists, most especially in Locke and Hume, were the new sceptics. They sought to question knowledge, truth, work out on what basis we know things. Locke questioned in particular how we connect with objects in the real world – and decided that we didn’t! Rather, we have ideas in our heads of objects, and it is in the world of ideas that there is interaction, rather than physically coming into contact with another physicality. However these ideas we contract from experience (a posteriori), and only after seeing something can we have an understanding of that object and others like it. It is as if we are blank slates, who accumulate forms as we go, and build on these more simple ideas to understand more complex ideas.


However, Hume’s thinking in light of Locke about how we gain knowledge led him to question the idea of causality – concluding that we believe the idea of cause and effect, but only from habit, not from any abstract reasoning. In the famous billiard-ball analogy, we may expect a certain result from one striking another, but there is nothing inherent in one billiard ball that should mean its interacting with another ball should have the expected result.


From a small amount of reading, it seems as if the empiricists are leaning towards an atheistic, or at least deist, world-view, whereas the rationalists (in Descartes) saw God as the glue that held everything together. When Descartes asks why a thought leads to an action, he cannot see this as anything but secondary to the will of God who first thought and acted, and from whom all thoughts and actions stem. The empiricists however, although publicly agreeing (Locke more than Hume) that the idea of God ‘makes sense’, see God as having no part in the process – the mind wills and the arm moves. Why does it happen? Because we’ve seen it happen before.


This idea of a general movement towards atheism (or deism) is further shown in Hume’s discounting of miracles – his experience tells him that the normal way of things is for miracles to not happen. If given the choice between miraculous and the empirical, he concludes, the sane man has only one choice.

this is part of a series

Descartes, Descartes, ... I drink therefore I am.

5. Descartes and rationalism: How did Descartes seek to secure true knowledge?

Biographically, it seems the way Descartes started out on his philosophical journey was thinking – the story goes that he was loathe to rise early in the morning and it was only when this was accepted by one of his Jesuit tutors that was he able to spend his mornings not engaged in chores but meditating, or thinking.
What he arrived at after his many mornings spent in thought would later be known as the Cartesian method (from DesCartes). And what was his method? Quite simply – doubt everything! Then one could be free to establish true knowledge from the ground up. He did this not by doubting himself and all things out of existence, but indeed by proving his existence primarily in his doubting. For his doubting was if nothing else thinking, and as his famous dictum states, ‘cogito, ergo sum’, or, ‘I think, therefore I am’.

As the father of the rationalists, Descartes sought to reduce things to its base parts. This was part one of his method – the analysis, followed then by the synthesis – the rebuilding thereafter of the problem to get an understanding of the big picture. He saw this as not dissimilar to an architect building a house – starting first with digging the trenches, and working upwards from there.

He did see some things which were beyond breaking up, beyond doubt – although his only basis for those things was that there was a good God who would prevent these things from being deceptions. This God he proved by the ontological argument (the starting point being not dissimilar to Plato’s forms) – that if we can imagine any God, inferior as the idea may be, the idea shows that there must be something even greater – and that is greater (this idea not dissimilar to Islam’s ‘Allah Akbar’ – ‘God is greater’ (than anything you could imagine)).


this is part of a series. check here for others in this series.

Thinking like a Philosopher :: Series

To get into second year Philosophy (i did fun subjects like World Religions and the Gospel instead in first year), i've had to write 3,500 words all up on various philosophers, 250-400 per topic.

As i publish them, come back here to see the newest ones.

But they are:

1. Plato: What is Plato’s theory of forms, and how does his ‘cave’ story help explain the theory?
   
2. (a) Aristotle: How does Aristotle differ from Plato?
   OR
   (b) Aristotle: Briefly summarise what teleology meant for Aristotle.
   
3. Aquinas: In what ways was Thomas Aquinas interested in philosophy?
   
4. Theology: What are some examples of the impact of Greek philosophy on Christian theology?
   
5. Descartes and rationalism: How did Descartes seek to secure true knowledge?
   
6. Locke, Hume and empiricism: In what ways do these thinkers differ from Descartes?
   
7. Kant: Why might Kant be described as ‘the answer’ to the dispute between rationalists and empiricists?
   
8. Nietzsche: In what ways did Nietzsche disagree with most of what had gone before him?
   
9. Derrida: Why does Derrida ‘deconstruct’ things?
   
10. Philosophy and theology: In what ways does the study of philosophy help, and/or hinder, the study of theology?

hang on for the ride.

by way of bibliography, to be honest, it's pretty loose. in the end, i drew fairly freely from the following works (whilst hopefully refraining from plagiarism of any kind - i went with the vibe):

Sproul, R.C. The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World. Wheaton: Crossway, 2000.
Fearn, N., Zeno and the Tortoise: How to Think Like a Philosopher. London: Atlantic, 2001.
as well as from a really great podcast,
Warburton, N., Philosophy: The Classics.
and an interview of Robert Rowland Smith by Nigel Warburton on the Philosophy Bites podcast,
Edmonds, D., and N. Warburton, Robert Rowland Smith on Derrida on Forgiveness. Philosophy Bites.