Reading Guide #4: David Hume, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding"
These reading
guides are provided to assist you in your reading. I encourage you to read the
material through, first, then go back to answer the questions. You are not expected
to hand in written answers. You are expected to have responses ready for class
discussion. Only the boldfaced questions will appear on exams. Page numbers
refer to Hackett's second edition.
Section I
1. What are the two types of philosopher? What is the general
opinion of each?
2. What is Hume's goal, in the Enquiry?
Section II
3. What is Hume's distinction between ideas and impressions?
4. What can we not conceive?
5. From where do ideas come? How does Hume show this? Are
there any exceptions?
6. How can we determine, according to Hume, whether a philosophical
term is meaningless?
Section III
7. Explain each of the three principles of connection among
ideas.
Section IV
8. What is Hume's distinction between relations of ideas
and matters of fact? Describe each.
9. How do we learn propositions that are solely concerned
with relations of ideas?
10. "The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible..."
(15) How does Hume support this claim?
11. What evidence do we use to explain knowledge of matters
of fact? What relation helps us get this evidence?
12. How do we learn to connect specific causes with their
effects? How can we not learn this, according to Hume?
13. Why can't effects be discovered by examining their
causes?
14. "Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness
is the result of all philosophy..." (19) Explain. Why does Hume make this
conclusion?
15. What information does past experience give us? What does
it not give us?
16. "These two propositions are far from being the same,
I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect,
and I foresee, that other objects, which are, in appearance, similar, will be
attended with similar effects." Explain.
17. What do inferences about the future presuppose, as their
foundation? Why can't experience establish this premise?
18. "In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature
of bodies from your past experience." (24) Why "in vain"?
19. How does Hume's example of a child pulling his hand
away from a fire help show that it is not 'reason' which leads us to infer that
the past will resemble the future?
Section V
20. Would a person suddenly brought into the world recognize
causal connections? Explain.
21. What is the role of custom, or habit, in our understanding
of cause and effect?
22. "The conclusions which [reason] draws from considering
one circle are the same which it would form upon surveying all the circles in
the universe. But no man, having seen only one body move after being impelled
by another, could infer that every body will move after a like impulse."
(28) How does Hume explain this difference? What does it show?
23. Ultimately, from where do our beliefs about matters of
fact come, according to Hume?
24. What is a belief? How is belief different from imagination?
25. "Here, then, is a kind of pre-established harmony
between the course of nature and the succession of our ideas..." (36) Explain
how this harmony arises.
26. Why does our mind connect like effect with like causes?
Section VI
27. Hume says there's no such thing as chance, but there
is probability. Explain the difference.
28. How do we respond when a general cause and effect
rule fails to apply in a particular instance? Do we assume that nature is irregular?
29. "[W]hen we transfer the past to the future,
in order to determine the effect, which will result from any cause, we transfer
all the different events, in the same proportion as they have appeared in the
past..." (39) Explain. Why is this relevant here?
Section VII
30. What are the differences between mathematics and the
"moral" sciences?
31. How does Hume propose to examine the ideas of power
and necessary connection? Why?
32. Does Hume think we find connections between causes
and effects by examining objects? What can we learn that way?
33. Can we discover the ideas of power and necessary
connection by reflecting on our own powers? Can we get the ideas of force or
energy this way?
34. "[W]e learn only by experience the frequent Conjunction
of objects, without ever being able to comprehend anything like Connexion between
them." (46) Explain the difference between conjunction and connection (connexion).
35. What's wrong with the arguments of the Cartesians
who refer all explanations of causation directly to God?
36. Why do we call some objects causes and others effects?
What gives us the feeling that there is a connection between the two?
37. How does Hume attempt to define cause?
Section VIII
38. What are the two bases for our understanding of the ideas
of necessity and causation?
39. "From the observation of several parallel instances,
philosophers form a maxim that the connexion between all causes and effects
is equally necessary, and that its seeming uncertainty in some instances proceeds
from the secret opposition of contrary causes." (58) Explain. Do irregular
events undermine our belief in the necessary connections between causes and
effects?
40. In what ways do all people agree about necessity?
41. "If we examine the operations of body, and the
production of effects from their causes, we shall find, that all our faculties
can never carry us farther in our knowledge of this relation, than barely to
observe, that particular objects are constantly conjoined together, and that
the mind is carried, by a customary transition, from the appearance of one to
the belief of the other." (61) Why does Hume call this a 'conclusion concerning
human ignorance'?
42. How does Hume define liberty?
43. What is the opposite of liberty, for Hume?
44. Are Hume's definitions of necessity and liberty consistent
with moral principles?
45. Do Hume's definitions eliminate the notion of wrongdoing?
Explain?
Section IX
46. Describe the role of analogy in science.
47. Do animals reason to the conclusion that nature is
uniform in operation? Do humans?
Section X
48. "A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to
the evidence." (73) Explain.
49. Is human testimony infallible? Why do we rely on
it?
50. Explain Hume's proof that miracles can't have happened,
from Part I.
51. Briefly describe the four arguments against miracles
in Part II. How are these different from the argument in Part I?
Section XI
52. Speaking as Epicurus, what does Hume wish to demonstrate
as regards God?
53. What argument for God's existence do Epicurus'
critics advance?
54. "When we infer any particular cause from an
effect, we must proportion the one to the other, and can never be allowed to
ascribe to the cause any qualities, but what are exactly sufficient to produce
the effect." (93) Explain.
55. Does Hume believe that we can behave morally without
believing in God? Explain.
56. "While we argue from the course of nature,
and infer a particular intelligent cause, which first bestowed, and still preserves
order in the universe, we embrace a principle, which is both uncertain and useless."(98)
Explain.
57. Why can we infer beyond the original effects in the
case of human action? What makes the case of God different?
Section XII
58. Why is Cartesian doubt incurable?
59. What is the proper role of a moderate skepticism?
60. What kind of evidence against the senses does Hume
dismiss? How does he dismiss it?
61. Why do we believe in an external universe, according
to Hume?
62. Can experience verify the existence of a physical world?
63. How does Hume reject Berkeley's explanation of our sensory
experience?
64. What does Hume say about the primary/secondary distinction?
With whom does he agree?
65. How does Hume evaluate Berkeley's metaphysical system?
66. What does Hume say about infinite divisibility?
What does this mean for mathematics?
67. "The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the
excessive principles of scepticism, is action, and employment, and the occupations
of common life." (109) Explain.
68. What's wrong with extreme philosophical skepticism?
69. Describe Hume's preferred moderate skepticism.
70. "When we run over libraries, persuaded of these
principles, what havoc must we make?" (114)