here is the chief and most confounding objection to excessive scepticism, that no durable good can ever result from it, while it remains in its full force and vigour. We need only ask such a sceptic, What his meaning is? And what he proposes by all these curious researches? He is immediately at a loss, and knows not what to answer. A Copernican or Ptolemaic, who supports each his different system of astronomy, may hope to produce a conviction, which will remain constant and durable, with his audience. A Stoic or Epicurean displays principles which may not be durable, but which have an effect on conduct and behaviour. But a Pyrrhonian cannot expect that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind, or, if it had, that its influence would be beneficial to society. On the contrary, he must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge anything, that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily to prevail. All discourse, all action would immediately cease; and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence. It is true; so fatal an event is very little to be dreaded. Nature is always too strong for principle. And though a Pyrrhonian may throw himself or others into a momentary amazement and confusion by his profound reasonings, the first and most trivial event in life will put to flight all his doubts and scruples, and leave him the same, in every point of action and speculation, with the philosophers of every other sect, or with those who never concerned themselves in any philosophical researches. When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess that all his objections are mere amusement, and can have no other tendency than to show the whimsical condition of mankind, who must act and reason and believe – though they are not able, by their most diligent enquiry, to satisfy themselves concerning the foundation of these operations, or to remove the objections which may be raised against them.
There is indeed a more mitigated scepticism … which may be both durable and useful, and which may in part be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are in some measure corrected by common sense and reflection. The greater part of mankind are naturally apt to be affirmative and dogmatical in their opinions … But could such dogmatical reasoners become sensible of the strange infirmities of human understanding, even in its more perfect state … such a reflection would naturally inspire them with more modesty and reserve, and diminish their fond opinion of themselves …
Another species of mitigated scepticism which may be of advantage to mankind, and which may be the natural result of Pyrrhonian doubts and scruples, is the limitation of our enquiries to such subjects as best adapted to the narrow capacity of human understanding. The imagination of man is naturally sublime, delighted with whatever is remote and extraordinary, and running without control into the most distant parts of space and time in order to avoid the objects which custom has rendered too familiar to it. A correct judgement observes a contrary method, and avoiding all distant and high enquiries, confines itself to common life, and to such subjects as fall under daily practice and experience, leaving the more sublime topics to the embellishment of poets and orators, or to the arts or priests and politicians. To bring us to so salutary a determination, nothing can be more serviceable than to be once thoroughly convinced of the force of the Pyrrhonian doubt, and of the impossibility that anything but the strong power of natural instinct could free us from it … This narrow limitation, indeed, of our inquiries is in every respect so reasonable that it suffices to make the slightest examination into the natural powers of the human mind, and to compare them with their objects, in order to recommend it to us. We shall then find what are the proper subjects of science and enquiry.
Specimen Questions
1 Explain Hume’s attitude to scepticism and his reasons for thinking excessive doubt is ultimately pointless.
2 Hume argues that, because the table appears to get smaller when I move away from it, and yet we know that the real table retains its size, this shows that I cannot be aware of the actual object but only of a mental image of it. Is that a good argument?
3 Hume thinks that the strong powers of natural instinct will free us from excessive doubt. Why should that be the case, and do you agree?
Suggestions for Further Reading (Including Internet Resources)
1 D. Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding [1748], ed. T. L. Beauchamp (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
2 A clear basic introduction to Hume’s thought is D. Macnabb, David Hume (2nd edn, Oxford: Blackwell, 1966); and more recently, S. Blackburn How to Read Hume (London, Granta Books, 2008).
3 See also T. Penelhum, Hume (New York: St Martin’s, 1975); N. Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume (London: Macmillan, 1941).
4 For a more detailed account of the Humean philosophy see B. Stroud, Hume (London: Routledge, 1977); D. Pears, Hume’s System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
5 See also D. F. Norton (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hume (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), chs 1 and 4.
6 For a clear overview of Hume’s philosophical ideas see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/ (by W. E. Morris and C. R. Brown) and also the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy at https://www.iep.utm.edu/hume/ (by J. Fieser).
7 You can listen to and watch P. Millican in his extensive lecture series for Oxford University: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/keywords/david-hume, in particular Episode 8 on Humean ‘Scepticism in the Treatise and the Enquiry’. For further Early Modern podcasts and podcasts on Hume see P. Millican’s personal website at https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/people/peter-millican.
8 For a useful online collection of all of Hume’s works with easy search functions go to https://davidhume.org.
Notes
* David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding [1748], Section XII; abridged, with modified spelling, punctuation and grammar. There are many editions of this work, including that by Tom L. Beauchamp (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), which contains a helpful introduction for students.
1 1 After the ancient Greek philosopher Pyrrho of Elis (c.365–275 BC) who argued that knowledge of the nature of things is utterly unattainable, and advocated total suspension of belief.
2 2 For this thesis, and Hume’s rejection of speculative philosophy which goes beyond these limits, see below, Part II, extract 7.
3 3 Compare Berkeley’s theory that nothing exists outside the mind: see below, Part II, extract 6.
4 4 Compare Hume’s own discussion of these matters in Part II, extract 7, and Part VI, extracts 5 and 6, below.
8 Experience and Understanding: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason*
The history of the theory of knowledge is sometimes presented as a battle between two opposing camps of philosophers – empiricists (from the Greek, empeiria, ‘experience’), who believe sensory experience is the basis of all knowledge, and rationalists (from the Latin, ratio, ‘reason’), who believe the inner light of reason enables us to acquire knowledge that is independent of experience. The contrast can be overdone, and it easily leads to oversimplifications; but we can,
