David Hume's empiricist theory

Before Psychology appeared as a science, it was the task of philosophers to investigate the way in which human beings perceive reality. From the Renaissance, two great philosophical currents fought each other to answer this question; on one side were the rationalists, who believed in the existence of certain universal truths with which we are already born and that allow us to interpret our surroundings, and on the other were the empiricists, who denied the existence of innate knowledge and they believed that we only learn through experience.

David Hume was not only one of the great representatives of the empiricist current, but he was also one of the most radical in that sense. His powerful ideas still matter today, and indeed other 20th century philosophers were inspired by them. Let's see what exactly did David Hume's empiricist theory consist of.

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Who was David Hume?

This English philosopher was born in 1711 in Edinburgh, Scotland. When he was only twelve years old, he went to study at the University of Edinburgh, and years later, after suffering a nervous breakdown, he moved to France, where he began to develop his philosophical concerns through the writing of A Treatise on Human Nature, completed in 1739. This work contains the germ of his empiricist theory.

Much later, around 1763, Hume he befriended Jean-Jacques Rousseau and he began to become more known as a thinker and a philosopher. He died in Edinburgh in the year 1776.

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Hume's empiricist theory

The main ideas of David Hume's philosophy they are summarized in the following basic principles.

1. Innate knowledge does not exist

Human beings come to life without prior knowledge or thought patterns that define how we should conceive of reality. All that we will come to know will be thanks to the exposure to the experiences.

In this way, David Hume denied the rationalist dogma that there are truths that exist by themselves and to which we could have access in any possible context, only through reason.

2. There are two types of mental content

Hume distinguishes between impressions, which are those thoughts that are based on things that we have experienced through the senses, and ideas, which are copies of the above and its nature is more ambiguous and abstract as it does not have the limits or the details of something that corresponds to a sensation originated by eyes, ears, etc.

The trouble with ideas is that, despite corresponding exactly to the truth, they tell us little or nothing about what reality is like, and in practice what matters is to know the environment in which we live: the nature.

3. There are two types of statements

When explaining reality, Hume distinguishes between demonstrative and probable statements. Demonstratives, as their name suggests, are those whose validity can be demonstrated by evaluating their logical structure. For example, saying that the sum of two units equals the number two is a demonstrative statement. That implies that its truth or falsehood is self-evident., without the need to investigate about other things that are not contained in the statement or that are not part of the semantic framework in which that statement is framed.

The probable ones, on the other hand, refer to what happens in a given time and space, and therefore Consequently, it is not possible to know with total certainty if they are true at the moment in which they are stated. For example: "tomorrow it will rain".

4. We need the probable statements

Although we cannot fully trust its validity, we need to support ourselves with probable statements to live, that is, to trust more in some beliefs and less in others. Otherwise we would be doubting everything and we would not do anything.

So, on what are our habits and our way of living based on solid beliefs based? For Hume, the principles by which we are guided are valuable because they are likely to reflect something true, not because they correspond exactly to reality.

5. The Limitations of Inductive Thinking

For Hume, our lives are characterized by being based on the belief that we know certain invariable characteristics about nature and everything that does not surround. These beliefs are born from exposure to several similar experiences.

For example, we have learned that when you open the tap, two things can happen: either liquid falls or it does not fall. However, it cannot happen that liquid escapes but, instead of falling, the jet is projected upwards, towards the sky. The latter seems obvious, but, taking into account the previous premises... What justifies that it will always continue to happen in the same way? For Hume, there is nothing to justify it. From the occurrence of many similar experiences in the past, it does not logically follow that this will always happen.

Thus, although there are many things about how the world works that seem self-evident, for Hume these "truths" are not they really are, and we only act as if they were for convenience or, more specifically, because they are part of our routine. First we expose ourselves to a repetition of experiences and then we assume a truth that is not really there.