David Hume’s empiricist theory

He was one of the most radical thinkers, and his ideas about how we experience reality are suggestive.

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 onwards, two great philosophical currents fought each other to answer this question; on the one hand, there were the rationalists, who believed in the existence of certain universal truths with which we are born and which allow us to interpret our surroundings, and on the other hand, there were the empiricists, who denied the existence of innate knowledge, and on the other hand, there were the empiricists, who denied the existence of innate knowledge. denied the existence of innate knowledge and believed that we only learn through experience.

David Hume was not only one of the great representatives of the empiricist current, but also one of the most radical in that sense. His powerful ideas still have relevance today and, in fact, other 20th century philosophers were inspired by them. Let us look at what exactly David Hume's empiricist theory consisted of..

Who was David Hume?

This English philosopher was born in 1711 in Edinburgh, Scotland. When he was only twelve years old, he entered the University of Edinburgh to study, 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 of Human Nature, finished in 1739. This work contains the germ of his empiricist theory.

Much later, around 1763, Hume befriended Jean-Jacques became friends with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and began to become better known as a thinker and philosopher. He died in Edinburgh in 1776.

Hume's empiricist theory

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

There is no such thing as innate knowledge

Human beings come to life with no prior knowledge or schemes of thought that delimit how we should conceive reality. All that we will come to know will be through exposure to experience..

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 contents

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

The bad thing about ideas is that, although they correspond 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: nature.

3. There are two types of statements

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

Probables, on the other hand, refer to what happens in a given time and space, and therefore it is not possible to know with total certainty whether they are true at the moment they are uttered. For example: "tomorrow it will rain".

4. We need probable statements

Even though we cannot totally trust their validity, we need to rely on probable statements in order to live, that is, we need to trust more in some beliefs and less in others. Otherwise, we would be doubting everything and doing nothing.

So, what are our habits and our way of living based on solid beliefs? 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 the fact that they are based on the belief that we know certain characteristics of reality. the belief that we know certain invariable characteristics about nature and everything around us. and all that surrounds us. These beliefs arise from exposure to various similar experiences.

For example, we have learned that when we turn on the tap two things can happen: either liquid falls or it does not fall. However, it cannot happen that liquid comes out but, instead of falling, the jet is projected upwards, in the direction of the sky. The latter seems obvious, but, taking into account the above assumptions... 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 really so, and we only act as if they are out of convenience or, more to the point, because they are part of our routine. We first expose ourselves to a repetition of experiences and then assume a truth that is not really there.