Skepticism and Rationality

Jayendra Minakshisundar

Marcello Barison

HUMA 11600/13

March 8, 2016

Prompt 11:

Hume says that it would be mad to abandon cause and effect thinking in regular life, and that this kind of thinking has contributed a lot to our survival as a species. Isn’t that a good indication that cause-and-effect thinking is based on reason, and that Hume is wrong in his skepticism about it?

Skepticism and Rationality

In the eighteenth century, Scottish philosopher David Hume developed Locke’s empiricism, using methods of observation from science to study human nature. Combining this with principles of philosophical skepticism, he believed that since humans live in the world, one should try to observe how they do so. Although he had a goal identical to cognitive philosophy, that is to investigate human cognitive capacities, Hume chose to delve into epistemology, determining the causes of human belief.

In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume analyses belief thoroughly, stating that beliefs can either be relations of ideas or matters of fact, his own version of the a priori/a posteriori distinction (Hume 25). Relations of ideas are beliefs of logic, which are clearly true, such as mathematics and pure reason. Matters of fact relate to the nature of existing things and, Hume holds, are always contingent. The core of Hume’s argument is that causal reasoning cannot be rationally justified. Hume’s skepticism, along with Locke and Berkeley, built the foundations of empiricism, and his argument against causality is notoriously difficult to refute. This is known as the Problem of Induction in philosophy.

Inductive reasoning is the form of reasoning that takes us from particular observations of a phenomenon to general conclusions about the phenomenon. For instance, say I was to suggest that all sugar is water-soluble. However, in order to make this claim I must first consistently observe this phenomenon and be ready to make the claim that this phenomenon will continue to occur under all conditions at all times. By looking at the statistical results of the experiment, we can apply our findings to actual scientific theory. In other words, it bridges the gap between the observed and the unobserved. This is where philosophers try to determine whether or not scientific experiments actually lead to scientific conclusions generally. Additionally, we must also propose the question of whether or not it is justified to say the hypothesis has been confirmed based on some finite set of empirical data.

The difficulty with this is that the the conclusion makes a claim about every event in some set A, far exceeding the premises, which only included a subset of A. The obvious question then is how to connect correlational data to causal results. While common sense would suggest that with every additional piece of evidence gathered the findings are even more likely to be true, this is not necessarily the case. In fact, Hume says, no matter how many experiments we perform, it will still only be a small sub-set of empirical data measured. This challenge to the validity of inductive reasoning comes from the fact we assume that our limited exposure to a phenomenon is enough to allow us to make conclusions about it as a whole. While one may think that changing confounding variables can show that the phenomenon is not just a feature of the environment or an anomaly, this is not always the case. In light of this, Hume argues that all our inductive inferences are unjustified. Going back to the example of sugar solubility example, how is it that we are to argue that all water and sugar share the same properties as the water and sugar we have observed?

Later in the Enquiry, Hume refers to the cause-effect relation as “necessary to the subsistence of our species,” asserting that if objects did not inspire the urge to investigate in humanity, to determine causes and effects, “all our knowledge must have been limited to the narrow sphere of our memory and senses” limiting human progress significantly (Hume 55). Initially, it is easy to assume that since causality is so essential to humanity’s survival, it must be true, and therefore justifiable. However, this argument has a number of flaws, and Hume’s reasoning withstands this test.

It is first important to examine the premise of the argument. Namely, that the existence of causality is contributed greatly to humanity’s survival. If one accepts Hume’s argument against causality, however, this cannot be accepted. In the absence of causality, no such contribution can be shown, causality’s existence and humanity’s survival are independent events. Pointing out that Hume himself made this statement is irrelevant, as both an argument from authority and because this merely shows how deeply causality is embedded into human cognition. This shows just how impactful Hume’s ideas actually are. The Problem of Induction, as it is known, calls into question all empirical claims, challenging the predictions we make in everyday life, and science. Without cause and effect as a tool to connect reason with the experienced world, our ability to understand and manipulate the world around us must be revised. However, this line of reasoning is dangerously close to circular, using Hume’s idea as both foundation and conclusion.

To avoid this, one can also argue that humanity’s survival depends upon belief in causality, but does not require causality itself. Hume states that it is the innate urge of humans to investigate and determine the cause and effect of things that allowed humanity to survive, expand our knowledge, achieve goals, and generally act in the world. But this urge is innate to the human mind, and arises from within the mind itself. Then it is the presence of causality in the mind, or the belief in causality that gives rise to this essential urge, rather than its existence. In fact, even in the face of evidence that a cause cannot be found, some continue to believe and investigate. Currently accepted physical theory claims that the universe has no information from before the big bang, implying that it is impossible to investigate what happened ‘before’ the big bang. However, today, there are scientists who believe this is not correct, and continue to research the cause of the big bang, even in the face of all current scientific knowledge.

It should be questioned as to how, if such a fundamental belief of humanity is flawed, humanity still survived 200,000 years without cause to doubt its truth. This doubt, though valid, can be easily resolved in the form of an analog to the weak anthropic principle. The question of the existence of causality can only be asked in a universe in which intelligent life that believes in causality exists. For example, among all possible states of the universe in which we may exist, only one is ours. Furthermore, in analyzing the problem of induction with reference to humanity’s survival, we may divide this set of universes as follows: