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David HumeAn Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1748A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Sceptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Understanding”
The fourth chapter is split into two sections. The first divides objects that the human mind can apply itself to into two categories: “Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact” (18). Relations of ideas concern fields such as mathematics, and knowledge that is “intuitively or demonstratively certain” (18). This knowledge is gained and affirmed regardless of experience, sensation, or circumstance. It is concerned with things that are true necessarily and cannot be otherwise. Matters of fact, on the other hand, can be known and experienced, yet could conceivably be otherwise.
Matters of fact seem to be founded on the relation between cause and effect. When asked why one holds a certain belief, a reason will be given; every fact is known in this way. When a new object is presented to the human senses, nothing at all about its effects can be inferred: The human mind can only know through experience. As Hume points out, “causes and effects are discoverable, not by reason, but by experience” (20).
The second part of the chapter discusses the problem of induction. Hume observes that knowledge gained by sense experience is not founded on reasoning. There is nothing about our past experience that necessitates its application to the future. Experience merely reveals to us “a number of uniform effects” from which we make future inferences, but this does not give us true insight into the nature of those objects to which we attribute causes (27).
Chapter 5 Summary: “Sceptical Solution of these Doubts”
The solution to the problems of epistemological bias is to employ “Academic or Sceptical philosophy” (30), which Hume makes clear in the first part of this chapter. Experience will inspire a person to infer causality from some effect they observe in the world, even though there is not necessarily a cause-and-effect relationship. A person only attributes a cause out of a hidden principle called “Custom or Habit” (32). It is “custom alone” that causes one “to expect the one from the appearance of the other” (32). This is not a result of reasoning. One merely expects a future event that by habit they have learned to associate with a particular prior event. Every belief is held simply because there is a habitual conjunction between two or more objects.
The second part of the chapter deals with the imagination, and the distinction that must be drawn between belief and fiction. Belief elicits a particular “sentiment or feeling” (35), while fiction is an idea that simply does not elicit the same feeling. When an idea elicits sentiment, then the mind makes a judgment on whether said thing is worthy of that sentiment or is not—whether it is belief or fiction.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Of Probability”
Hume denies the existence of chance. However, he does not deny that the limited knowledge of human beings often appears to demand the existence of chance. One’s life is governed wholly by probabilities, of whether a thing is likely to happen (or not). The higher the probability, the more secure our belief in that thing and its occurrence will be: “Fire has always burned, and water suffocated” (42).
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
In distinguishing between relations of ideas and matters of fact, Hume is distinguishing between materially conditioned truths and truths which have no material conditions. A truth that has no material conditions is something like 2+2=4. One may have learned this truth as a child at the kitchen counter with a bowl of apples, counting them to arrive at the sum of four. However, one does not need to recall that exercise to remember—and to truly know—that 2+2=4. It is an idea that is abstracted from the particular and made to live in the mind.
Hume calls a truth that does have material conditions a matter of fact. That one drank coffee with breakfast yesterday rather than tea is a matter of fact: While true, it is possible to have been otherwise. Only the experience of that event demonstrates its truth. One could have chosen tea, or orange juice, rather than coffee; one cannot choose for two and two to make seventeen. This is the difference between an idea and a matter of fact.
When it comes to matters of fact, there lies the relation of cause and effect. One does not end up with four because two and two happen to bump into one another; this is not a real example of cause and effect. One does, however, get burnt in touching a hot stove; experience has always affirmed that coming into contact with fire results in being burned. As Hume points out, “all our reasoning concerning facts are of the same nature” (19), that is, our observation that one thing always follows upon the appearance of some other thing. Our mind connects the two objects or actions and sees in them the reality that we call cause and effect.
Unlike the mathematics example, our knowledge is purely from experience. There is no abstract reasoning, according to Hume, which can tell us that glass will break when the appropriate amount of pressure is applied; it is a discovery that must be made from experience alone. This kind of knowledge is greatly removed from nature and the truth of things—as Hume notes, “nature has kept us at a great distance from all her secrets” (24). When we encounter causes that are quite like other causes that we have observed, we naturally expect certain effects to follow; this is merely the result of habit or custom.
Human beings constantly want to see patterns. When we suspect a pattern in nature or the course of life events, we believe that we have discovered a true causal relationship. However, this is merely human custom; there is no rational relation between the objects or events in question. This is the basis of the distinction between belief and fiction. When pattern recognition results in a deep sense of feeling or sentiment, we call this belief. When we feel no such attachment, we call this fiction. Religion elicits vivid sentiments. In reality, however, we are ignorant of the true causes of events; we rely primarily on probability to judge a particular course of action or belief.
The higher the probability of a thing occurring, the more the human mind can grasp something as a belief, truth, or inevitable consequence. Fire always burns and falling from a great height will result in injury or death. These are almost certain probabilities, and we consider them universal laws. Other things do not fall under this kind of certainty, however—the year’s crop yield, the effectiveness of a medicine, the ability of a five-year-old child learning to read. These will all have varying rates of occurrence; they will elicit greater or lesser belief according to their probable rate of occurrence.
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