According to Masaryk,[136] the fundamental doctrine of Humian skepticism
is as follows: “If I have had one and the same experience ever so often,
i.e., if I have seen the sun go up 100 times, I expect to see it go up
the 101st time the next day, but I have no guarantee, no certainty, no
evidence for this belief. Experience looks only to the past, not to the
future. How can I then discover the 101st sunrise in the first 100
sunrises? Experience reveals in me the habit to expect similar effects
from similar circumstances, but the intellect has no share in this
expectation.”
All the sciences based on experience are uncertain and without logical
foundation, even though their results, as a whole and in the mass, are
predictable. Only mathematics offers certainty and evidence. Therefore,
according to Hume, sciences based on experience are unsafe because the
recognition of causal connection depends on the facts of experience and
we can attain to certain knowledge of the facts of experience only on
the ground of the evident relation of cause and effect.
This view was first opposed by Reid, who tried to demonstrate that we
have a clear notion of necessary connection. He grants that this notion
is not directly attained either from external or internal experience,
but asserts its clearness and certainty in spite of that fact. Our mind
has the power to make its own concepts and one such concept is that of
necessary connection. Kant goes further and says that Hume failed to
recognize the full consequences of his own analysis, for the notion of
causality is not the only one which the understanding uses to represent
a priori the connection of objects. And hence, Kant defines
psychologically and logically a whole system of similar concepts. His
“Critique of Pure Reason” is intended historically and logically as the
refutation of Hume’s skepticism. It aims to show that not only
metaphysics and natural science have for their basis “synthetic
judgments a priori,” but that mathematics also rests on the same
foundation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account