This, it seems to me, is the most serious question which Hume raises.
And it should be observed that his own attitude towards it is very
different from his attitude towards the sceptical views which we
have just been considering. These sceptical views he did not expect
or wish us to accept, except in philosophic moments. He declares
that we cannot, in ordinary life, avoid believing things which are
inconsistent with them; and, in so declaring, he, of course, implies
incidentally that they are false: since he implies that he himself
has a great deal of knowledge as to what we can and cannot believe in
ordinary life. But, as regards the view that our knowledge of matters
of fact beyond our own observation is entirely confined to such as are
founded on experience, he never suggests that it is impossible that
all our beliefs should be consistent with this view, and he does seem
to think it eminently desirable that they should be. He declares that
any assertion with regard to such matters, which is not founded on
experience, can be nothing but "sophistry and illusion"; and that all
books which are composed of such assertions should be "committed to the
flames." He seems, therefore, to think that here we really have a test
by which we may determine what we should or should not believe, on all
occasions: any view on such matters, for which we have no foundation in
experience, is a view which we cannot know to be even probably true,
and which we should _never_ accept, if we can help it. Is there any
justification for this strong view?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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