David Hume: Scepticism, Science, and Superstition

David Hume:Scepticism, Science,and Superstition 7. Hume on Immortality and the Design Argument Dr Peter Millican Hertford College, Oxford

Scepticism and Science • The overall shape of Hume’s causal/inductive scepticism and attitude to science is fairly clear: • A priori, we can know nothing of the world’s ways of working; • Intelligibility is an impossible dream; • All discovery of facts about the world depends on experience, and hence on an assumption of uniformity which cannot be rationally founded; • Neverthless, we can’t help assuming it; • Hence consistency with it should provide our criterion of empirical rationality.

Reasoning in Accord with Induction • It may seem paradoxical that a philosopher famed for his inductive ‘scepticism’ is such a strong advocate of inductive science. • Though genuinely sceptical about the basis of induction, he consistently emphasises that it provides our only method of learning about the empirical world. • The assumption of uniformity also provides a way of assessing empirical claims.

Science as Systematisation ‘It is confessed, that the utmost effort of human reason is to reduce the principles, productive of natural phenomena, to a greater simplicity, and to resolve the many particular effects into a few general causes, by means of reasonings from analogy, experience, and observation. But as to the causes of these general causes, we should in vain attempt their discovery; nor shall we ever be able to satisfy ourselves, by any particular explication of them. …’ (E 30)

Where Explanation Ends ‘… These ultimate springs and principles are totally shut up from human curiosity and enquiry. Elasticity, gravity, cohesion of parts, communication of motion by impulse; these are probably the ultimate causes and principles which we shall ever discover in nature; and we may esteem ourselves sufficiently happy, if, by accurate enquiry and reasoning, we can trace up the particular phenomena to, or near to, these general principles.’ (E 30-1)

Implications for Miracles • Belief in testimony, like all empirical belief, is to be judged by its conformity with experience: how reliable is testimony? • Where strong testimony supports a claim at odds with experience, the two ‘proofs’ must be weighed against each other. • Following consistent inductive principles, the belief in established laws of nature will always dominate belief in miracles.

Irony Regarding Miracles ‘So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.’ (E 131)

The Immortality of the Soul • Hume’s essay ‘Of the Immortality of the Soul’ was published only posthumously, because he suppressed it during his lifetime for prudential reasons. It starts: ‘By the mere light of reason it seems difficult to prove the Immortality of the Soul. The arguments for it are commonly derived either from metaphysical topics, or moral, or physical. But in reality, it is the gospel, and the gospel alone, that has brought life and immortality to light.’

‘Metaphysical Topics’ (1) ‘I. Metaphysical topics suppose that the soul is immaterial, and that it is impossible for thought to belong to a material substance. But just metaphysics teach us, that the notion of substance is wholly confused and imperfect, and that we have no other idea of any substance, than as an aggregate of particular qualities inhering in an unknown something. Matter, therefore, and spirit, are at bottom equally unknown; and we cannot determine what qualities may inhere in the one or in the other. …’

‘Metaphysical Topics’ (2) ‘They likewise teach us, that nothing can be decided a priori concerning any cause or effect; and that experience, being the only source of our judgments of this nature, we cannot know from any other principle, whether matter, by its structure or arrangement, may not be the cause of thought. Abstract reasonings cannot decide any question of fact or existence.’ • Notice the major contrast with conventional views on the inertness of matter etc.

‘Metaphysical Topics’ (3) ‘But admitting a spiritual substance to be dispersed throughout the universe, like the ethereal fire of the Stoics, and to be the only inherent subject of thought, we have reason to conclude from analogy, that nature uses it after the same manner she does the other substance, matter. She employs it as a kind of paste or clay; modifies it into a variety of forms and existences; dissolves after a time each modification, and from its substance erects a new form.’

‘Moral Topics’ (1) ‘II. Let us now consider the moral arguments, chiefly those derived from the justice of God, which is supposed to be further interested in the further punishment of the vicious and reward of the virtuous. But these arguments are grounded on the supposition, that God has attributes beyond what he has exerted in this universe, with which alone we are acquainted. Whence do we infer the existence of these attributes?’

‘Moral Topics’ (2) ‘the whole scope and intention of man's creation, so far as we can judge by natural reason, is limited to the present life. With how weak a concern, from the original, inherent structure of the mind and passions, does he ever look further? … There arise, indeed, in some minds, some unaccountable terrors with regard to futurity: But these would quickly vanish, were they not artificially fostered by precept and education. …’

‘Moral Topics’ (3) ‘... And those, who foster them: what is their motive? Only to gain a livelihood, and to acquire power and riches in this world. Their very zeal and industry, therefore, are an argument against them. What cruelty, what iniquity, what injustice in nature, to confine thus all our concern, as well as all our knowledge, to the present life, if there be another scene still waiting us, of infinitely greater consequence? Ought this barbarous deceit to be ascribed to a beneficent and wise Being?’

‘Moral Topics’ (4) ‘Punishment, without any proper end or purpose, is inconsistent with our ideas of goodness and justice; and no end can be served by it after the whole scene is closed. Punishment, according to our conception, should bear some proportion to the offence. Why then eternal punishment for the temporary offences of so frail a creature as man? … Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.’

‘Moral Topics’ (5) ‘Were one to go round the world with an intention of giving a good supper to the righteous and a sound drubbing to the wicked, he would frequently be embarrassed in his choice. … To suppose measures of approbation and blame, different from the human, confounds every thing. Whence do we learn, that there is such a thing as moral distinctions, but from our own sentiments? ... Nature has rendered human infancy peculiarly frail and mortal … The half of mankind die before they are rational creatures.’

‘Physical Topics’ (1) ‘III. The physical arguments from the analogy of nature are strong for the mortality of the soul: and these are really the only philosophical arguments, which ought to be admitted with regard to this question, or indeed any question of fact. Where any two objects are so closely connected, that all alterations, which we have ever seen in the one, are attended with proportionable alterations in the other: we ought to conclude, by all rules of analogy, that, when there are still greater alterations produced in the former, and it is totally dissolved, there follows a total dissolution of the latter.’

‘Physical Topics’ (2) ‘Sleep, a very small effect on the body, is attended with a temporary extinction: at least, a great confusion in the soul. The weakness of the body and that of the mind in infancy are exactly proportioned; their vigour in manhood, their sympathetic disorder in sickness, their common gradual decay in old age. The step further seems unavoidable; their common dissolution in death. Every thing is in common betwixt soul and body. The organs of the one are all of them the organs of the other.’

‘Physical Topics’ (3) ‘The souls of animals are allowed to be mortal: and these bear so near a resemblance to the souls of men, that the analogy from one to the other forms a very strong argument. … Nothing in this world is perpetual; Every thing, however seemingly firm, is in continual flux and change: … How contrary to analogy, therefore, to imagine, that one single form, seeming the frailest of any, and subject to the greatest disorders, is immortal and indissoluble?’

‘Physical Topics’ (4) ‘How to dispose of the infinite number of posthumous existences ought also to embarrass the religious theory. … Ought such bold suppositions to be received by any philosophy: and that merely on the pretext of a bare possibility? … Were our horrors of annihilation an original passion, … it would rather prove the mortality of the soul: For as nature does nothing in vain, she would never give us a horror against an impossible event.’

‘Physical Topics’ (5) ‘’Tis an infinite advantage in every controversy, to defend the negative. If the question be out of the common experienced course of nature, this circumstance is almost, if not altogether, decisive. By what arguments or analogies can we prove any state of existence, which no one ever saw, and which no way resembles any that ever was seen? Who will repose such trust in any pretended philosophy, as to admit upon its testimony the reality of so marvellous a scene?’

‘Theological Lying’ • After all these arguments, Hume’s final paragraph is brief and surprising: ‘Nothing could set in a fuller light the infinite obligations which mankind have to Divine revelation; since we find, that no other medium could ascertain this great and important truth.’ • Such ‘theological lying’, especially in the first and last paragraphs of an essay, was very common. It defended against accusations of infidelity, and avoided blatant offence.

Human Animals • Note Hume’s strong emphasis throughout on argument from analogy. • Hume emphasises the analogy between humans and other animals in many places, e.g. Treatise I iii 16 ‘Of the reason of animals’, II i 12 ‘Of the pride and humility of animals’, II ii 12 ‘Of the love and hatred of animals’ (in each case the final section of the relevant part of the Treatise!), Enquiry IX, Moral Enquiry Appendix 2, Dialogues II.

The Design Argument • Hume discusses the Design Argument in two main places, Enquiry XI and the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. • In both, he disguises his own intentions by using a dialogue form. • Enquiry XI focuses mainly on one point, that one cannot argue from the world to God and then back, drawing new conclusions about the world beyond what is apparent.

The Composition of the Dialogues • The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion were probably composed mainly in the early 1750s, but published only posthumously, in 1779. • Hume made significant additions on his deathbed (in 1776), and took precautions to ensure that they would be published after his death, by Adam Smith or, failing that (and in fact), his own nephew David Hume.

The Characters of the Dialogues • The Dialogues mainly involve three characters: • Demea: a mystical theist fond of ‘the a priori proof’ of God’s existence; • Cleanthes: an ‘experimental’ theist who supports the Design Argument based on analogy between the Universe and a human-designed machine; • Philo: the Humean sceptic, but eventually showing strong traces of Baylean fideism.

The Structure of the Dialogues (1) • Part I: introduction, and a very interesting debate between Cleanthes and Philo on the basis of Philo’s mitigated scepticism. • Part II: Cleanthes states the Design Argument; Philo gives some initial Humean objections – the analogy is too remote, the Universe is unique, so no causal law can be established. • Part III: Cleathes suggests the fact of design is so obvious as to be compelling. Demea then changes tack, advocating mysticism.

The Structure of the Dialogues (2) • Part IV: Cleathes argues that Demea’s mysticism is indistinguishable from atheism. Demea and Philo retort that Cleanthes is an anthropomorphite. Philo then presses the Stratonic objection – an organised mental world (i.e. God) is as much in need of explanation as an organised physical world. Cleanthes denies any obligation to explain causes of causes – establishing a cause is enough.

The Structure of the Dialogues (3) • Part V: Philo stresses weaknesses in the Design analogy. It cannot prove infinity in the Deity, nor perfection: • ‘it is impossible for us to tell, from our limited views, whether this system contains any great faults, or deserves any considerable praise, if compared to other possible, and even real systems. Could a peasant, if the Aeneid were read to him, pronounce that poem to be absolutely faultless, or even assign to it its proper rank among the productions of human wit, he, who had never seen any other production?’ (D 167)

The Structure of the Dialogues (4) • Analogy with human design brings other ‘inconveniences’: • ‘If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine? And what surprize must we feel, when we find him a stupid mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving? Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out …’

The Structure of the Dialogues (5) • Nor can human analogy prove the Deity’s unity: • ‘A great number of men join in building a house or ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world? This is only so much greater similarity to human affairs.’ (D 167) • Philo’s sums up at the end of Part V …

‘In a word, Cleanthes, a man who follows your hypothesis is able perhaps to assert, or conjecture, that the universe, sometime, arose from something like design: but beyond that position he cannot ascertain one single circumstance; and is left afterwards to fix every point of his theology by the utmost license of fancy and hypothesis. This world, for aught he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance: it is the work only of some dependent, inferior deity; and is the object of derision to his superiors: it is the production of old age and dotage in some superannuated deity; and ever since his death, has run on at adventures, from the first impulse and active force which it received from him.’ (D 169)

The Structure of the Dialogues (6) • Part VI: Philo asks why one should assume design as the fundamental cause of order? Vegetation and generation are also such causes, and as far as we can tell, are more fundamental. Maybe there is an inherent principle of order. • Part VII: Philo explains the objection further – on Cleanthes’ principles, there’s no reason for favouring design.

The Structure of the Dialogues (7) • Part VIII: Philo suggests the ‘Epicurean hypothesis’ – randomness giving rise to order and apparent stability. • Part IX: Demea proposes the a priori argument (similar to Clarke’s), which Cleanthes refutes on Humean principles. • Parts X and XI: Demea and Philo emphasise the evils of the world, with Philo inferring that any Deity is not good.

The Structure of the Dialogues (8) • Part XII: With Demea having left, discomfited, Philo gives his famous ‘confession’ of belief in a Deity: That the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence: if this proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more particular explication: if it affords no inference that affects human life, or can be the source of any action or forbearance: and if the analogy, imperfect as it is, can be carried no further than to the human intelligence, and cannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, to the qualities of the mind … [then what can one do but assent?] (D 227)

Hume’s Final Word • In a paragraph added on his deathbed: • I ask him, whether, from the coherence and apparent sympathy in all the parts of this world, there be not a certain degree of analogy among all the operations of Nature, in every situation and in every age; whether the rotting of a turnip, the generation of an animal, and the structure of human thought, be not energies that probably bear some remote analogy to each other … I ask him, if it be not probable, that the principle which first arranged, and still maintains order in this universe, bears not also some remote inconceivable analogy to the other operations of nature, and, among the rest, to the economy of human mind and thought. (D 218)

David Hume: Scepticism, Science, and Superstition