One of the reasons why we should consider reading the history of ideas is to be aware of what people have already thought about the problems that confront us today so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes that have already been pointed out. When a scientist claims that ‘I only believe in empiricism – nothing more and nothing less’ one realizes the dire importance of re-playing the whole projectile of the British empiricist tradition with David Hume at its logical dead end followed by Kant’s critique. Let us briefly rehearse some of the crucial ideas of Hume on empiricism and rationalism to establish the inadequacy of the both.
Although, we might credit Francis Bacon for being probably the first prominent modern figure in Western tradition to have established the superiority of empiricism over scholasticism and rationalism, it is John Locke who is more famous representative figure of empiricist tradition in the popular culture. Locke is famous for his statement that human being is born as a tabula rasa i.e. a blank slate on which then later on experience (sense data) writes upon. Locke rejected all notions of “innate ideas” and declared that all knowledge is nothing but experience. Locke’s empiricism was followed by Berkeley (who pointed out some flaws in Locke’s theory which we will not discuss here) but finally it arrived at Hume who exposed the haunting fault lines of empiricism.
Hume represents the logical end conclusion of empiricist tradition. He realized that if we decide to accept only experience/sense data then all our knowledge crumbles down to mere heap of impressions/sense data. Hume critiqued Locke for taking for granted the belief of the existence of external reality (as material substance) and self/ego/mind (as mental substance) when in fact all we have is mere stream of sensations/sense impressions. What is this self or ego, asks Hume. Where is the sense impression or sense datum of a particular person named (say) X. No such thing exists, Hume says. All we have is mere bundle of memories, impressions, data that we mentally abstract out as one whole person. The conclusion of one whole unique person by the name of ‘X’ is our mental abstraction or concoction or construction because there is no direct empirical sense impression of substratum that “directly” empirically establishes the belief of that individual. Similarly, for the real world outside, all we have is mere sense impressions or data of colours, shapes, smell, weight, etc; we cannot claim to know anything beyond that, if we are logically consistent empiricists.
This is the famous Humean doubt or skepticism. If we take pure empiricism seriously, as Hume takes, then all we have is nothing but a stream or flowing river of sense data and impressions; we have absolutely no idea from where they emerge or come from. We have no direct sense datum of apple, as it is, we only have impressions of shape, smell, texture, etc that we combine to see apple but where do these impressions come from; what is its reality; what is its nature – we have no idea. We are eternally locked within impressions/sensations (that’s all we have) as Berkeley had noted. Berkeley too had earlier critiqued Locke for taking material substance for granted i.e. simply assumed; he says that the only reason Locke has for believing in material substance is an “inference” and not any empirical data; the inference being that for all these sense impressions to exist, there must be a “substratum” in which they inhere. Berkeley calls this an “abstract idea” and severely censures it for being totally “un-empirical”.
This is the reason why Science cannot solely function on mere “empiricism” but rather needs the additional help of “induction” but Hume showed that induction can never provide Science with mathematical certainty. The fact that a thousand crows were seen to be black does not lead to mathematical certainty of all crows being black; there is always a possibility of future odd observation which might upset our previous induction. Mathematical certainty like “two plus two equals four” is “certain” irrespective of all future observations. Scientists who know philosophy of science know this basic fact and thus they never claim certainty; what they do claim instead is, borrowing from Popper, that we only know falsified ideas with certainty. This is the most prominent technique used by scientists today but this Popperian view also is not without its own problems. Some critics show that Popper’s falsifiability is still “inductive” in nature where as others show that individual falsifications like positive verifications never disprove (or prove) any theories at all but rather an overall cumulative failure of explanatory and predictive power of a theory does.
Coming back to our original discussion, it took Hume’s devastating critique of empiricist epistemology to arouse Kant from what he referred to as his dogmatic slumber. The whole project of Kant was then to salvage possibility of knowledge after Humean critique. Kant posited that though Hume is correct in saying that the only resource we have is the pile of sense impressions but it takes our apriori categories of thought to process and interpret these sense data. This is how Kant’s critical philosophy synthesized rationalism and empiricism by saying that we need both. We need pure empirical data as well as antecedent theoretical frameworks. This was later on re-played in similar tone when Neurath critiqued Carnap’s protocol statements. Both of them were logical positivists but disagreed on foundations of knowledge. Carnap, like Hume, asserted that all we have is basic pure elementary sense data where as Neurath clarified that we already are drenched in theoretical presuppositions without which our observation, data collection and interpretation lose all meaning. A basic introduction to the discipline of ‘Philosophy of Science’ can clarify these matters in a far more broader detail.
As far as Hume’s critique of religion and metaphysics is concerned, we must say that he had little to no understanding of the “intellectual” foundations of religious traditions. Intellect/rooh/nous/ayn-al-qalb is not mere speculative reason; it is a direct intuitive faculty of principial knowledge like logic, geometry, and other principles which he had recognized and called them by the name of relations of ideas. Readers may refer to William Stoddard’s chapter called “What is the Intellect”, Schuon’s chapter called “To be Man is to Know” and Seyyed Nasr’s text Knowledge and the Sacred to properly appreciate what intellectual knowledge means and why it is indispensable. There is a critical difference between “rationalism” and “intellectual” foundations of religion and that makes all the difference.
Now, let us come to the last segment of this article and that is Hume’s critique of rationalism. Hume, being world renowned atheist and an empiricist, surprisingly (for his rationalist atheist followers) censured rationalism. For Hume, Human being is not mere reason but rather a deeply layered being with emotions (irrational/supra-rational reality) which plays rather major role in human behavior and thinking. If we naively posit rationalism without taking into account our deeply emotional/unconscious elements then we will continue to be controlled and modeled by our hidden irrationalities whilst being completely oblivious in our ostensible rationalism.
Let me quote a relevant passage from A.C. Grayling’s The History of Philosophy on this aspect of Hume: “Hume’s chief objection to rationalist morality is that having a reason is not by itself enough to motivate action. Only emotion can do this. There is a reason for me to learn another language, but unless I desire or feel a need to do so I will not do it. Reason’s function is not to prompt but to guide, once prompting has happened [unconsciously/supra-rationally]; it can tell me how to achieve a goal once I am motivated to achieve it. ‘Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them”.
It is important to note that Hume, unlike Russell and his camp, was primarily a psychologist rather than logical empiricist and thus had a better appreciation of deeper complexities of human being rather than arresting him into artificial robotic rationalist assumptions. As an illustration, we may point out the example of an “interest”; no body consciously/rationally chooses his/her interest. Our interests grab us first (unconsciously) and then later on we try to pursue them rationally. We are first unconscious then subconscious and then conscious rational agents. This is how consciousness has emerged; one can check Erich Neumann’s work called Origins and History of Consciousness or the second part of Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Modern rationalism is guilty of neglecting the deep ocean of unconscious/supra-rational in which the surface iceberg of rationality floats around.
Towards the end let us mention one relevant point here and that is the jibe Jung takes at Locke’s claim of tabula rasa. Jung observes that every child rather than being a “blank slate” is a living reality with typical personality type, deep unconscious archetypes, and a deeply biological and psychical historic memory of millions of years not to mention the spirit/pure light of intelligence that every human possesses. Defining human being in terms of reductive instrumental reason is dangerously naïve to say the least.
P.S: Please note that Hume’s contribution considered here is to be read within the context of classical empiricist tradition. One should note with Chomsky that Hume’s psychology was by no means fully correct; he had a little appreciation of what one might refer to sub-rational but lacked the proper understanding of “unconscious”.
(Author has done Masters in Philosophy from JNU Delhi. He can be reached on: [email protected])
