WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.379 Welcome back to The Deep Dive, the show where 00:00:02.379 --> 00:00:04.700 we take your formidable reading list, you know, 00:00:04.719 --> 00:00:06.799 the dense articles, the complicated research, 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:09.919 the overwhelming philosophical texts, and distill 00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:12.419 it into something utterly essential and hopefully 00:00:12.419 --> 00:00:16.600 truly fascinating. Our mission today is, well, 00:00:16.679 --> 00:00:18.940 it's a heavy one, but it's one of the most important 00:00:18.940 --> 00:00:21.339 intellectual deep dives we can really undertake. 00:00:21.460 --> 00:00:24.420 We are plunging into the mind of David Hume. 00:00:24.679 --> 00:00:27.660 Hume is so often just categorized, isn't he? 00:00:27.739 --> 00:00:30.760 An 18th century philosopher in a dusty wig. Yeah, 00:00:30.820 --> 00:00:33.219 and that categorization sells him short by about 00:00:33.219 --> 00:00:36.439 four major careers. Our sources confirm he was 00:00:36.439 --> 00:00:39.090 a true polymath. a groundbreaking philosopher, 00:00:39.450 --> 00:00:42.570 an essayist, a massive literary historian whose 00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:45.170 works dominated for decades. And a seminal economist, 00:00:45.390 --> 00:00:48.350 too. I mean, his ideas anticipated modern monetary 00:00:48.350 --> 00:00:50.969 theory. Exactly. And the ripples of his work 00:00:50.969 --> 00:00:53.250 didn't just stay within philosophy. His ideas 00:00:53.250 --> 00:00:55.409 were so fundamentally disruptive that they forced 00:00:55.409 --> 00:00:57.750 major pivots in intellectual history. We're talking 00:00:57.750 --> 00:01:00.310 about a man whose skepticism literally woke Immanuel 00:01:00.310 --> 00:01:02.630 Kant from what the German philosopher famously 00:01:02.630 --> 00:01:05.950 dubbed his dogmatic slumbers. That's right. Hume's 00:01:05.950 --> 00:01:08.200 approach didn't just tweak existing metaphysics, 00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:11.640 it sought to demolish the foundations of certainty. 00:01:12.230 --> 00:01:15.069 And that foundational skepticism, when he applied 00:01:15.069 --> 00:01:17.950 it rigorously, went on to influence giants of 00:01:17.950 --> 00:01:20.670 the 20th century. Oh, absolutely. From Albert 00:01:20.670 --> 00:01:22.810 Einstein and his formulation of special relativity 00:01:22.810 --> 00:01:25.849 to Karl Popper on the logic of scientific discovery, 00:01:26.030 --> 00:01:28.629 right down to the founding fathers of modern 00:01:28.629 --> 00:01:31.629 cognitive science. So our mission today is ambitious. 00:01:32.069 --> 00:01:34.489 We're going through a comprehensive overview 00:01:34.489 --> 00:01:36.849 of his life and works, and we're going to try 00:01:36.849 --> 00:01:39.430 and extract the most crucial, most radical, and 00:01:39.430 --> 00:01:41.939 sometimes surprising concepts. We want to give 00:01:41.939 --> 00:01:44.420 you, the listener, a thorough understanding of 00:01:44.420 --> 00:01:48.299 his massive and often contradictory impact. OK, 00:01:48.359 --> 00:01:50.060 so to understand Hume, we have to place him in 00:01:50.060 --> 00:01:52.299 his intellectual home first. You have to. The 00:01:52.299 --> 00:01:55.239 thriving, dynamic hub of the Scottish Enlightenment. 00:01:55.620 --> 00:01:57.719 This was a moment of incredible intellectual 00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:00.640 momentum. you know, emphasizing reason, observation, 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:03.099 and human nature. And Hume was right in the center 00:02:03.099 --> 00:02:06.299 of it alongside figures like Adam Smith. So what 00:02:06.299 --> 00:02:08.979 was his big overarching philosophical goal in 00:02:08.979 --> 00:02:11.900 this vibrant context? He had a towering ambition. 00:02:12.629 --> 00:02:16.389 to create a naturalistic science of man. A science 00:02:16.389 --> 00:02:18.770 of man. Yeah. He believed that for too long, 00:02:18.789 --> 00:02:21.789 philosophy had been built on speculative metaphysics, 00:02:21.870 --> 00:02:25.590 on innate ideas or theological presumptions. 00:02:25.870 --> 00:02:28.069 Hume wanted to strip all that away. And ground 00:02:28.069 --> 00:02:30.849 everything in what we can actually observe. Ground 00:02:30.849 --> 00:02:32.949 human understanding, knowledge, and morality 00:02:32.949 --> 00:02:35.830 entirely in psychological experience, following 00:02:35.830 --> 00:02:37.990 the empirical tradition laid down by people like 00:02:37.990 --> 00:02:41.240 John Locke and Francis Bacon. So if physics studies 00:02:41.240 --> 00:02:44.460 the motion of bodies, Hume wanted to apply that 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:47.620 same experimental method, that same rigor, but 00:02:47.620 --> 00:02:49.860 to the operations of the human mind. Precisely. 00:02:49.860 --> 00:02:52.439 His commitment was threefold. You've got philosophical 00:02:52.439 --> 00:02:54.860 empiricism. Knowledge comes from sense experience. 00:02:55.240 --> 00:02:57.840 Right. Then you have skepticism. Yeah. A radical 00:02:57.840 --> 00:02:59.439 doubt about the limits of our knowledge. Yeah. 00:02:59.479 --> 00:03:02.449 And finally, metaphysical naturalism. Which is 00:03:02.449 --> 00:03:04.750 the belief that everything that exists is part 00:03:04.750 --> 00:03:06.810 of the natural world. No supernatural stuff. 00:03:07.009 --> 00:03:09.330 Exactly. Rejecting supernatural intervention 00:03:09.330 --> 00:03:11.870 as an explanation. This whole commitment, this 00:03:11.870 --> 00:03:14.229 threefold approach, is the engine that drives 00:03:14.229 --> 00:03:16.990 his entire philosophical system. Okay, let's 00:03:16.990 --> 00:03:19.810 unpack the man behind this revolution. David 00:03:19.810 --> 00:03:22.830 Holm. He later changed the spelling to Hume. 00:03:23.009 --> 00:03:25.169 Right, because the original Scottish pronunciation, 00:03:25.689 --> 00:03:28.169 Hume, was constantly being mispronounced by the 00:03:28.169 --> 00:03:30.949 English. A classic problem. He was born in Edinburgh 00:03:30.949 --> 00:03:34.389 in 1711. And what immediately strikes you from 00:03:34.389 --> 00:03:37.409 the sources is his sheer intellectual precociousness. 00:03:37.669 --> 00:03:40.370 He was a genuine child prodigy. He attended the 00:03:40.370 --> 00:03:42.150 University of Edinburgh at an unusually early 00:03:42.150 --> 00:03:44.849 age, possibly as young as 10 or 12. When the 00:03:44.849 --> 00:03:47.870 typical age for entry was around 14. Yeah. But 00:03:47.870 --> 00:03:50.469 despite this intellectual gift, he was pushed 00:03:50.469 --> 00:03:53.409 into a career path he genuinely despised. That 00:03:53.409 --> 00:03:55.669 familiar tale of family pressure. They wanted 00:03:55.669 --> 00:03:57.750 him to study law. And he confessed to having 00:03:57.750 --> 00:04:00.750 an insurmountable aversion to it. He wrote later 00:04:00.750 --> 00:04:03.229 that he found the law texts, particularly Voet 00:04:03.229 --> 00:04:06.090 and Vinius, just dry and tedious. So while his 00:04:06.090 --> 00:04:08.069 family thought he was studying legal codes, he 00:04:08.069 --> 00:04:10.150 was secretly locked away, devouring classical 00:04:10.150 --> 00:04:13.210 literature and philosophy. He cited Cicero and 00:04:13.210 --> 00:04:15.490 Virgil as his true mentors. It sounds like a 00:04:15.490 --> 00:04:18.610 slow burn of intellectual rebellion that culminated 00:04:18.610 --> 00:04:21.670 in a pretty spectacular personal crisis. It did. 00:04:22.089 --> 00:04:24.589 Around age 18, he experienced what he called 00:04:24.589 --> 00:04:27.660 a philosophical breakthrough. A moment when he 00:04:27.660 --> 00:04:30.680 saw a new scene of thought open up before him. 00:04:30.740 --> 00:04:32.860 He realized how he could apply the scientific 00:04:32.860 --> 00:04:35.720 method to human nature. And this breakthrough 00:04:35.720 --> 00:04:38.740 was so inspiring, so overwhelming, that he resolved 00:04:38.740 --> 00:04:41.860 to dedicate the next decade solely to reading, 00:04:42.060 --> 00:04:44.639 researching, and writing this new philosophical 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:48.259 system. And that intense, single -minded focus. 00:04:48.970 --> 00:04:51.850 It led to a physical and mental collapse. It 00:04:51.850 --> 00:04:54.870 did, and the diagnosis is fantastic. His physician 00:04:54.870 --> 00:04:57.189 diagnosed him with the disease of the learned. 00:04:57.329 --> 00:04:59.350 The disease of the learned. That sounds like 00:04:59.350 --> 00:05:01.149 something out of a novel. It was a condition 00:05:01.149 --> 00:05:03.910 often attributed to excessive study, insufficient 00:05:03.910 --> 00:05:07.120 activity, and melancholy. This wasn't just burnout. 00:05:07.319 --> 00:05:09.879 It was a profound physical manifestation of his 00:05:09.879 --> 00:05:12.439 intellectual ambition. And the treatment by modern 00:05:12.439 --> 00:05:15.160 standards sounds absolutely wild. The sources 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:18.180 detail the prescription. First, a course of bitters 00:05:18.180 --> 00:05:20.839 and antihisteric pills, which sounds vaguely 00:05:20.839 --> 00:05:23.199 medical, combined with the instruction to incorporate 00:05:23.199 --> 00:05:26.259 a daily substantial dose of alcohol, a pint of 00:05:26.259 --> 00:05:29.250 claret. A pint of wine every day to cure intellectual 00:05:29.250 --> 00:05:32.029 overload. Did it work? Well, the sources say 00:05:32.029 --> 00:05:34.269 the initial results were terrible. He developed 00:05:34.269 --> 00:05:37.209 scurvy spots and experienced palpitations. Oh, 00:05:37.209 --> 00:05:40.550 wow. But over time, the new regimen, the medicine, 00:05:40.709 --> 00:05:42.949 the wine, and the enforced moderation of his 00:05:42.949 --> 00:05:46.079 studies, it transformed him. He wrote that he 00:05:46.079 --> 00:05:49.079 transitioned from being tall, lean, and raw boned 00:05:49.079 --> 00:05:51.959 to becoming sturdy, robust, and healthful -like. 00:05:52.139 --> 00:05:54.060 And this is the period that set him on the path 00:05:54.060 --> 00:05:56.279 to becoming the heavier, you know, corpulent 00:05:56.279 --> 00:05:58.420 man known for his love of port and cheese later 00:05:58.420 --> 00:06:01.339 in life. That's the one. So after this intense 00:06:01.339 --> 00:06:04.060 period, the intellectual project came to fruition. 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:08.279 In 1739 -40, at the age of 28, he published his 00:06:08.279 --> 00:06:11.540 magnum opus, A Treatise of Human Nature. Yes, 00:06:11.540 --> 00:06:14.240 and the subtitle perfectly summarizes his ambition. 00:06:14.919 --> 00:06:17.360 being an attempt to introduce the experimental 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:20.019 method of reasoning into moral subjects. Moral 00:06:20.019 --> 00:06:22.740 subjects. In his day, that meant everything from 00:06:22.740 --> 00:06:25.319 ethics and politics to epistemology and psychology. 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:27.680 Pretty much everything about the human condition. 00:06:27.839 --> 00:06:30.339 He genuinely believed this treatise would be 00:06:30.339 --> 00:06:33.000 his Newtonian moment, the comprehensive foundation 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:35.980 for all future human knowledge. But the contemporary 00:06:35.980 --> 00:06:38.339 reception was the complete opposite of what he'd 00:06:38.339 --> 00:06:41.259 hoped for. This is a story of profound literary 00:06:41.259 --> 00:06:45.410 disappointment. It was devastating. Today, we 00:06:45.410 --> 00:06:47.629 view the treatise as perhaps the single most 00:06:47.629 --> 00:06:50.269 important work in Western philosophy of the 18th 00:06:50.269 --> 00:06:53.470 century. But at the time... At the time, Hume 00:06:53.470 --> 00:06:56.350 lamented that it fell dead -born from the press. 00:06:56.589 --> 00:06:59.329 He couldn't even generate a controversy, noting 00:06:59.329 --> 00:07:01.470 it failed to cause a murmur among the zealots. 00:07:01.589 --> 00:07:03.870 And the few reviewers who did engage with it. 00:07:04.069 --> 00:07:07.050 They called it abstract and unintelligible. Can 00:07:07.050 --> 00:07:10.100 you imagine... Ten years of his youth, his entire 00:07:10.100 --> 00:07:13.939 savings devoted to this colossal work, and it's 00:07:13.939 --> 00:07:17.100 met with silence or just scorn. What does a philosopher 00:07:17.100 --> 00:07:20.120 do then? Well, he swallowed his pride and tried 00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:21.720 to sell it to the public again, but under the 00:07:21.720 --> 00:07:24.420 guise of anonymity. He published an abstract 00:07:24.420 --> 00:07:27.259 of a book lately published. Essentially a clear, 00:07:27.259 --> 00:07:29.720 shorter summary. A philosophical press release. 00:07:29.899 --> 00:07:31.819 That's a great way to put it. And it focused 00:07:31.819 --> 00:07:34.079 heavily on his core doctrine of cause and effect. 00:07:34.540 --> 00:07:36.420 And that abstract is valuable because it gives 00:07:36.420 --> 00:07:38.939 us a direct view into what Hume himself believed 00:07:38.939 --> 00:07:41.319 was the most important central argument of his 00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:44.360 entire system. Exactly. But even with the abstract, 00:07:44.660 --> 00:07:47.459 the treatise failed to gain traction. Hume was 00:07:47.459 --> 00:07:49.879 so stung by this rejection that he later dismissed 00:07:49.879 --> 00:07:53.360 his debut work as juvenilia. He called it an 00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:56.620 immature endeavor. He insisted that contemporaries 00:07:56.620 --> 00:07:59.360 should judge him solely on his later, more polished 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:02.199 rewrites. The inquiry concerning human understanding 00:08:02.199 --> 00:08:05.019 and the inquiry concerning the principles of 00:08:05.019 --> 00:08:07.680 morals. The great irony, which is so important 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:10.839 for us to grasp, is that while Hume wanted us 00:08:10.839 --> 00:08:13.399 to forget the treatise. Modern scholarly consensus 00:08:13.399 --> 00:08:16.930 holds that his most distinct. profound and radical 00:08:16.930 --> 00:08:19.970 ideas the true foundations of his skepticism 00:08:19.970 --> 00:08:23.129 are found in that original sprawling text it's 00:08:23.129 --> 00:08:24.670 the difference between the radical blueprint 00:08:24.670 --> 00:08:28.589 and the smoothed out commercial version a perfect 00:08:28.589 --> 00:08:31.029 analogy his early career just shows the profound 00:08:31.029 --> 00:08:32.990 frustration that this philosophical ambition 00:08:32.990 --> 00:08:35.509 brought him he faced constant financial struggles 00:08:35.509 --> 00:08:37.509 and was forced to seek stable employment And 00:08:37.509 --> 00:08:39.629 he repeatedly failed to secure the obvious path 00:08:39.629 --> 00:08:42.429 for a brilliant academic. Twice he was derailed 00:08:42.429 --> 00:08:45.169 from university posts. First for the chair of 00:08:45.169 --> 00:08:47.049 pneumatics and moral philosophy at the University 00:08:47.049 --> 00:08:49.330 of Edinburgh, and later for a philosophy chair 00:08:49.330 --> 00:08:51.110 at the University of Glasgow. And the reason 00:08:51.110 --> 00:08:54.629 was consistent and brutally simple. Intense public 00:08:54.629 --> 00:08:57.389 and ecclesiastical suspicion over his alleged 00:08:57.389 --> 00:09:01.720 atheism and his anti -religious views. His skepticism 00:09:01.720 --> 00:09:04.600 was seen as a moral poison. So he was too radical 00:09:04.600 --> 00:09:07.559 for academia. He had to take these highly unconventional 00:09:07.559 --> 00:09:10.159 jobs just to make ends meet. He worked as a merchant's 00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:12.659 assistant, served as secretary to General James 00:09:12.659 --> 00:09:14.940 St. Clair on military and diplomatic missions. 00:09:15.340 --> 00:09:17.539 And the sources note that this period of travel 00:09:17.539 --> 00:09:19.860 and the good table of the general contributed 00:09:19.860 --> 00:09:21.899 significantly to his physical transformation 00:09:21.899 --> 00:09:24.480 and weight gain. Right. A sharp contrast with 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:27.600 his lean, starving student years. But his career 00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:31.259 truly pivoted in 1752 when he landed a low paying 00:09:31.259 --> 00:09:34.100 but crucial job. Librarian at the Advocates Library 00:09:34.100 --> 00:09:36.779 in Edinburgh. This was the turning point. The 00:09:36.779 --> 00:09:39.679 pay was minimal, but the access to the vast collection 00:09:39.679 --> 00:09:42.659 of books was everything. It allowed him to pivot 00:09:42.659 --> 00:09:45.279 his tremendous intellectual energy away from 00:09:45.279 --> 00:09:47.860 pure, difficult philosophy and toward history. 00:09:48.179 --> 00:09:51.700 And the result was The History of England, a 00:09:51.700 --> 00:09:55.000 monumental success. He churned out six volumes 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:57.600 covering everything from Julius Caesar to the 00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:00.960 glorious revolution of 1688. Over a million words. 00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:03.779 It became an immediate bestseller and made him 00:10:03.779 --> 00:10:06.980 both famous and wealthy in his lifetime. For 00:10:06.980 --> 00:10:09.600 over 60 years, Hume was the dominant interpreter 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:12.730 of English history. It's a crucial detail that 00:10:12.730 --> 00:10:15.470 the great philosophical skeptic of the age became 00:10:15.470 --> 00:10:18.230 renowned, not for his radical philosophy, but 00:10:18.230 --> 00:10:20.889 for a massive commercial history book. It's one 00:10:20.889 --> 00:10:23.029 of the great ironies of his life. Okay, let's 00:10:23.029 --> 00:10:25.070 leave the biography now and move to the architecture 00:10:25.070 --> 00:10:27.529 of the mind itself, because this is where Hume 00:10:27.529 --> 00:10:29.909 profoundly challenges our most basic assumptions 00:10:29.909 --> 00:10:32.970 about reality. It all starts with his foundational 00:10:32.970 --> 00:10:35.769 doctrine. The mind consists only of perceptions. 00:10:35.929 --> 00:10:38.269 That's right. If he's going to build a science 00:10:38.269 --> 00:10:41.539 of man, he needs building blocks. For Hume, the 00:10:41.539 --> 00:10:43.580 mind is simply a collection of mental objects, 00:10:43.779 --> 00:10:45.720 which he calls perceptions. And he immediately 00:10:45.720 --> 00:10:48.620 divides these perceptions into two distinct categories. 00:10:49.019 --> 00:10:51.279 Impressions and ideas. The distinction is based 00:10:51.279 --> 00:10:54.759 on what scholars call the FLV criterion, force, 00:10:54.940 --> 00:10:57.820 liveliness and vivacity. That helps me keep them 00:10:57.820 --> 00:11:00.080 straight. Impressions are the forceful ones. 00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:02.940 They are the immediate sensations and passions 00:11:02.940 --> 00:11:05.860 we experience right now. The blinding flash of 00:11:05.860 --> 00:11:08.700 light, the sharp pain of a paper cut, the sound 00:11:08.700 --> 00:11:11.059 of music filling the room. The strong passion 00:11:11.059 --> 00:11:13.460 of anger or love. They're vivid and immediate. 00:11:13.860 --> 00:11:17.000 Exactly. Ideas, on the other hand, are the shadows 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:19.620 or echoes of those moments. The faint copies 00:11:19.620 --> 00:11:22.460 of impressions. Precisely. They are what happens 00:11:22.460 --> 00:11:24.179 when you remember the pain of the paper cut, 00:11:24.299 --> 00:11:26.240 or you think about the color blue you just saw. 00:11:26.700 --> 00:11:28.919 They are less lively, less forceful than the 00:11:28.919 --> 00:11:31.620 original impression. This distinction leads directly 00:11:31.620 --> 00:11:34.340 to one of his most powerful intellectual tools, 00:11:34.620 --> 00:11:37.100 which he uses to dismantle abstract concepts, 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:40.480 the copy principle. The copy principle is fundamental 00:11:40.480 --> 00:11:43.899 to his empiricism. It states that all ideas must 00:11:43.899 --> 00:11:46.700 ultimately be traced back to some original, corresponding 00:11:46.700 --> 00:11:49.340 impression. So if you claim to have an idea, 00:11:49.500 --> 00:11:51.919 but you can't point to the impression, the sensory 00:11:51.919 --> 00:11:54.740 input or passion from which it was copied. Hume 00:11:54.740 --> 00:11:57.440 says that idea is meaningless or at least highly 00:11:57.440 --> 00:12:00.419 suspicious. That seems incredibly restrictive. 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:03.360 If all ideas are just copies of impressions, 00:12:03.659 --> 00:12:06.399 where does imagination come from? I mean, we 00:12:06.399 --> 00:12:09.720 can imagine a perfectly just ruler or a winged 00:12:09.720 --> 00:12:11.860 horse, even if we've never had the impression 00:12:11.860 --> 00:12:14.639 of those things in reality. Right. Does Hume 00:12:14.639 --> 00:12:17.120 leave any room for true creativity or abstraction? 00:12:17.460 --> 00:12:20.539 Yeah. He accounts for it, but not as the creation 00:12:20.539 --> 00:12:24.309 of genuinely new, simple ideas. He clarifies 00:12:24.309 --> 00:12:27.210 that both impressions and ideas are further divided 00:12:27.210 --> 00:12:29.809 into simple and complex. A simple perception 00:12:29.809 --> 00:12:32.850 is the irreducible unit, like the color red or 00:12:32.850 --> 00:12:35.269 a single musical note. It admits of no distinction 00:12:35.269 --> 00:12:38.450 nor separation. A complex perception though is 00:12:38.450 --> 00:12:40.779 a bundle of these simple components. Think of 00:12:40.779 --> 00:12:42.720 your impression of an apple. It's a bundle of 00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:45.279 red sensations, round sensations, sweet taste 00:12:45.279 --> 00:12:48.139 sensations, and so on. Ah, so the imagination 00:12:48.139 --> 00:12:50.399 only has the power to take simple ideas that 00:12:50.399 --> 00:12:52.840 were copied from simple impressions and recombine 00:12:52.840 --> 00:12:54.940 them. Recombine them into new complex ideas. 00:12:55.379 --> 00:12:57.500 You can imagine a gold mountain because you have 00:12:57.500 --> 00:12:59.419 the simple impression of gold and the simple 00:12:59.419 --> 00:13:01.120 impression of mountain, and you stick them together. 00:13:01.460 --> 00:13:03.740 But you can't imagine a color you've never seen 00:13:03.740 --> 00:13:06.700 before. Precisely. And this recombination process, 00:13:06.960 --> 00:13:10.419 he argues, is not random. It's guided by a kind 00:13:10.419 --> 00:13:13.080 of mental mechanics, which he calls the association 00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:16.240 of ideas. Like psychological magnets drawing 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:18.700 certain ideas together. A great way to think 00:13:18.700 --> 00:13:21.480 of it. He identifies three core principles, the 00:13:21.480 --> 00:13:24.360 first being resemblance. If you see a photograph, 00:13:24.659 --> 00:13:27.120 the idea of that image immediately brings to 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:29.419 mind the idea of the original object it represents. 00:13:29.779 --> 00:13:32.580 Because they look alike, the mind connects them. 00:13:32.820 --> 00:13:35.960 Simple enough. The second is contiguity, meaning 00:13:35.960 --> 00:13:39.879 closeness in space or time. Yes. If you think 00:13:39.879 --> 00:13:42.259 about a specific room you know well, maybe your 00:13:42.259 --> 00:13:44.779 childhood bedroom, when you think of the bed, 00:13:44.940 --> 00:13:47.860 the idea immediately pulls up the idea of the 00:13:47.860 --> 00:13:49.620 desk that was always right next to it. They were 00:13:49.620 --> 00:13:52.500 contiguous in space, so the ideas are contiguous 00:13:52.500 --> 00:13:54.860 in the mind. And then the third, the one that 00:13:54.860 --> 00:13:57.080 causes the great philosophical earthquake, cause 00:13:57.080 --> 00:13:59.159 and effect. This is where his scientific approach 00:13:59.159 --> 00:14:03.730 turns into radical skepticism. Yes. When we repeatedly 00:14:03.730 --> 00:14:06.889 observe one object or event consistently followed 00:14:06.889 --> 00:14:11.149 by another, say, event A, striking a match, is 00:14:11.149 --> 00:14:14.669 always followed by event B, fire, that constant 00:14:14.669 --> 00:14:17.149 conjunction leads to an association in the mind. 00:14:17.350 --> 00:14:19.769 And that repetition creates a habit or a custom. 00:14:19.990 --> 00:14:22.549 And that custom, that habit, then creates an 00:14:22.549 --> 00:14:25.110 expectation. We expect event B to follow event 00:14:25.110 --> 00:14:27.809 A next time. That expectation is key because 00:14:27.809 --> 00:14:30.490 it moves us into the problem of induction and 00:14:30.490 --> 00:14:32.669 causation, which is the absolute cornerstone 00:14:32.669 --> 00:14:35.669 of Hume's entire system. It really is. It challenges 00:14:35.669 --> 00:14:38.730 the basis not just of philosophy, but of all 00:14:38.730 --> 00:14:41.129 empirical science. We use induction constantly. 00:14:41.389 --> 00:14:43.190 I mean, it's how we navigate the world. We assume 00:14:43.190 --> 00:14:45.470 the laws of nature are stable. We assume the 00:14:45.470 --> 00:14:47.929 sun will rise tomorrow. What exactly is the problem 00:14:47.929 --> 00:14:50.470 with justifying it? Hume says that inductive 00:14:50.470 --> 00:14:52.649 reasoning, predicting the future based on the 00:14:52.649 --> 00:14:55.929 past, cannot be rationally justified. He traps 00:14:55.929 --> 00:14:58.529 rationalists between his two recognized forms 00:14:58.529 --> 00:15:00.470 of justified argument. Okay, let's break those 00:15:00.470 --> 00:15:03.070 two down. First, you have demonstrative reasoning. 00:15:03.250 --> 00:15:06.009 This is the realm of logic and mathematics. The 00:15:06.009 --> 00:15:08.809 conclusions are necessary and certain, like 2 00:15:08.809 --> 00:15:11.889 plus 2 is 4, or all bachelors are unmarried. 00:15:12.009 --> 00:15:17.149 So, is the future will resemble a past a demonstrative 00:15:17.149 --> 00:15:20.490 truth? Hume says no, because we can easily conceive, 00:15:20.649 --> 00:15:23.690 without contradiction, of nature changing. We 00:15:23.690 --> 00:15:25.610 can imagine the sun failing to rise tomorrow. 00:15:25.850 --> 00:15:28.210 We can imagine fire might suddenly feel cold. 00:15:28.350 --> 00:15:30.610 And since we can conceive of the opposite, it's 00:15:30.610 --> 00:15:33.490 not a logical necessity. Exactly. So demonstrative 00:15:33.490 --> 00:15:36.029 reasoning fails. That leaves probable reasoning. 00:15:36.399 --> 00:15:38.240 So why can't we use probability? It seems like 00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:40.220 a good bet. Because that's where the circularity 00:15:40.220 --> 00:15:42.519 comes in. If you try to argue that the future 00:15:42.519 --> 00:15:44.340 will resemble the past because it is done so 00:15:44.340 --> 00:15:46.360 reliably every time in the past. Are you using 00:15:46.360 --> 00:15:48.539 the very inductive principle you were trying 00:15:48.539 --> 00:15:50.940 to justify? You're using induction to prove the 00:15:50.940 --> 00:15:53.700 validity of induction. It becomes circular and 00:15:53.700 --> 00:15:55.720 therefore fails as a rational justification. 00:15:56.279 --> 00:15:58.960 Wow. So you're telling me everything I believe 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:01.200 about tomorrow, every scientific law I trust, 00:16:01.399 --> 00:16:03.679 is essentially just a highly reliable guess. 00:16:03.840 --> 00:16:06.860 It's not rationally justified certainty. Philosophically, 00:16:06.860 --> 00:16:10.059 yes. Hume's conclusion is that reason cannot 00:16:10.059 --> 00:16:12.840 bridge the gap between past experience and future 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:16.500 expectation. If we relied only on pure reason, 00:16:16.679 --> 00:16:19.639 we would be paralyzed by skepticism. But we aren't 00:16:19.639 --> 00:16:23.080 paralyzed. We operate just fine. So how? Here 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:26.940 is Hume's profound naturalistic solution. We 00:16:26.940 --> 00:16:29.340 are determined to believe by custom and instinct, 00:16:29.580 --> 00:16:32.379 not by reason. He moved the justification out 00:16:32.379 --> 00:16:35.139 of the cold, calculating realm of logic and into 00:16:35.139 --> 00:16:37.980 the warm, necessary realm of human nature. Which 00:16:37.980 --> 00:16:40.600 is why he claimed, nature, by an absolute and 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:42.860 uncontrollable sick necessity, has determined 00:16:42.860 --> 00:16:45.419 us to judge as well as to breathe and feel. It's 00:16:45.419 --> 00:16:48.320 an animal faith, a psychological mechanism that 00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:51.240 protects us from excessive caution and sterile 00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:53.460 suspension of belief. It's a magnificent term. 00:16:53.620 --> 00:16:55.860 But it completely reframes causation. It does. 00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:58.279 It means we never perceive necessary connection 00:16:58.279 --> 00:17:00.899 in external objects. When one billiard ball strikes 00:17:00.899 --> 00:17:03.639 another and the second one moves, we do not perceive 00:17:03.639 --> 00:17:05.740 the power or force that transfers the motion. 00:17:05.960 --> 00:17:07.769 We only perceive the constant. conjunction the 00:17:07.769 --> 00:17:09.630 first ball touches the second one moves that's 00:17:09.630 --> 00:17:11.890 all so if we feel the necessity where does that 00:17:11.890 --> 00:17:14.130 feeling come from it's an internal sensation 00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:17.680 The necessity is a quality of perception. It's 00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:20.339 the internal feeling of expectation born from 00:17:20.339 --> 00:17:23.680 habit that is felt by the mind. And then we mistakenly 00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:25.859 project that feeling onto the external world 00:17:25.859 --> 00:17:28.559 as if the objects themselves had the power. We 00:17:28.559 --> 00:17:30.519 mistake our internal psychological mechanism 00:17:30.519 --> 00:17:33.440 for an external physical property. Yes. This 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:36.180 skepticism regarding metaphysical certainty is 00:17:36.180 --> 00:17:39.440 the sword he uses to introduce Hume's fork. This 00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:41.980 is his crucial filter for separating what can 00:17:41.980 --> 00:17:44.279 be known from what should be rejected. Indeed. 00:17:44.779 --> 00:17:47.180 Hume's fork divides all objects of human reason 00:17:47.180 --> 00:17:49.400 and inquiry into two mutually exclusive camps. 00:17:49.900 --> 00:17:51.880 Anything that can't fit into one of these two 00:17:51.880 --> 00:17:53.900 camps should be treated with radical skepticism. 00:17:54.019 --> 00:17:56.420 First, we have relations of ideas. These are 00:17:56.420 --> 00:17:58.299 discovered purely through thought and definition, 00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:01.480 independent of the real world. They're a priori. 00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:04.220 This is where you find logic, algebra, geometry. 00:18:05.130 --> 00:18:07.890 They are certain, demonstrative, and universally 00:18:07.890 --> 00:18:10.710 true. And second, matters of fact. These are 00:18:10.710 --> 00:18:13.569 dependent on observation, experience, and sensory 00:18:13.569 --> 00:18:16.029 input. They're contingent on reality and are 00:18:16.029 --> 00:18:18.829 only probable, never certain. Their opposite 00:18:18.829 --> 00:18:21.289 is always conceivable. The sun will rise tomorrow, 00:18:21.509 --> 00:18:23.549 as a matter of fact. 2 plus 2, 4 is a relation 00:18:23.549 --> 00:18:26.769 of ideas. Precisely. And the power of the fork 00:18:26.769 --> 00:18:29.490 is that any claim... particularly theological 00:18:29.490 --> 00:18:32.589 claims about necessary existence or metaphysical 00:18:32.589 --> 00:18:35.349 claims about substances, that purports to be 00:18:35.349 --> 00:18:38.410 certain yet requires observational proof, it 00:18:38.410 --> 00:18:41.289 fails the test. It's neither a relation of ideas 00:18:41.289 --> 00:18:44.109 nor a probable matter of fact. So he uses it 00:18:44.109 --> 00:18:46.470 as a devastating tool for clearing out intellectual 00:18:46.470 --> 00:18:48.710 clutter and rejecting ungrounded speculation. 00:18:49.210 --> 00:18:51.609 Okay, so if Hume used this skeptical knife to 00:18:51.609 --> 00:18:53.849 sever the necessary link between cause and effect 00:18:53.849 --> 00:18:56.190 in the external world, he next turned that blade 00:18:56.190 --> 00:18:59.279 inward. He asked, what evidence do we have for 00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:01.140 the necessary connection of our own consciousness? 00:19:01.559 --> 00:19:04.019 And this brings us to perhaps the most personally 00:19:04.019 --> 00:19:06.400 destabilizing of his philosophical critiques, 00:19:06.519 --> 00:19:09.740 the illusion of the self or bundle theory. This 00:19:09.740 --> 00:19:12.700 is profoundly radical. He denied the very idea 00:19:12.700 --> 00:19:15.839 of a simple, unified, persistent self, the soul 00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:19.000 or I, that supposedly endures stably beneath 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:21.640 all our experiences. He argued that when we introspect, 00:19:21.819 --> 00:19:24.240 the self is merely a bundle of sensations or 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:27.200 a heap of perceptions. So the self isn't a thing 00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:30.180 that has experiences. The self is the experiences 00:19:30.180 --> 00:19:33.579 and nothing more. Precisely. It's a collection 00:19:33.579 --> 00:19:36.750 of rapidly succeeding perceptions. thoughts, 00:19:36.829 --> 00:19:40.450 feelings, pains, memories, connected only by 00:19:40.450 --> 00:19:42.829 the psychological mechanisms of causation and 00:19:42.829 --> 00:19:45.049 resemblance. Much like the links between external 00:19:45.049 --> 00:19:47.509 objects. Exactly. The coherence of the self is 00:19:47.509 --> 00:19:50.109 built up through memory and imagination, linking 00:19:50.109 --> 00:19:52.210 these fleeting moments together. He describes 00:19:52.210 --> 00:19:54.849 the inability to find this essential self in 00:19:54.849 --> 00:19:57.509 such memorable language. He says, and this is 00:19:57.509 --> 00:20:00.589 key to understanding his pure empiricism, I never 00:20:00.589 --> 00:20:03.430 can catch myself at any time without a perception 00:20:03.430 --> 00:20:05.890 and never can observe anything but the perception. 00:20:06.150 --> 00:20:08.269 So whenever he looks inside, he finds only the 00:20:08.269 --> 00:20:11.269 specific sensation of the moment, heat, cold, 00:20:11.509 --> 00:20:14.710 light, shade, pain, pleasure. That's all that's 00:20:14.710 --> 00:20:17.569 there. Wait, so if the perceptions cease, does 00:20:17.569 --> 00:20:20.210 the self cease? Hume argues that when those perceptions 00:20:20.210 --> 00:20:22.769 are removed, such as by sound sleep or by death, 00:20:22.970 --> 00:20:25.549 he truly cannot be said to exist. There is no 00:20:25.549 --> 00:20:29.049 enduring underlying simple substance, no Cartesian 00:20:29.049 --> 00:20:31.670 eye that experiences them. It's simply the experience 00:20:31.670 --> 00:20:33.930 that is happening. I know this is a point of 00:20:33.930 --> 00:20:37.069 huge debates, but many scholars connect Hume's 00:20:37.069 --> 00:20:39.589 radical reductionism here directly to the Buddhist 00:20:39.589 --> 00:20:42.509 concept of anatta, the no -self theory. It's 00:20:42.509 --> 00:20:45.529 a very compelling scholarly connection. Both 00:20:45.529 --> 00:20:48.150 traditions reject the notion of a permanent essential 00:20:48.150 --> 00:20:51.099 self or soul. Direct influence is debated, of 00:20:51.099 --> 00:20:53.519 course. Yeah. But the global Jesuit intellectual 00:20:53.519 --> 00:20:57.119 network of the 18th century was extensive. And 00:20:57.119 --> 00:20:58.799 there's a strong argument that Hume could have 00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:02.099 been exposed to summaries of Eastern philosophical 00:21:02.099 --> 00:21:04.200 traditions during his time in France, where he 00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:06.319 wrote the treatise. It's interesting to note, 00:21:06.339 --> 00:21:08.700 though, that Hume himself expressed doubts about 00:21:08.700 --> 00:21:11.099 this particular theory. Yes. In the appendix 00:21:11.099 --> 00:21:13.380 to the treatise, he admitted he was profoundly 00:21:13.380 --> 00:21:15.660 dissatisfied with his own account of personal 00:21:15.660 --> 00:21:18.509 identity. He felt he couldn't satisfactorily 00:21:18.509 --> 00:21:20.849 explain the necessary connections between the 00:21:20.849 --> 00:21:23.089 perceptions that make up the bundle. He left 00:21:23.089 --> 00:21:25.529 it as a knot he couldn't untie. Which suggests 00:21:25.529 --> 00:21:28.049 his own skepticism was so powerful it even applied 00:21:28.049 --> 00:21:31.150 to his most revolutionary ideas. So if the self 00:21:31.150 --> 00:21:33.890 is an illusionary bundle of feelings and passions, 00:21:34.210 --> 00:21:36.509 let's talk about those passions in relation to 00:21:36.509 --> 00:21:39.269 action. This brings us to his startling conclusion 00:21:39.269 --> 00:21:41.390 about practical reason and human motivation. 00:21:41.809 --> 00:21:44.710 Hume is the great anti -rationalist when it comes 00:21:44.710 --> 00:21:48.029 to behavior and morality. He argues that reason 00:21:48.029 --> 00:21:51.589 is utterly inert, that passions or emotions and 00:21:51.589 --> 00:21:55.009 desires are the sole drivers of action. He claimed 00:21:55.009 --> 00:21:57.630 reason alone is utterly impotent when it comes 00:21:57.630 --> 00:21:59.990 to moral judgment or producing human movement. 00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:02.359 Which leads to the line for which he is most 00:22:02.359 --> 00:22:05.500 famous in moral philosophy. The famous and profoundly 00:22:05.500 --> 00:22:08.920 provocative statement. Reason is and ought only 00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:11.380 to be the slave of the passions and can never 00:22:11.380 --> 00:22:14.099 pretend to any other office than to serve and 00:22:14.099 --> 00:22:16.700 obey them. That sounds extremely dramatic. What 00:22:16.700 --> 00:22:19.019 does he mean by reason being a slave? Does reason 00:22:19.019 --> 00:22:21.799 have no role in human decisions? It has a crucial 00:22:21.799 --> 00:22:24.619 but subordinate role. It serves two main functions. 00:22:24.859 --> 00:22:27.079 First, it helps us discover the causal connections 00:22:27.079 --> 00:22:29.779 between means and ends. So if I desire outcome 00:22:29.779 --> 00:22:32.299 Z, reason can tell me that action Y is the most 00:22:32.299 --> 00:22:34.940 efficient way to achieve it. Right. And second, 00:22:35.119 --> 00:22:37.680 reason helps us ascertain if an object of our 00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:41.039 desire actually exists. But reason cannot create 00:22:41.039 --> 00:22:43.720 the desire itself, nor can it fundamentally oppose 00:22:43.720 --> 00:22:46.380 a passion that is already present. So if I have 00:22:46.380 --> 00:22:49.380 a passion for eating an entire cake, reason can't 00:22:49.380 --> 00:22:51.920 tell me not to eat the cake. Reason can only 00:22:51.920 --> 00:22:53.880 calculate the calories and the subsequent pain, 00:22:54.079 --> 00:22:56.440 but the decision still comes down to the battle 00:22:56.440 --> 00:22:58.779 of your immediate passion for sweetness versus 00:22:58.779 --> 00:23:01.440 your passion for long -term health. The ultimate 00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:03.819 motivation is always a passion or an emotion. 00:23:04.180 --> 00:23:06.640 And since a passion is an original existence, 00:23:07.299 --> 00:23:10.619 reason can't directly oppose it. Only a contrary 00:23:10.619 --> 00:23:13.799 passion can. Exactly. This radical shift is what 00:23:13.799 --> 00:23:16.740 underpins his moral sentimentalism. If reason 00:23:16.740 --> 00:23:18.920 is subordinate, ethics must be grounded elsewhere. 00:23:19.470 --> 00:23:22.549 In shared human emotion or sentiment. That's 00:23:22.549 --> 00:23:24.230 the core of sentimentalism, a view he shared 00:23:24.230 --> 00:23:26.890 with Adam Smith. For Hume, when we call an action 00:23:26.890 --> 00:23:29.450 good or bad, we're not making an objective statement 00:23:29.450 --> 00:23:31.809 about the world. We're expressing a moral feeling. 00:23:32.029 --> 00:23:34.170 And the fact that morality excites passions and 00:23:34.170 --> 00:23:36.450 produces action proves that it can't be a conclusion 00:23:36.450 --> 00:23:39.269 of abstract reason alone, because abstract reason 00:23:39.269 --> 00:23:43.109 is inert. Precisely. But his greatest, most enduring 00:23:43.109 --> 00:23:46.049 contribution to ethics isn't the sentimentalism 00:23:46.049 --> 00:23:52.120 itself. It's the challenge he laid down. This 00:23:52.120 --> 00:23:55.079 is absolutely foundational to modern meta -ethics. 00:23:55.180 --> 00:23:58.339 It is. Hume observed that in almost every system 00:23:58.339 --> 00:24:00.460 of morality and public policy he encountered, 00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:04.000 the writer would seamlessly transition from describing 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:05.920 fact statements of what is the case... ...to 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:07.960 prescribing action statements of what ought to 00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:10.319 be done. And he challenged the logical jump between 00:24:10.319 --> 00:24:12.559 the two. He demanded the justification for this 00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:15.220 inference. How, he asked, could a new relation, 00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:18.559 the prescriptive ought... be logically deduced 00:24:18.559 --> 00:24:21.119 from a set of descriptive is statements. He wrote 00:24:21.119 --> 00:24:23.420 that it seems altogether inconceivable. Just 00:24:23.420 --> 00:24:25.640 because humans are physically capable of violence, 00:24:25.779 --> 00:24:27.539 it does not mean they ought to be violent. Right. 00:24:27.579 --> 00:24:29.799 Just because wealth is distributed unequally, 00:24:29.799 --> 00:24:31.660 it doesn't automatically mean it ought to be 00:24:31.660 --> 00:24:33.940 redistributed. The implication being that the 00:24:33.940 --> 00:24:36.339 shift from description to prescription often 00:24:36.339 --> 00:24:39.480 hides an unstated emotional or non -rational 00:24:39.480 --> 00:24:41.740 premise. The legacy of that insight is massive. 00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:44.380 It deeply influenced later meta -ethical theories 00:24:44.380 --> 00:24:47.710 like emotivism. And it remains the key challenge 00:24:47.710 --> 00:24:50.369 to any attempt to ground morality in natural 00:24:50.369 --> 00:24:52.829 observation. Finally, let's look at how this 00:24:52.829 --> 00:24:55.490 highly deterministic worldview, where causes, 00:24:55.809 --> 00:24:58.369 effects, and passions all operate predictably 00:24:58.369 --> 00:25:00.690 meshes with our common sense notion of human 00:25:00.690 --> 00:25:04.349 freedom. Hume was a classical compatibilist. 00:25:04.450 --> 00:25:06.890 He was committed to reconciling free will and 00:25:06.890 --> 00:25:10.259 determinism. He saw the entire historical debate 00:25:10.259 --> 00:25:13.200 as a linguistic quibble, persisting for 2 ,000 00:25:13.200 --> 00:25:15.740 years merely because of ambiguous terminology. 00:25:16.299 --> 00:25:18.400 He believed that if we just properly define the 00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:21.339 terms, necessity and liberty are not only compatible. 00:25:21.559 --> 00:25:23.240 But that liberty, in the sense we care about, 00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:26.579 actually requires necessity. Okay, that is counterintuitive. 00:25:26.819 --> 00:25:29.980 Why does freedom require determinism? Let's start 00:25:29.980 --> 00:25:32.420 with his definitions. He defined necessity as 00:25:32.420 --> 00:25:35.259 simply the uniformity observable in the operations 00:25:35.259 --> 00:25:37.819 of nature. When applied to humans, it just means 00:25:37.819 --> 00:25:40.180 our actions proceed predictably from our motives 00:25:40.180 --> 00:25:42.839 and character. And liberty. Liberty is a power 00:25:42.839 --> 00:25:45.420 of acting or not acting according to the determinations 00:25:45.420 --> 00:25:47.980 of the will. It is freedom from external constraint, 00:25:48.140 --> 00:25:50.819 what he called the liberty of spontaneity. So, 00:25:50.819 --> 00:25:53.839 if I freely choose to raise my arm, and the underlying 00:25:53.839 --> 00:25:56.480 necessity means that choice proceeds from my 00:25:56.480 --> 00:25:59.259 consistent character and motives, I can be held 00:25:59.259 --> 00:26:01.619 responsible. Exactly. Because if our actions 00:26:01.619 --> 00:26:04.589 were not necessitated, If they were pure, random 00:26:04.589 --> 00:26:07.309 chance, disconnected from our motives or character, 00:26:07.569 --> 00:26:10.029 then they couldn't possibly be considered an 00:26:10.029 --> 00:26:12.430 expression of our will. If I act purely randomly, 00:26:12.670 --> 00:26:14.789 I'm not free and I can't be held responsible. 00:26:15.109 --> 00:26:18.630 Right. Freedom, for Hume, requires that actions 00:26:18.630 --> 00:26:21.430 proceed from some cause in the character and 00:26:21.430 --> 00:26:23.589 disposition of the person. He even weighed in 00:26:23.589 --> 00:26:25.869 on the ancient thought puzzle known as Bearden's 00:26:25.869 --> 00:26:28.990 Ass. The gonky supposedly dying of indecision 00:26:28.990 --> 00:26:32.400 between two equal bales of hay. Hume rejected 00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:34.960 the idea that a human could be paralyzed by such 00:26:34.960 --> 00:26:37.380 a dilemma. He argued that even in a seemingly 00:26:37.380 --> 00:26:39.839 perfect balance of motives, a human will spontaneously 00:26:39.839 --> 00:26:43.440 act. Not based on chance. But based on a necessity 00:26:43.440 --> 00:26:46.180 driven by the immediate motive, like self -preservation. 00:26:46.500 --> 00:26:48.980 This spontaneous action confirms the compatibility. 00:26:49.180 --> 00:26:51.920 The freedom is in the spontaneity, but the cause 00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:54.079 is still necessitated by the natural function 00:26:54.079 --> 00:26:56.289 of the will. If the treatise was a philosophical 00:26:56.289 --> 00:26:58.950 failure, Hume's writings on religion were, for 00:26:58.950 --> 00:27:01.509 his time, a massive public scandal. Oh yeah. 00:27:01.690 --> 00:27:04.069 His reputation in the 18th century was dominated 00:27:04.069 --> 00:27:06.589 by these critiques, leading the Church of Scotland 00:27:06.589 --> 00:27:09.029 to seriously consider formal heresy charges against 00:27:09.029 --> 00:27:11.910 him. He was a profound skeptic, often labeled 00:27:11.910 --> 00:27:14.900 an irreligious figure or an atheist. Though Hume 00:27:14.900 --> 00:27:17.440 himself likely preferred the term skeptic, his 00:27:17.440 --> 00:27:20.059 arguments are still read today as powerful critiques 00:27:20.059 --> 00:27:22.920 of both revealed and natural religion. Let's 00:27:22.920 --> 00:27:24.819 take the natural history of religion. What was 00:27:24.819 --> 00:27:27.339 his core thesis there? He offered a historical 00:27:27.339 --> 00:27:30.140 and anthropological view of religion, arguing 00:27:30.140 --> 00:27:33.000 that sophisticated monotheistic systems, Christianity, 00:27:33.380 --> 00:27:36.839 Judaism, Islam, were not the starting point. 00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:39.980 They evolved from simpler, more primitive polytheistic 00:27:39.980 --> 00:27:42.599 systems. Right. And the ultimate root of all 00:27:42.599 --> 00:27:44.660 religion, he claimed, was not divine revelation 00:27:44.660 --> 00:27:47.519 or rational proof, but simple human psychology. 00:27:48.269 --> 00:27:51.230 the dread of the unknown, anxiety about the future, 00:27:51.390 --> 00:27:54.630 and fear of unpredictable natural forces. He 00:27:54.630 --> 00:27:56.809 had a great, almost self -deprecating anecdote 00:27:56.809 --> 00:27:59.470 that illustrated just how notorious his religious 00:27:59.470 --> 00:28:01.970 reputation was, even among the common folk of 00:28:01.970 --> 00:28:04.970 Edinburgh. Yes, the famous fishwife story. Hume 00:28:04.970 --> 00:28:06.970 loved to tell how he had accidentally fallen 00:28:06.970 --> 00:28:10.369 into a mire or bog near the city. He struggled 00:28:10.369 --> 00:28:12.849 to get out until an old fishwife, a local vendor, 00:28:13.009 --> 00:28:15.579 approached. And she immediately recognized him 00:28:15.579 --> 00:28:18.160 as Hume the atheist. And refused to lend him 00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:20.940 a hand. The sources say she eventually relented, 00:28:21.059 --> 00:28:23.299 but only after making him declare himself a Christian 00:28:23.299 --> 00:28:25.779 and recite the Lord's Prayer. It paints a wonderful 00:28:25.779 --> 00:28:27.960 picture of the tension between the intellectual 00:28:27.960 --> 00:28:30.819 elite and the public sphere during the Enlightenment. 00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:34.259 But let's move to his most analytically influential 00:28:34.259 --> 00:28:37.819 religious critique. The devastating argument. 00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:41.299 against miracles this argument is brilliant because 00:28:41.299 --> 00:28:43.819 it uses his own empirical method the reliance 00:28:43.819 --> 00:28:46.700 on constant conjunction and experience to undermine 00:28:46.700 --> 00:28:49.099 the very concept of miracles he starts with a 00:28:49.099 --> 00:28:51.519 strict definition a miracle is a transgression 00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:54.200 of a law of nature by a particular volition of 00:28:54.200 --> 00:28:56.859 the deity given that definition how does he instruct 00:28:56.859 --> 00:28:59.980 a wise man to evaluate testimony claiming a miracle 00:28:59.980 --> 00:29:02.799 occurred the wise man must always balance the 00:29:02.799 --> 00:29:06.259 evidence For Hume, the established laws of nature 00:29:06.259 --> 00:29:09.460 -like gravity, or water boiling at 100 degrees 00:29:09.460 --> 00:29:12.039 Celsius, are the strongest empirical evidence 00:29:12.039 --> 00:29:14.319 we possess. Because they're codified through 00:29:14.319 --> 00:29:17.559 constant uniform past experience. Exactly. A 00:29:17.559 --> 00:29:20.640 miracle. being a singular transgression, directly 00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:23.339 contradicts this constant uniform experience. 00:29:23.559 --> 00:29:25.480 So on one side of the scale, you have the weight 00:29:25.480 --> 00:29:28.240 of all human history and uniform experience proving 00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:30.359 the law of nature. On the other, you have the 00:29:30.359 --> 00:29:33.400 singular, unique testimony of the miracle claim. 00:29:33.950 --> 00:29:36.410 Right. And the wise man, using simple probability, 00:29:36.750 --> 00:29:39.470 must always deduct the smaller number of conflicting 00:29:39.470 --> 00:29:41.910 observations from the greater number of uniform 00:29:41.910 --> 00:29:44.289 observations. So he concludes that the probability 00:29:44.289 --> 00:29:47.430 that the testimony is mistaken, fabricated, or 00:29:47.430 --> 00:29:49.910 the witness is deceived is always greater than 00:29:49.910 --> 00:29:51.809 the probability that a universally established 00:29:51.809 --> 00:29:54.950 law of nature has been broken. Always. He used 00:29:54.950 --> 00:29:57.049 the famous example of the Indian prince to illustrate 00:29:57.049 --> 00:29:59.789 this point. The prince, living in a hot climate, 00:29:59.970 --> 00:30:02.410 is told by travelers that in far -off lands, 00:30:02.650 --> 00:30:04.849 water becomes so hard it can support a man. And 00:30:04.849 --> 00:30:07.549 he refuses to believe it. Hume argues the prince 00:30:07.549 --> 00:30:11.730 reasoned justly, based on his own vast, uniform 00:30:11.730 --> 00:30:14.809 past experience, that water is always fluid. 00:30:15.150 --> 00:30:17.430 For the prince, the testimony of frozen water 00:30:17.430 --> 00:30:20.329 was contrary to everything he knew. And Hume 00:30:20.329 --> 00:30:22.390 argued that if the miracle were real, it would 00:30:22.390 --> 00:30:24.720 either have to be repeatable. in which case it 00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:26.460 would cease to be a transgression and become 00:30:26.460 --> 00:30:29.859 a new law of nature. Or it could never be rational 00:30:29.859 --> 00:30:31.960 to believe it occurred based on testimony alone. 00:30:32.519 --> 00:30:35.279 He piled on other points too, noting the issue 00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:38.279 of contradictory evidence. Miracles reported 00:30:38.279 --> 00:30:40.960 by one religion inherently argue against the 00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:43.640 divine authority of all others. He also pointed 00:30:43.640 --> 00:30:46.059 out the historical correlation. Miracles seem 00:30:46.059 --> 00:30:48.539 to happen mostly in ignorant and barbarous nations. 00:30:49.240 --> 00:30:51.299 suggesting a strong link between intellectual 00:30:51.299 --> 00:30:54.400 sophistication and rational skepticism. Moving 00:30:54.400 --> 00:30:57.380 from revealed religion to natural religion, Hume 00:30:57.380 --> 00:30:59.960 is also credited, alongside Darwin, with doing 00:30:59.960 --> 00:31:02.579 the most to undermine the teleological or design 00:31:02.579 --> 00:31:05.539 argument for God's existence. The argument that 00:31:05.539 --> 00:31:07.960 the universe, with its obvious complexity, must 00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:09.700 have been designed by an intelligent creator, 00:31:09.940 --> 00:31:13.079 much like a watch implies a watchmaker. And Hume's 00:31:13.079 --> 00:31:16.279 critique, again, is purely epistemological. It's 00:31:16.279 --> 00:31:18.970 based on his own principles. Causation, remember, 00:31:19.130 --> 00:31:22.769 relies on constant conjunction. We observe conjunctions 00:31:22.769 --> 00:31:26.009 watch and watchmaker, house and builder, and 00:31:26.009 --> 00:31:28.849 we make an inference. But the universe is a singular 00:31:28.849 --> 00:31:32.430 and unparalleled effect. Right. We have no experience 00:31:32.430 --> 00:31:34.950 of other universes being created, botched, or 00:31:34.950 --> 00:31:37.630 maintained. We have no external experience to 00:31:37.630 --> 00:31:40.930 compare this effect to, and thus no basis to 00:31:40.930 --> 00:31:43.349 infer its cause or designer. And he took the 00:31:43.349 --> 00:31:45.609 critique further, suggesting that if we must 00:31:45.609 --> 00:31:48.750 infer a cause, we can't assume perfection. Through 00:31:48.750 --> 00:31:51.500 his skeptical character, Philo, in the dialogues 00:31:51.500 --> 00:31:55.079 concerning natural religion. Hume suggested that 00:31:55.079 --> 00:31:57.460 if we infer a designer based solely on the evidence 00:31:57.460 --> 00:31:59.960 of the world, we can only infer a cause proportional 00:31:59.960 --> 00:32:01.960 to the observed effect. And what do we observe? 00:32:02.140 --> 00:32:04.380 A world full of pain, error, and inefficiency. 00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:06.720 So Phyla suggested that perhaps the universe 00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:09.759 was merely one of many worlds botched and bungled 00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:13.119 by an incompetent designer, a stupid mechanic. 00:32:13.500 --> 00:32:15.839 That's a highly modern, even pre -evolutionary 00:32:15.839 --> 00:32:19.359 idea. It is. The idea that design could arise 00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:22.700 through trial and error over a long time, rather 00:32:22.700 --> 00:32:26.240 than a single perfect act of creation, is often 00:32:26.240 --> 00:32:29.119 cited as anticipating aspects of natural selection. 00:32:29.339 --> 00:32:31.299 Before we get to the challenging parts of his 00:32:31.299 --> 00:32:33.859 legacy, let's briefly expand on the two other 00:32:33.859 --> 00:32:36.880 colossal careers Hume pursued, historian and 00:32:36.880 --> 00:32:39.700 economist. His career as a historian made him 00:32:39.700 --> 00:32:42.369 a celebrity. The history of England was revolutionary 00:32:42.369 --> 00:32:44.690 because it broadened the scope of historical 00:32:44.690 --> 00:32:47.450 narrative beyond just kings and parliaments. 00:32:47.569 --> 00:32:50.309 He incorporated discussions of literature, science, 00:32:50.490 --> 00:32:52.849 and the customs of the people. And he used history 00:32:52.849 --> 00:32:55.049 to illustrate philosophical lessons. Absolutely. 00:32:55.130 --> 00:32:57.750 He used his historical work to champion the gradual 00:32:57.750 --> 00:33:01.250 rise of liberty in England and, conversely, to 00:33:01.250 --> 00:33:02.930 highlight the destructive effects of what he 00:33:02.930 --> 00:33:05.789 called fanaticism, referring primarily to religious 00:33:05.789 --> 00:33:08.329 zealotry. And his goal was often to teach moderation 00:33:08.329 --> 00:33:10.809 and tolerance by showing the historical consequences 00:33:10.809 --> 00:33:13.329 of dogmatism. Right. And then you have his immediate 00:33:13.329 --> 00:33:16.329 practical success as an economist. His political 00:33:16.329 --> 00:33:18.670 discourses were a massive and immediate hit, 00:33:18.789 --> 00:33:21.529 the only work he considered an unqualified success 00:33:21.529 --> 00:33:24.650 upon first publication. And he laid the groundwork 00:33:24.650 --> 00:33:26.950 for classical economics alongside Adam Smith. 00:33:27.609 --> 00:33:29.829 For example, he argued that private property 00:33:29.829 --> 00:33:32.970 is not justified by a natural right, but by scarcity 00:33:32.970 --> 00:33:35.329 and utility. It's necessary because human beings 00:33:35.329 --> 00:33:38.950 are selfish and resources are finite. He also 00:33:38.950 --> 00:33:41.410 anticipated aspects of modern monetary theory. 00:33:41.650 --> 00:33:44.250 He argued against the idea that a country needs 00:33:44.250 --> 00:33:47.029 a specific, quantifiable, nominal amount of money 00:33:47.029 --> 00:33:49.349 to thrive. He demonstrated that if a country 00:33:49.349 --> 00:33:51.769 doubles its money supply, prices will simply 00:33:51.769 --> 00:33:54.190 adjust and the true wealth, the real output and 00:33:54.190 --> 00:33:57.000 labor remains the same. And this essay, Of the 00:33:57.000 --> 00:33:59.440 Balance of Trade, was so analytically sophisticated 00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:02.460 that Paul Krugman called it the first true economic 00:34:02.460 --> 00:34:05.720 model. As we conclude this deep dive, we must 00:34:05.720 --> 00:34:08.099 address the difficult and crucial details surrounding 00:34:08.099 --> 00:34:10.599 Hume's direct involvement with institutions of 00:34:10.599 --> 00:34:13.340 slavery and his published writings on race. This 00:34:13.340 --> 00:34:15.800 is a critical area, especially given recent historical 00:34:15.800 --> 00:34:18.820 research. We have documentation of his direct, 00:34:18.880 --> 00:34:21.079 if secondary, involvement in the slave trade. 00:34:21.360 --> 00:34:24.260 In 1766, while serving as secretary to the British 00:34:24.260 --> 00:34:26.980 embassy in Paris, Hume communicated a business 00:34:26.980 --> 00:34:29.739 proposal to his patron, Lord Hertford. And this 00:34:29.739 --> 00:34:32.420 proposal involved acquiring a half share of slave 00:34:32.420 --> 00:34:35.619 plantations located in Grenada. Yes, an island 00:34:35.619 --> 00:34:38.420 recently ceded to Britain. The sources indicate 00:34:38.420 --> 00:34:40.900 that Hume was acting as a messenger, but the 00:34:40.900 --> 00:34:43.719 content of his letter goes beyond simple secretarial 00:34:43.719 --> 00:34:46.679 conveyance. How does the tone of his communication 00:34:46.679 --> 00:34:49.820 complicate his involvement? He vouched strongly 00:34:49.820 --> 00:34:52.199 for the partners involved, Sir George Colebrooke 00:34:52.199 --> 00:34:55.280 and John Stuart, describing them as men of substance 00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:57.920 and character. And more significantly, he described 00:34:57.920 --> 00:35:01.119 the deal to acquire the plantation, which held 00:35:01.119 --> 00:35:06.340 42 enslaved people by 1767, as much more advantageous 00:35:06.340 --> 00:35:09.579 than a previous offer. Exactly. That endorsement 00:35:09.579 --> 00:35:11.480 suggests more than just passive transmission 00:35:11.480 --> 00:35:14.059 of information. And there is also his own financial 00:35:14.059 --> 00:35:16.559 history recorded at Coutts Bank. That's another 00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:19.000 key detail. The ledger records show that Hume 00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:21.440 lent 400 pounds, a very substantial sum at the 00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:23.940 time, to John Stewart, one of the partners, shortly 00:35:23.940 --> 00:35:26.460 before this plantation proposal was made. The 00:35:26.460 --> 00:35:28.340 loan was later repaid with commercial interest. 00:35:28.639 --> 00:35:31.280 And this historical evidence has naturally generated 00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:34.219 an intense scholarly debate. There are varying 00:35:34.219 --> 00:35:37.199 interpretations. Scholars like Peter Hutton and 00:35:37.199 --> 00:35:39.800 David Ashton argue that the letter shows Hume 00:35:39.800 --> 00:35:42.369 was merely conveying information. And that the 00:35:42.369 --> 00:35:44.989 evidence doesn't definitively prove he had a 00:35:44.989 --> 00:35:47.489 direct pecuniary interest in the plantation itself. 00:35:47.750 --> 00:35:50.710 They maintain he was acting as a high level intermediary. 00:35:50.730 --> 00:35:52.750 But other scholars argue that his role was more 00:35:52.750 --> 00:35:55.820 active than passive. Right. Interpretations like 00:35:55.820 --> 00:35:58.219 those put forth by Danielle Charette and others 00:35:58.219 --> 00:36:00.900 argue that by explicitly vouching for the partner's 00:36:00.900 --> 00:36:03.780 integrity and calling the venture advantageous, 00:36:03.840 --> 00:36:07.000 Hume was actively encouraging the purchase. And 00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:08.940 putting his reputation behind the profitability 00:36:08.940 --> 00:36:11.880 of a slaveholding enterprise. Which, they argue, 00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:14.820 shows a measure of personal hypocrisy when measured 00:36:14.820 --> 00:36:16.840 against the Enlightenment ideals he promoted. 00:36:17.400 --> 00:36:19.880 The sources also compel us to address the specific, 00:36:20.059 --> 00:36:23.199 notorious footnote he added to his essay of national 00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:27.380 characters in 1753. This footnote contains Hume's 00:36:27.380 --> 00:36:30.079 most explicitly prejudicial speculation regarding 00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:33.539 race. He stated that he was apt to suspect the 00:36:33.539 --> 00:36:35.780 Negroes and in general all other species of men 00:36:35.780 --> 00:36:38.559 to be naturally inferior to the whites. And he 00:36:38.559 --> 00:36:41.179 attempted to ground this suspicion empirically, 00:36:41.360 --> 00:36:44.780 citing the lack of a civilized nation or any 00:36:44.780 --> 00:36:47.360 individual eminent either in action or speculation 00:36:47.360 --> 00:36:50.480 of non -white complexion. And his dismissal of 00:36:50.480 --> 00:36:52.980 counter evidence was particularly harsh. When 00:36:52.980 --> 00:36:55.420 confronted with reports of a learned black individual 00:36:55.420 --> 00:37:01.230 in Jamaica, he dismissed it entirely. admired 00:37:01.230 --> 00:37:03.949 for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot 00:37:03.949 --> 00:37:06.630 who speaks a few words plainly. We should note, 00:37:06.730 --> 00:37:08.989 the footnote was later amended, but the core 00:37:08.989 --> 00:37:12.210 sentiment remained deeply problematic. In a posthumous 00:37:12.210 --> 00:37:14.489 addition, the footnote was amended to restrict 00:37:14.489 --> 00:37:17.510 the declaration of inferiority solely to people 00:37:17.510 --> 00:37:20.000 of African descent. Regardless of the amendment, 00:37:20.179 --> 00:37:22.420 the content is acknowledged by scholars as being 00:37:22.420 --> 00:37:25.320 especially shocking and deeply puzzling within 00:37:25.320 --> 00:37:27.679 the context of his otherwise rigorous philosophical 00:37:27.679 --> 00:37:30.099 method. And the consequences of this legacy are 00:37:30.099 --> 00:37:32.739 felt in the present day. Absolutely. The tension 00:37:32.739 --> 00:37:35.639 between his philosophical greatness and his documented 00:37:35.639 --> 00:37:38.579 racist writings in connection to slavery led 00:37:38.579 --> 00:37:41.840 to public action. In September 2020, following 00:37:41.840 --> 00:37:44.380 student protests, the University of Edinburgh 00:37:44.380 --> 00:37:47.820 renamed the David Hume Tower to 40 George Square. 00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:50.599 A direct acknowledgment of the difficulty of 00:37:50.599 --> 00:37:53.360 honoring a figure whose works contain such profound 00:37:53.360 --> 00:37:56.400 and damaging prejudicial speculation. David Hume's 00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:58.800 genius is undeniable. I mean, his willingness 00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:01.340 to subject every facet of human experience to 00:38:01.340 --> 00:38:03.960 the most rigorous empirical skepticism makes 00:38:03.960 --> 00:38:06.260 him a towering figure. But as we've explored, 00:38:06.420 --> 00:38:09.519 that genius is complicated. It is. But when we 00:38:09.519 --> 00:38:11.519 look purely at the architecture of his ideas, 00:38:11.739 --> 00:38:14.239 his influence is unmatched in shifting the direction 00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:16.420 of Western thought. He didn't just challenge 00:38:16.420 --> 00:38:19.099 old systems. He provided the methodological template 00:38:19.099 --> 00:38:21.619 for new ones. We opened by mentioning his influence 00:38:21.619 --> 00:38:23.739 on Immanuel Kant. Let's clarify that specific 00:38:23.739 --> 00:38:25.780 connection for the listener. Hume's attack on 00:38:25.780 --> 00:38:28.639 necessary connection, his argument that causation 00:38:28.639 --> 00:38:31.420 is custom, not logical certainty, forced Kant 00:38:31.420 --> 00:38:33.539 to fundamentally reexamine the limits of pure 00:38:33.539 --> 00:38:36.230 reason. Kant realized that if Hume was right, 00:38:36.349 --> 00:38:38.289 that objective science itself was impossible. 00:38:38.690 --> 00:38:41.389 So Kant's entire philosophical project in the 00:38:41.389 --> 00:38:43.989 Critique of Cure Reason was an attempt to save 00:38:43.989 --> 00:38:46.909 science from Hume's skepticism. To find a middle 00:38:46.909 --> 00:38:49.449 ground between Hume's radical skepticism and 00:38:49.449 --> 00:38:52.929 dogmatic rationalism, yes. And his influence 00:38:52.929 --> 00:38:55.710 stretches far into the 20th century, inspiring 00:38:55.710 --> 00:38:58.409 scientists who rarely cite Enlightenment philosophers. 00:38:58.929 --> 00:39:01.429 Think about Albert Einstein. He specifically 00:39:01.429 --> 00:39:04.670 cited Hume's positivism, the rejection of unseen 00:39:04.670 --> 00:39:08.070 underlying metaphysical concepts, as a key inspiration 00:39:08.070 --> 00:39:10.429 when formulating the theory of special relativity. 00:39:10.750 --> 00:39:12.730 He relied on the Humean premise that we should 00:39:12.730 --> 00:39:14.750 only trust what can be empirically observed. 00:39:15.130 --> 00:39:18.010 Not abstract, unproven concepts. We also mentioned 00:39:18.010 --> 00:39:21.090 Karl Popper. Popper explicitly credited Hume's 00:39:21.090 --> 00:39:23.150 profound analysis of the problem of induction 00:39:23.150 --> 00:39:25.449 with helping him reformulate his philosophy of 00:39:25.449 --> 00:39:28.369 science. Popper argued that science doesn't operate 00:39:28.369 --> 00:39:30.889 by confirming generalizations, but by trying 00:39:30.889 --> 00:39:33.369 to falsify them. A direct response to Hume's 00:39:33.369 --> 00:39:35.630 demonstration that induction cannot be rationally 00:39:35.630 --> 00:39:37.889 justified. And in the realm of the mind, Hume 00:39:37.889 --> 00:39:40.920 is often treated as a foundational text. Jerry 00:39:40.920 --> 00:39:44.579 Fodor, a major figure in cognitive science, famously 00:39:44.579 --> 00:39:47.219 described the treatise of human nature as the 00:39:47.219 --> 00:39:50.300 founding document of cognitive science. Hume's 00:39:50.300 --> 00:39:52.719 system of impressions, ideas, and the principles 00:39:52.719 --> 00:39:55.579 of association laid the groundwork for understanding 00:39:55.579 --> 00:39:58.099 the mind as a system of interconnected perceptions 00:39:58.099 --> 00:40:01.340 and mechanisms. His life ended as it was lived, 00:40:01.420 --> 00:40:04.840 with clear -eyed skepticism. James Boswell, the 00:40:04.840 --> 00:40:07.360 famous biographer, visited Hume shortly before 00:40:07.360 --> 00:40:09.820 his death from abdominal cancer and recorded 00:40:09.820 --> 00:40:12.739 that Hume remained entirely composed. Stating 00:40:12.739 --> 00:40:15.300 sincerely that the idea of life after death was 00:40:15.300 --> 00:40:18.460 a most unreasonable fancy. But even facing the 00:40:18.460 --> 00:40:21.280 end, he maintained his sense of humor. Adam Smith 00:40:21.280 --> 00:40:24.340 recounted Hume's final amusing speculation involving 00:40:24.340 --> 00:40:27.079 Charon, the mythical ferryman. Hume imagined 00:40:27.079 --> 00:40:29.699 asking Charon for just a small delay, a few more 00:40:29.699 --> 00:40:31.840 years, so he could live long enough to witness 00:40:31.840 --> 00:40:34.380 the downfall of some of the prevailing systems 00:40:34.380 --> 00:40:36.360 of superstition, which he believed was imminent. 00:40:36.599 --> 00:40:39.219 To which Charon, the eternal ferryman, replied, 00:40:39.539 --> 00:40:41.920 You loitering rogue, that will not happen these 00:40:41.920 --> 00:40:44.239 many hundred years. Get into the boat this instant. 00:40:44.420 --> 00:40:47.599 A perfect blend of wit and uncompromising philosophical 00:40:47.599 --> 00:40:51.159 skepticism. It captures the essence of the man. 00:40:51.380 --> 00:40:53.659 And that skepticism brings us back to his most 00:40:53.659 --> 00:40:57.099 crucial practical lesson. Hume showed us that 00:40:57.099 --> 00:40:59.199 we navigate the fundamental uncertainties of 00:40:59.199 --> 00:41:01.800 the world, not through pure, infallible reason, 00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:05.300 but through the indispensable, reliable mechanism 00:41:05.300 --> 00:41:08.920 of custom and habit. So here's the final provocative 00:41:08.920 --> 00:41:11.920 thought we leave with you. Hume's work demonstrated 00:41:11.920 --> 00:41:14.199 that our most reliable mechanisms for navigating 00:41:14.199 --> 00:41:17.019 the world are psychological and habitual, not 00:41:17.019 --> 00:41:20.329 purely rational. What current beliefs in your 00:41:20.329 --> 00:41:22.289 professional decisions, your personal principles, 00:41:22.409 --> 00:41:25.269 or your daily routines do you rely on purely 00:41:25.269 --> 00:41:27.489 out of custom and habit that might not stand 00:41:27.489 --> 00:41:29.869 up to the rigorous, uncompromising skepticism 00:41:29.869 --> 00:41:33.269 of Hume's fork? Is it a causal link you assume 00:41:33.269 --> 00:41:36.889 is necessary? Is it an ought you derive unquestioningly 00:41:36.889 --> 00:41:39.050 from an is? Think about that the next time you 00:41:39.050 --> 00:41:41.329 assume anything. Thank you for joining us for 00:41:41.329 --> 00:41:43.730 this extensive deep dive into the complex and 00:41:43.730 --> 00:41:46.050 revolutionary mind of David Hume. We'll see you 00:41:46.050 --> 00:41:47.349 next time for the next deep dive.