David Hume and Rene Descartes make up two of the highly intriguing schools of thought in philosophy regarding epistemology, which is the origin of knowledge. These two philosophers helped advance the studies of empiricism and rationalism during the 17th century when remarkable developments had been achieved in the field of mechanics and astronomy. The questions confronted by these philosophers brought about the main philosophical question of what is absolute knowledge. Many people had started to join the bandwagon of claims that science provided the true knowledge about reality. These concerns about reality paved the way for the focus on Descartes and Hume as the major epistemological philosophers. The goal of this essay is to make a comparison and contrast between Descartes and Hume.
Both Hume and Descartes are very popular in the field of epistemology. As a rationalist, Descartes claimed to have a special technique of coming up with an inclusive method of doubt which was replicated in a large number of his studies, like mathematics, metaphysics and natural philosophy. Hume was considered the most significant philosophers in writing and English. In Descartes’ view of rationalism, logic and reason form the basis of knowledge. Also, Descartes considered that knowledge can only come from the mind and not from the senses. He also argued that since God exists, he is the emblem of perfect knowledge. Hume, on the other hand, had the belief that ideas came from impressions.
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According to Descartes, imagination had no ability to help human beings. Things which existed in the mind were known as ideas. He argued that the nature of the human mind to develop ideas held the capacity to come up with an idea about God. However, at that time, human beings thought of God through other means other than ideas. Descartes had a strong point concerning his view about the objective reality which meant a person’s understanding of reality. In Descartes understanding, something which makes an accurate representation of the other makes up the objective reality. He mentioned that if the objective reality of any of his ideas was found to be too great that he was certain it was not a reality found in him, then he could not be the cause of the idea. He believed that there is something else which was the cause of his ideas which makes him certain that he is not the only one in the world. The weakness Descartes has concerning his perception of innate ideas. It would be absurd to claim that an individual has a brain as soon as they are born, but they only grow it with time following their birth. His position on innate ideas opens up room for criticism since innate ideas can only be predictive and not thought about. Descartes does not offer certainty about the innateness of ideas and this leaves his claim open to doubt.
Hume held the belief that ideas originated from impressions, and he stated that a simple idea contains a simple impression. In Hume’s view, impressions were in two groups, first, the sensations which come to us from unknown causes and the reflection which we have about our own ideas. He considered that an impression is followed by an idea which is similar in appearance to the impression, and they can only vary according to vivacity and force 1 . Descartes held no beliefs on imagination but Hume did. Hume’s idea of impressions being the cause of ideas also becomes his weakness because it becomes difficult to back it up with logical proof. It cannot be argued that a person can develop an idea from an imagination such that they can only develop mental pictures of their ideas without a source. Hume did not hold the same belief as Descartes about innate ideas. Hume held that ideas must originate from our senses and to prove so, one should have objective experience to back up their ideas. Hume’s strong point is that ideas originate from impressions and the impression of reflection is even stronger.
Descartes is also popular for his development of the cogito. He arrived at it by first draining everything that was present in his mind while aiming to determine what was certain to him. To arrive at that point, he knew he would have to first reject the truth of everything else he knew up to the point that he could not reject anything at all. He had the desire to find the basis of all knowledge which led to the growth of foundationalism. From then, he stared his search for knowledge using beliefs which are self-evident, the kinds which do not have to rely on the existence of other knowledge. He held that truth cannot be arrived at when we start from the wrong point in search of it. If we have no knowledge of the directions towards truth, as Descartes viewed, we can never reach the heights of truth. Therefore, in the pursuit of being certain, Descartes doubted everything that he knew, which the famous methodical doubt became. He regarded all the ideas which originated from the intellect or senses as being false. He considered that senses have deceived him numerous times since at times the things which he thought to be real were actually just his dreams. Additionally, he deemed that it was possible that for everything which he knew, he must have been deceive by an evil genius 2 . Therefore, he deemed that intellect and the sense were not reliable sources of knowledge.
Hume, on the other hand, develops thoughts in line with empiricism. While holding that impressions are the source of idea, Hume discerned that they tend to be distinct from one another. It is through connection that we can ascribe together two different perceptions in our imagination. These connections will only exist in the mind since in the objective world, ideas are not conjoined. When there is a connection between two things, it becomes evident that a real relationship exists between them. Hume deemed that distinct ideas are connected in three ways, which are causation, contiguity, and resemblance. These connection principles are similar to those which are used to claim an individual’s identity. In Hume’s view, the impression brings about the idea of the self which proceeds invariably throughout the course of one’s life. From his perspective, it becomes evident that one’s identity remains the dame irrespective of the experiences which one goes through. Hume proceeds to reject the idea of the self which is dominant, and suggests instead that the self is no more than a bundle of different perceptions that succeed one another with the frequency that is very difficult to conceive.
Hume and Descartes highly disagreed on matters concerning the self, imaginations and the self and that is why none of them may sound very convincing. Hume’s idea for imagination could be thought of as being bad but he holds up a very convincing argument about the self. Therefore, it becomes easy to believe in the truth of Hume’s ideas over Descartes. It is easy to make a relation when someone says that an idea comes from an impression, but it is also hard for one to believe that there is an external being is the cause of one’s ideas as Descartes would argue. When a person is born, they do not have ideas, but only get to acquire them through experience, and I cannot think that there is an evil genius lurking in my head trying to tell me what to think about. Also, it becomes difficult to go through the self-doubting process since one would not know which idea is real and not real, but it is possible to make an association between the experiences and the ideas that one possesses at the moment. Generally, the conflicting viewpoints of both Hume and Descartes have had a profound impact on philosophy in the present day.
Bibliography
Descartes, R. (2017). Meditations on First Philosophy (2nd ed.). (B. Williams, & J. Cottingham, Eds.) Cambridge.
Hume, D. (2004). An enquiry concerning human understanding. Mineola: Dover Publications.
