Two Types of Binary Reasoning

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Recently, I read an article critical of people who were "binary" thinkers, by which the author meant people who tend to classify information in one of two categories: true or false, black or white. He called this binary thinking. Though not the only definition of binary thinking, his is the most common and generally accepted definition.

If one does an internet search using the phrase "binary reasoning" this comes up on Goggle: 

Binary reasoning is a system of logic where information is categorized into only two, mutually exclusive states—typically TRUE (1) or FALSE (0). Used in computer logic and analytical reasoning, it simplifies complex problems by allowing only two, non-overlapping possibilities (e.g., truth-tellers vs. liars). 

According to this definition, binary reasoning has an either-or framework that does not allow for contradiction (only one can be true) or hierarchy (both are true but one has higher authority).

The Goggle definition reflects the Aristotelian logic that dominates Western philosophy. It does not recognize the much older and more complex binary reasoning of the early Hebrew (4000-2000 BCE). Were we to investigate the Hebrew binary reasoning we would discover that it breaks out of the either-or framework by recognizing hierarchy rather than non-contradiction. Binary reasoning is the way humans make sense of features in Nature that signal something beyond. The Semitic way of thinking allows for both-and. It opens an avenue for the exploration of the "and".

Western philosophy recognizes the logic of non-contradiction. However, the original arguments made by Aristotle are not that simple. Aristotle presented three versions of the principle of non-contradiction: an ontological, a doxastic (opinion), and a semantic version. The first version concerns things that exist in the world, the second is about what we believe, and the third relates to assertions about truth.

The binary reasoning that pertains to the ontological are the most significant. These are observations of binary sets in Nature. Here we find hierarchy, that is to say, things exist even when they exist as a trace, to borrow Derrida's term.

It is fascinating that both the Structuralist Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Deconstructionist Jacques Derrida began with binary reasoning.

Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009) founded structural anthropology, proposing that universal mental structures or patterns shape human culture. He argued that human thought operates through binary oppositions (e.g., raw/cooked, nature/culture). On the basis of his anthropological research, he argued that the "primitive" mind has the same structures as the "civilized" mind. He believed that myths, kinship, and customs can be decoded to reveal these mental structures. He came to these conclusions based on his 1930s fieldwork among the Bororo and Nambikwara peoples of the Amazon and Matto Grosso. His experiences and structuralist theories were documented in his 1955 memoir, Tristes Tropiques.

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in El-Biar, Algeria. He sought to uncover the underbelly of meaning in myths and texts. He enjoyed making fun of traditional interpretations, yet as he developed his "ontotheology" he concluded that there was something fixed at the metaphysical center. He developed this in his lectures at Villanova University.

Deconstruction reveals a “presence” that has been called by different names throughout history: logos, nous, arche, God, the metaphysical center, etc. However, for Derrida the fixed presence is not a being, but rather a necessary function by which we are able to discover meaning. 

Derrida’s deconstruction reveals great complexity of meaning in written texts, ideas, myths and human customs. He wanted to know what dominates and blocks what seems not to be present. He ascribes to subordinate objects a more substantial existence than the shadow they cast, or their “trace.” Derrida wrote: "Deconstruction cannot limit itself or proceed immediately to neutralization: it must, by means of a double gesture, a double science, a double writing, practice an overturning of the classical opposition, and a general displacement of the system. It is on that condition alone that deconstruction will provide the means of intervening in the field of oppositions it criticizes" (Metaphysics).

Derrida identified binary distinctions, such as dominance and subservience, central and marginalized, and reversals. Each component of the binary set means something, and the relationship of the oppositions means something, and the hierarchy exhibited by the set means something. The reversal of the oppositions also means something. The reversal of the subordinated term of an opposition is a significant aspect of Derrida's strategy. In examining a binary opposition and reversals, deconstruction brings to light traces of meaning that cannot be said to be present, but which have metaphysical presence.

Derrida explores the hidden presence. In so doing, deeper and/or unfamiliar meanings emerge. His method involves neutralizing the shouting voice in order to hear resonances of underlying voices. He looks for Plato behind Aristotle, for mystery behind logic, and for the metaphysical behind the physical. His reversals are a strategic intervention to free western philosophy from the constraints of materialism and the deductive and linear reasoning in ancient Greece. In a true sense, Derrida lifted up a Semitic way of reasoning. (See Jeff Benner on Greek Linear Logic vs. Hebrew Step Logic.)

In summary, there are two distinct types of binary reasoning. The West is heir to both, but the earlier binary reasoning of the biblical Hebrew has been largely ignored and forgotten.

Binary Reasoning of the Biblical Hebrew

The binary reasoning of the early Hebrew involves binary sets of two closely related entities which, when observed empirically, reveal that one of the entities is greater than its partner. Genesis 1:16 speaks of the sun and the moon as a binary set and notes that the sun is the greater of the two. Likewise, in the male-female set, it is universally true that the human male is anatomically larger and stronger than the female.

Not all pairs of opposites are binary sets. Consider that talented-untalented does not represent a binary set because this involves subjective judgement. Tall-short is not a binary set because this is relative to the observer. For example, the tall-short contrast is relative to the observer. I am 5 feet 5 inches tall. Standing beside a Watusi warrior, I would appear to be short. However, were I to stand beside a Pygmy, I would appear to be tall.

The binary reasoning of the Bible is based on the early Hebrew priests' acute observation of patterns in Nature. It prevents the biblical worldview from slipping into dualism, a view in which the two entities of a set are equal in every way.

 

Related reading: Binary Sets in the Ancient World; "Binary" is a Bad Word These Days; Theories of Knowledge Among Archaic Humans; Theories of Knowledge - Bacon and Descartes; Theories of Knowledge - Locke and Hume; Remarks on Bertrand Russell's Theory of Knowledge by Albert Einstein; A Christian Anthropologist Considers Gender in the Bible; Orthodoxy Requires Binary Reasoning

Feminist Interpretations of David Hume

“What is best in this collection is that it focused attention on some of the often neglected aspects of Hume’s philosophy. Given that feminists are concerned with exposing and investigating what is overlooked, this uncovering may be what is most centrally feminist about the book. It also succeeds, as Jacobson urges in her introduction, in encouraging readers to ask more questions, to continue the discussion and to find new and creative ways of reading Hume.”—Miriam McCormick, Philosophy in Review


Anne Jaap Jacobson has edited this volume and Hume devotees should read it. Michelle Mason (University of Minnesota) wrote this review.

Related reading: Theories of Knowledge: Locke and Hume; Why You Have to Love David Hume; INDEX

Theories of Knowledge - Part 4

"The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."-- Eden Phillpotts

"In truth, truth inhabits fiction as the master of the house."--Jacques Derrida

"The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it."--Daniel Webster

"Hell is truth seen too late."--Thomas Hobbes

Hume and Kant
Alice C. Linsley

David Hume categorized all objects of human reason into two groups: Relation of Ideas and Matters of Fact. This is often referred to as "Hume's fork" and can be further investigated in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV, Part 1. Here we read: "All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas and Matters of fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic... discoverable by the mere operation of thought... Matters of fact, which are the second object of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing."

The truth claims that Descartes posed when he introduced the evil deceiver argument are in Hume's second category - "relations of ideas" and Descartes further developed the argument that all real knowledge consists of relations of ideas, including knowledge of the material world. Descartes thought that the material world can be explained by physical laws of causation and that one day physics would be established as an a priori science along with geometry and algebra. Hume, on the other hand, sought to demonstrate that science is not a priori. Instead, Hume argued that there is never certainty concerning causes and effects by using reason alone. Science requires experimentation and observation, and there is always the possibility that the next experiment might not provide the same results or conform to the hypothesis as did earlier experiments.

This radical doubt poses a problem for scientists. It means that the scientific method cannot be said to ascertain beyond doubt. This is Hume's problem of induction. Inductive methods predict or infer and are essential in scientific reasoning. One cannot assume that something is immutable and necessary because it has always or usually been reliable in the past. Though 20 experiments produce the same results, we have no certainty that the results will be the same after experiments 21, or 32 or 45. Though the sun has risen daily since the founding of our solar system, we have no certainty that it will always do so.

In 1953, Richard Rudner published “The Scientist qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments,” in which he argued that since no hypothesis is ever completely verified, in accepting a hypothesis the scientist must make the decision that the evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant the acceptance of the hypothesis. The problem of induction which David Hume framed so precisely is really a problem of decision about which action to take, not proof of the fallibility of science in general. For Hume this is where the element of the human imagination comes in to play. In Hume's view the most ordinary interactions and common observations of bare facts involve active imagination. They do not represent passive perceptions of the world. His critique of metaphysics involves a criticism of what he sees as lack of imagination or blind imagination. In his view, the errors of philosophy arose from the fact that imagination determined human thought more than people recognize.

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was aroused from his "dogmatic slumbers" by David Hume. Kant thought that Hume went too far in his skepticism about the capability of the inductive method of science. He saw greater agreement among scientists than among philosophers and thought that, unlike metaphysics, the motions of material objects are governed by laws. Everything that happens is determined by antecedent happenings or prior conditions. But this caused a problem for Kant's anthropology. If everything is predetermined in the universe, how is it that humans have free will?

Kant concludes that the human has free will to choose to fulfill his duty at any given moment and the universal moral law concerns performance of duty, regarding humanity as an end in itself rather than as something to be used to achieve selfish ends.

Much of what Kant wrote is an attempt to defend the Christian understanding of God and the value of reason against Hume’s skepticism. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant agrees with Hume that there is no absolute ground to assume the existence of God. However, against Hume, he adds that the idea of God is intrinsically connected to happiness and morality as the “ideal of the supreme good.” In his later treatment on Logic (1800), Kant argues that the idea of God is proved only through the moral law and only with “the intent so as to act as if there be a God.” 

Kant claimed that virtuous living results from practical reason. Schopenhauer discredited Kant’s moral system mainly because it is based on individual duty. He believed that the individual’s sense of duty cannot be the grounds for every moral decision or action. Instead he emphasized that a study of the great world religions suggests a universal moral code which he expressed in these words: “Don't do to another what you don't want done to you.” Schopenhauer claimed that virtuous conduct has nothing to do with reason and may even be opposed to it, as with Machiavelli’s rational expediency. In the face of a bloody civil war in Italy (1502-03) that involved mass killing, street assassinations, and widespread anarchy, Machiavelli wrote:

I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pistoia to be destroyed. Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only.

It is possible to argue with Machiavelli that reason might lead to actions that in most contexts are regarded as immoral.

Kant's synthetic a priori knowledge

One of Kant's contributions is in the area of logic. He recognized a class of propositions termed "synthetic a priori." Such propositions are distinct from a posteriori judgments based on observation and experimentation. These judgments, being of an empirical nature, are largely descriptive; that is they define rather than inform. In this class of propositions we find propositions such as "a bachelor is an unmarried man" or "swans are waterfowl."  A synthetic judgment, informs, not merely defines. Typically, synthetic judgments are associated with a posteriori knowledge (knowing the particulars) and analytic judgments are associated with a priori knowledge (knowing the universals). An example of a synthetic a posteriori judgment is “all swans are white.” This is synthetic because whiteness is not a necessary part of the concept of swan.  The statement is also an example of an a posteriori proposition because the only way to find out if all swans are white is from observation and experience.

Kant argues that mathematics and the laws of physics contain synthetic a priori knowledge. For example, “7 + 5 = 12” is a priori because it is a necessary and universal truth we know independent of experience, and it is synthetic because the concept of “12” is not contained in the concept of “7 + 5.” Kant argues that the same is true for the laws of physics such as “for every action there is an equal an opposite reaction.” Because such laws apply universally, they must be a priori knowledge, since a posteriori knowledge only tells us about particular experiences. The fact that we are capable of synthetic a priori knowledge suggests that pure reason is capable of knowing metaphysical truths.

Kant suggests something very like Hume's understanding of the mind. Much of what we consider to be reality is shaped by perception. Kant agrees with Hume that the mind does not passively receive information provided by the senses. Rather, it actively shapes and makes sense of that information. If all the events in our experience seem to take place in a temporal progression, that is our minds arrangement of sensory experience. If we perceive that some events appear to cause other events, that is because our mind's cause-effect arrangement of events. According to Kant, the mind is constrained to perceive or experience sensations in time and space and according the laws of causation. He argues that time and space are intuitions of our faculty to sense things, and physical laws such as gravity and inertia are intuitions of our faculty to understand things.

Related reading:  Theories of Knowledge - Part 1; Theories of Knowledge - Part 2; Theories of Knowledge - Part 3; Why David Hume Was Wrong: Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment?

Theories of Knowledge - Locke and Hume

"If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things."--René Descartes

Alice C. Linsley


Francis Bacon insisted that methodical observation and experimentation (the scientific method) can progressively increase human knowledge and benefit all of humanity. Bacon also demonstrated through his experiments that the senses can be fooled and thus raised doubt about "common sense" ideas. Bacon insisted that true knowledge must begin with doubt. He wrote, "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties." --Francis Bacon (1605) The Advancement of Learning, Book 1, v.8

Descartes felt it necessary to one reject entirely all beliefs about which there is the slightest doubt. He wanted to build a system of belief based on certainty. Descartes' point of certainty was his own rational existence:  "I am thinking, therefore I am existing." He wrote in Discourse on Method, "But I soon noticed that while I thus wished to think everything false, it was necessarily true that I who thought so was something. Since this truth, I think, therefore I am, was so firm and assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were unable to shake it, I judged that II could safely accept it as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking." (Part Four on "Proofs of the Existence of God and of the Human Soul)

Descartes develops this as a proof for the existence of God. He continues, "After that I reflected upon the fact that I doubted, and that in consequence, my spirit was not wholly perfect, for I saw clearly that it was a greater perfection to know than to doubt. I decided to ascertain form what source I had learned to think of something more perfect than myself, and it appeared evident that it must have been from some nature which is in fact more perfect... I was not the only being in existence..., and it followed of necessity that there was someone else more perfect upon whom I depended and from whom I had acquired all that I possessed. For if I had been alone and independent of anything else, so that I had bestowed upon myself all that limited quantity of value which I shared with the perfect Being, I would have been able to get from myself, in the same way, all the surplus which I recognize as lacking in me, and so would have been myself infinite, eternal, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, and, in sum, I would possess all the perfections that I could discover in God."

Here Descartes articulates a form of the argument from design. The reasoning goes like this:  I find imperfection in myself and I recognize it, which means that I have consciousness of something or someone more perfect than myself. That being so, I must have been designed by that greater Perfection. Descartes wrote: "The very principle which I took as a rule to start with, namely, that all those things which we conceived very clearly and very distinctly are true, is known to be true only because God exists and because he is a perfect Being, and because everything in us comes from him. From this it follows that our ideas or notions, being real things which come from God insofar as they are clear and distinct, cannot to that extent fail to be true."

Descartes contributed to the development of new theories of mind and consciousness. He defined thought "to include everything that is within us in such a way that we are immediately aware [conscii] of it. Thus all the operations of the will, the intellect, the imagination and the senses are thoughts."

John Locke (1632-1704)

The British empiricist John Locke believed that experience alone is the basis of all knowledge. He argued this against Descartes's position that the human mind holds innate ideas.

Locke contributed to the development of theories of consciousness. If a thought is something “within us" of which we are conscious, what is the nature of consciousness? Locke insists that the mind is empty at birth, a tabula rasa. All our ideas are shaped by experience; sensations, and reflections.

Locke wrote that "the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences." He argued that the "associations of ideas" that one makes as a child are very important because they are the foundation of the self. He warned against letting "a foolish maid" convince a child that "goblins and sprites" are associated with the dark of night for "darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other." Locke's theory of association influenced educational theory up to the nineteenth century. Educators warned parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. 

David Hume (1711-1776)

The Scottish philosopher David Hume continues the empiricist trajectory, developing the consequences of Locke's thought. Hume held that in the search for truth, we cannot rely on the common-sense pronouncements, popular notions, or metaphysical speculation. Building on Locke's epistemology, Hume tried to describe how the mind works in acquiring what is called knowledge. He concluded that no theory of reality is possible; there can be no knowledge of anything beyond experience. He wrote, "If we take in our hands any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding)

In Hume's view, normal human reasoning is flawed and this raises radical doubt about all claims to know something. When we give the reasons for our beliefs about the world, we find that many of the offered explanations are contradictory. For example, one person asserts that something is true for them, but another denies that it is true in their experience. How can something be said to be true for one person and not for another? After exposing a series of contradictions within the human reasoning process, Hume reaches this conclusion: "The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another." (Treatise of Human Nature)

To the epistemological conversation he adds an additional criterion: do not consent to any belief that is not found to be universally true. This is the ultimate test of truth: that it should be demonstrated mathematically as a universal truth or, following Sir Isaac Newton, as a universal physical law.

Hume conceived of philosophy as the inductive, experimental science of human nature. He sought to discover the causes of human belief. For Hume, this is the proper work of philosophy. Book I of the Treatise of Human Nature and all of the first Enquiry represent his attempts to do exactly this. He wrote, "my intention never was to penetrate into the nature of bodies, or explain the secret causes of their operations. For besides that this belongs not to my present purpose, I am afraid, that such an enterprize is beyond the reach of human understanding, and that we can never pretend to know body otherwise than by those external properties, which discover themselves to the senses." (Treatise of Human Nature, Sec. V)

Despite Hume's radical empiricism, he continued to value common sense, and apparently did not take his own skepticism, such as the problem of induction, to the extreme that others did after him. He recognized that the consequences of his radical skepticism clashed with common sense and his concern for enlightenment scholarship.  [Antony G Flew, A Dictionary of Philosophy, rev 2nd edn (New York: St Martin's Press, 1984), p 156].

Related reading: Theories of Knowledge - Part 1; Theories of Knowledge - Part 2; Why You Have to Love David Hume; Why Hume Was Wrong

Why Hume Was Wrong

There is in Dr. Tillotson's writings, an argument against the real presence which is as concise, and elegant, and strong as any argument can possibly be supposed against a doctrine, so little worthy of a serious refutation. It is acknowledged on all hands, says the learned prelate, that the authority, either of scripture or of tradition, is founded merely in the testimony of the apostles, who were eye-witnesses to those miracles of our Saviour, by which he proved his divine mission." Opening lines of David Hume's chapter entitled "Concerning Miracles" from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.


Alice C. Linsley


Many are unaware of the role this "learned" Anglican clergyman played in David Hume's dismissal of miracles. Tragically, Dr. Tillotson misrepresented the sources of authority for the Christian Faith.

David Hume (1711-1776) wrote, "A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. In such conclusions as are founded on an infallible experience, he expects the event with the last degree of assurance, and regards his past experience as a full proof of the future existence of that event. In other cases, he proceeds with more caution: He weighs the opposite experiments: He considers which side is supported by the greater number of experiments: to that side he inclines,with doubt and hesitation; and when at last he fixes his judgement,the evidence exceeds not what we properly call probability. All probability, then, supposes an opposition of experiments and observations, where the one side is found to overbalance the other, and to produce a degree of evidence, proportioned to the superiority. A hundred instances of experiments on one side, and fifty on another, afford a doubtful expectation of any event; though a hundred uniform experiments, with only one that is contradictory, reasonably begets a pretty strong degree of assurance." (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Chapter 10, Concerning Miracles)

Hume points out that the learned clergy of the Church of England affirmed that the authority of Christianity is founded "merely in the testimony of the apostles, who were eye-witnesses to those miracles of our Saviour, by which he proved his divine mission. Our evidence, then, for the truth of the Christian religion is less than the evidence for the truth of our senses; because, even in the first authors of our religion, it was no greater; and it is evident it must diminish in passing from them to their disciples."

Hume is not to be blamed for being wrong about Jesus' miracles. He assumed that the "learned" clergy were accurately representing the basis for Christianity's authority: namely, that the Church teaches what it received from the Apostles. Let us examine this more closely. 

The Apostolic witness comes to the Church through the writings of the early Church Fathers and through the writings of the New Testament. The early Church Fathers had to interpret much of what was delivered to them and it took acute reason to sort through all that. It also required employment of Greek philosophy by those who participated in the Council of Nicaea, a number of gatherings that formulated the two natures of Jesus Christ as well as the doctrine of the Trinity. It is clear that Hume has the wrong idea when he asserts that the authority of Christianity rested "merely in the testimony of the apostles."

For the Church, the most authoritative accounts of Jesus' miracles are found in the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is not certain that the writers to whom these accounts are attributed were all apostles. Mark and Luke certainly were not. Nor was Paul, the source of about two-thirds of the New Testament writings. Further, John's account differs from the Synoptic Gospels in that it reflects on the meaning of Jesus' miracles. Reflection was something that Hume, following Bacon and Descartes, regarded as essential to discovery.

Further, John's account points to a much older tradition of Messianic expectation among Abraham's Horim (Horite ancestors). The miracles of Jesus align with this very ancient pattern of expectation concerning the "seed" or "son" of God. The learned clergy failed to see this. 

Using anthropology, a discipline that owes much to Hume, this Messianic expectation has been traced back to Jesus' Horite ancestors. It first appears in Scripture in Genesis 3:15, the promise that a Woman of the Horite lines would bring forth the "Seed" who would crush the serpent's head. Jesus identified himself as that Seed in John 12:24. He tells his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem to die and when they object, he explains: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." The purpose of a seed is to die and be buried in the ground. Unless this happens, it cannot bring forth life. This is a universal observation of the ordinary by which the extraordinary is explained to men who appear to be in denial.

The pattern includes such details as being born in a stable to a Horite woman who was "overshadowed" by the Divine Presence, being adored by kings, healing the blind, calming wind and waves, transforming substances, multiplying substances, rising from the dead, subduing enemies, taking a wife (the Church), and being appointed to rule forever over a kingdom. This Messiah was believed to preexist with his Father and was regarded as the fixer of cosmic boundaries and the direction and patterns of winds and currents, stars and constellations. Many ancient rulers drew on this expectation to bolster their claims to the throne, but none of those pretenders rose from the grave.

After years of studying and classifying myths from around the world, Joseph Campbell concluded that the psychic unity of all mankind is expressed in a monomyth, that is, a universal belief in the hero who overcomes this world and leads his people to a greater reality. The evidence from anthropological studies of archaic communities seems to confirm Campbell's research. The expectation of a righteous ruler who overcomes death was universal. C.S. Lewis points this out in Mere Christianity. He writes that God "sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean ... about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men."

Hume added an additional criterion to his empirical method: do not consent to any belief that is not found to be universally true. He is speaking in terms of experience, observation, experimentation, and sense verification. However, applying this same criterion to the evidence concerning universal Messianic expectation, we logically must admit that the authority of Christianity rests not "merely in the testimony of the apostles." It is rooted in a very ancient expectation and involves specific details that Christians have been struggling to understand using reason, philosophy and the senses.

Related reading: The Question of Immortality; Righteous Rulers and Resurrection; Christianity and Messianic Expectation; Fundamentalism and Syncretism in Hebrew History; INDEX of Topics at Philosophers' Corner

Why You Have to Love David Hume

David Hume

Alice C. Linsley


David Hume (1711-1776)

Naturalism, Empiricism, Skepticism; theses terms come to mind when one considers David Hume, the very remarkable philosopher and historian of the 18th century.

Hume was a brilliant Scottish thinker who lived for a time in France. One of his close friends was a fellow Scotsman Adam Smith who is considered the founder of modern economics. Hume also produced some writings on monetary theory.

David Hume has been called "the Skeptic's Skeptic" because of his empirical approach and insistence that there is a natural explanation for almost all observable phenomena. Although Hume leaves open the possibility of miracles as singular events, he offers arguments against their historicity. He notes that miracles seem to occur among the ignorant and superstitious, not in civilized societies which, informed by empiricism, know that most phenomena have a natural explanation.

Hume also notes that people have good reasons to lie about miracles occurring either because they believe they are doing so for the benefit of their religion or because of the fame that results. People enjoy relating miracles without checking their veracity and thus accounts of miracles are easily transmitted even when unverified or false. Hume also believed that the miracles of each religion argue against all other religions and their miracles, and so even if a proportion of all reported miracles appear to be substantiated empirically, the miracles cannot logically be considered conclusive.

George Berkeley had asserted that God's existence is a question of fact; that is, either God exists or God does not exist. Such a question can only be resolved on the basis of observational evidence. Hume insisted that God's existence has not observational evidence. The most that can be said is that the order in nature could be explained by the existence of an Intelligent Being.

Hume is often labeled an agnostic or an atheist. However, today he might have more in common with the Intelligent Design school of thought. Hume wrote, “the whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the principles of genuine Theism and Religion” (Natural History of Religion 134).


Hume's Writings

David Hume penned what is still considered one of the greatest works on the History of Great Britain. He was a man who enjoyed lengthy conversations with friends on virtually every topic and these conversation stimulated his writing.

Hume’s writings stirred Immanuel Kant from his “dogmatic slumbers” around 1770. Kant produced his greatest work in reaction to Hume. Although the two great thinkers did not agree on many points, they both placed a high value on reason and evidence. Kant defined the Enlightenment by the motto Sapere aude ("Dare to Know") and wrote, “Have the courage to use your own understanding; this is the motto of the Enlightenment.”

Hume's key works are A Treatise on Human Nature (1739-40) which was published anonymously when he was only 28, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779). In his forties he wrote a six-volume History of England (1754-62) and this work established him as an historian.

In his last years, Hume revised his works for new editions of his Essays and Treatises, which contained his collected essays, the two Enquiries, A Dissertation on the Passions, and The Natural History of Religion. Significantly, he did not revise A Treatise of Human Nature. Hume did not become famous for his philosophical works until after his death in 1776.

Hume believed that truth claims must be based up by material evidence and that much of what we accept in our ordinary lives has no basis in empirical observation and verification. He insisted that unless a truth claim can be demonstrated to be universally the case, it cannot be said to be "true" empirically. Hume's thinking encouraged the early development of the social sciences anthropology, sociology and psychology.


Related reading:  David Hume: A Short Biography; Kant and Hume on Causality