PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE & THOUGHT
David Hume launched some famous and crushing attacks on the Design Argument, but also made some less well-known criticisms of the Cosmological Argument. Most of his ideas are set out in his book, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779). The book was published after Hume's death, because attacking religious beliefs was considered a sensitive subject.
The book takes the form of a play, in which three characters debate religion.
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The non-existence of any being, without exception, is as clear and distinct an idea as its existence - David Hume
J.L. Mackie makes the same point in his criticism of the idea of a Necessary Being. However, Hume might be misjudging the argument here. "Necessary" can mean that God can't be imagined as not existing (this is how the Ontological Argument uses the term), but it could just mean that God can't start to exist or stop existing (this would be how Aquinas uses the term).
Hume seems to be combining the Ontological and Cosmological Argument together and trying to "kill two birds with one stone"... but this leads him to muddle up what he means by 'Necessary'. |
The existence, therefore, of any being can only be proved by arguments from its cause or its effect - David Hume
The example Hume uses is a person have twenty objects like coins in their possession and being asked, Where did they come from? Hume explains you could answer this by explaining where each object came from individually (one was a gift from your mother... you found one in the street... etc). Once you've done this, you've given a complete explanation of the 20 objects. If someone were to go on to ask, But where did the complete set come from? there would be no additional answer to that.
This shows that the universe doesn't need an explanation of its own. An explanation of the parts of the universe is sufficient to explain the whole. |
It were better therefore never to look beyond the present material world - David Hume
YES
Hume's analysis of the Fallacy of Composition is important. Applying our expectations of cause-and-effect to the universe is small-minded. Why should universes follow the same laws that operate inside them? The "Big Bang" Theory leads to similar misunderstandings when people talk about something "happening before" the Big Bang or "causing" the Big Bang. Time and causality don't exist in the 'singularity' of the Big Bang.
Even though Hume doesn't fully develop all his ideas here, later philosophers like Ayer, Mackie and Russell picked up on them. Hume introduces important ideas, like the idea of the universe as a brute fact, criticisms of the PSR and the idea the Problem of Induction. These ideas were developed further in the 20th century.
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NO
While it's always good to bear in mind that universes could obey completely different rules of logic to what we see around us, there's no reason to suppose they do. In an attempt to avoid the Fallacy of Composition, Hume runs into the Taxicab Fallacy. He trusts in logic and causation up to a point, then "bails out" when logic points towards the existence of God. This suggests his thinking is actually biased and not rational at all.
These criticisms don't show Hume at his best. Or perhaps Hume wanted Cleanthes to have weak arguments. Hume's arguments amount to solipsism - the view that we can't know anything at all about the outside world. In trying to weaken the idea of necessity and the PSR, Hume calls all knowledge into question.
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