Key Thinkers: David Hume
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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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CRITICISING NECESSITY
Hume/Cleanthes attacks the whole idea of a Necessary Being. This might seem odd, since Cleanthes is supposed to be religious, but Hume is showing that not all religious people agree with each other. Cleanthes argues that it is always possible to imagine the non-existence of anything.
The non-existence of any being, without exception, is as clear and distinct an idea as its existence - David Hume
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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'. |
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CRITICISING CAUSE-AND-EFFECT
Philo now arrives and makes a different point. Philo argues that if something is 'Necessary', does it have to be God? Couldn't the universe itself be the 'Necessary' thing at the end of the argument? This is the same as asserting that the universe is a brute fact - a point later made by Bertrand Russell.
Philo goes on to explain that we have experience of things like houses being created - but not universes. We have no idea what is needed to create a universe or whether universes can create themselves. This links to the Fallacy of Composition - the mistaken idea that, because the component parts of the universe need causes or creators, the universe-as-a-whole must need a cause or a creator. But this is a logical leap we cannot make.
Philo/Hume goes further still and asserts that the entire causal principle - the idea that everything that comes into existence must have a cause - is "spurious" (doubtful). Hume suggests that causation might just be a "habit of mind". We get used to seeing things happen together (acorns fall into the ground; later, oak trees grow) and we imagine there's a causal connection, but really it's just in our heads.
Philo goes on to explain that we have experience of things like houses being created - but not universes. We have no idea what is needed to create a universe or whether universes can create themselves. This links to the Fallacy of Composition - the mistaken idea that, because the component parts of the universe need causes or creators, the universe-as-a-whole must need a cause or a creator. But this is a logical leap we cannot make.
Philo/Hume goes further still and asserts that the entire causal principle - the idea that everything that comes into existence must have a cause - is "spurious" (doubtful). Hume suggests that causation might just be a "habit of mind". We get used to seeing things happen together (acorns fall into the ground; later, oak trees grow) and we imagine there's a causal connection, but really it's just in our heads.
This is linked to Hume's criticism of the Inductive Principle, where he points out that just because we've always found certain results in the past, we've got no reason to think we'll keep on getting them in the future.
These ideas were taken further by philosophers like J.L. Mackie and Bertrand Russell. However, they have their critics. Hume's refusal to extend the causal principle to the universe-as-a-whole has been criticised for the Taxicab Fallacy. Hume is following logical and scientific thinking only so far, then he "jumps out" before getting to the end of the argument, like someone jumping out of a taxi without paying the fare. The idea that cause-and-effect might be only "in our heads" calls into question all science and logic and most philosophers aren't prepared to go along with this.
EXPLANATION OF PARTS IS SUFFICIENT
The last criticism is made by Cleanthes. This is that there is no need for a special sort of explanation for the universe-as-a-whole. Cleanthes explains that, once you have explained each event in the world in terms of what caused it, you have provided all the explanation needed. You don't need to explain the universe, once you've explained everything in the universe.
The existence, therefore, of any being can only be proved by arguments from its cause or its effect - David Hume
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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. |
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This seems sensible, but it is unsatisfactory. Explaining things in terms of particulars can fail to get across "the big picture". If I ask you to describe a friend and you say, "She has blue eyes and blonde hair and she's 5'4"" I might reply, "Yes, but what's she like, what sort of person is she?" I want you to go beyond the particulars to give a fuller explanation of your friend. If it is fair to want fuller explanations of people, it's reasonable to want it of the universe too.
Excellent 5 minute summary and analysis of two of Hume's criticisms
Hume is an empiricist - he only believes in what we can know through the 5 senses. Hume is very suspicious of any argument that tries to go beyond what the 5 senses tell us and make conclusions about metaphysical realities outside of time and space.
It were better therefore never to look beyond the present material world - David Hume
This idea is taken further by Immanuel Kant and forms the basis of A. J. Ayer's logical positivism.
Hume's arguments against the Cosmological Argument are not usually considered to be as successful as his destruction of the Design Argument. Perhaps this is because he's trying to take out the Ontological Argument at the same time so he never really focuses.
Has Hume made an important criticism of the Cosmological Arguments?
Has Hume made an important criticism of the Cosmological Arguments?
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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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