Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy

Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn Read Free Book Online

Book: Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn Read Free Book Online
Authors: Simon Blackburn
truthfulness of reason, then it has to fail.
    Hume's challenge seems convincing. It looks as though Descartes
was doomed to failure. So what should be the outcome? General
scepticism, meaning pessimism about whether there is any har-
nmony at all between the way we believe things to be and the way
they are? Or something else? Other possibilities need introduction.
    One way of thinking-Hume's own-accepts the view that our
system of belief needs some kind of foundation. However, it denies
that that foundation could have the kind of rational status that
Descartes wanted. The veracity (truthfulness) of our senses and
reasonings is itself part of the foundation. It cannot itself be
demonstrated by standing on some other `original principle. For
all of us, outside the philosophical study, it comes naturally to trust
our common experience. We grow up doing so, and as we grow up
we become good at recognizing danger areas (illusions, mirages)
against the background of natural beliefs we all form. The selfcorrective nature of our systems of belief, mentioned above, is all
we need. We could call this approach non-rational or natural foun-
dationalism. (Not of course implying that there is anything irrational about it. It is just that the things in the foundation do not
have the demon-proof way of `standing to reason' that Descartes
had hoped for.) Hume himself gave a number of arguments for
side-lining any appeal to rationality, and we visit some of them in
due course.

    The emphasis on natural ways of forming belief chimes in with
another strand in Hume and other British philosophers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which is their distrust of the
power of unaided reason. For these philosophers, the best contact
between mind and the world is not the point at which a mathematical proof crystallizes, but the point at which you see and touch
a familiar object. Their paradigm was knowledge by sense experience rather than by reason. Because of this, they are labelled empiricists, whereas Descartes is a card-carrying rationalist. The
labels, however, conceal a lot of important detail. For example, at
some points when he gets under pressure, Descartes himself
appears to say that the really good thing about clear and distinct
ideas is that you can't doubt them when you have them. This is
not really a certification by reason, so much as the very same kind
of natural potency that Hume himself attaches to basic empirical
beliefs. And soon we visit an area where the champion of British
empiricism, John Locke (1632-1704), is as rationalist as the best of
them. Great philosophers have a disturbing habit of resisting labelling.
    On this view, I)escartes's problem was that he relied too much
on the powers of reason. Instead, we can appeal to nature, here
meaning our natural propensities to form beliefs and to correct
them. And what of the Evil Demon? On this story, the true moral of
I)escartes's struggles is that if we raise the question whether our
experience and reasoning (en bloc) accords with the way the
world is (en bloc), it will take an act of faith to settle it.'God' simply labels whatever it is that ensures this harmony between belief
and the world. But, as Hume says in the passage just quoted, we do not find a need to raise this question in normal life. The hyperbolic
doubt, and the answer to it, is in this sense unreal.

    This may sound sensible, or it may just sound complacent. But
to blunt the charge of complacency, we can at least notice this. Regarding the doubt as unreal does not have to mean that we simply
turn our backs on the problem of harmony between appearance
and reality: how we think and how things are. We can approach it
from within our normal framework of beliefs. In fact, when Hume
himself approached it in this way, he became overwhelmed by difficulties in our ordinary ways of thinking about things: difficulties
strong enough to reintroduce scepticism about our ability

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