Hume’s Imagined Certainty

Federico José T. Lagdameo

The philosophy contained in this book is very skeptical, and tends to

give us a notion of the imperfections and narrow limits of human
understanding. Almost all reasoning is there reduced to experience; and the
belief, which attends experience, is explained to be nothing but a peculiar
sentiment, or lively conception produced by habit.

David Hume, “Abstract” to A Treatise of Human Nature

David Hume’s theory of knowledge may yet prove to have resonance

in an age when “knowledges” proliferate and reason’s reign is viewed as a

tyranny. For contrary to his age’s faith in reason, Hume adopts a skeptical

stance and discredits such a faith. In lieu of reason, Hume subscribes to

imagination as the faculty of the mind which is responsible for our beliefs

which have important practical consequences in life, that is, those beliefs

which may be called practical knowledge. Consequently for Hume, such

“knowledge” cannot be rational belief, but only an imagined one. That

belief’s guarantee of being true, its certainty therefore, is only felt and

imagined, not rationally deduced.

Hume was acquainted with the dispute between the so-called

“rationalists” and the “empiricists” over the question of the origin of ideas.

The rationalists, like Descartes, Leibnitz, Malebranche, generally affirmed the

mind’s ability to know because of the presence of innate ideas of whose

analysis by reason leads supposedly to knowledge. On the other hand,

empiricists like Locke and Berkeley advanced that experience supplies the

data from which knowledge is generated. In this debate, Hume has sided

with the latter: he does not agree that it is reason which justifies or grounds

our certainty in what we know.

Like his predecessors, therefore, Hume does not believe that the

rational justification of knowledge is possible. Hence, his epistemological

project is not concerned with justification. Rather, what he intends to

accomplish is to provide an account of the origin of our beliefs, and from

such an account determine what limits are there to reason and its claims to

produce knowledge. In the course of this endeavor, Hume unintentionally

anticipates the critique of reason that would be launched by so-called

postmodern thinkers. Thus, of important note is Hume’s effort to undermine

reason’s prevalence and pervasiveness in that very age when reason was

exalted as triumphant, the Age of Enlightenment.

The intent of the present work is to discuss Hume’s account of

imagination as productive of belief in general, and of knowledge on matters

of fact (belief in causal relations) in particular. Its discussion begins with a

consideration of the theoretical assumptions of that account, namely,

Hume’s general project of elucidating a “science of human nature” as a

foundation for all other forms of inquiries. This is followed by an elaboration

of Humean skepticism which ensues from this new science and through

which he undermines the faith in reason. Finally, the essay regards Hume’s

elements of what comprise belief and knowledge.

2
The science of human nature

David Hume’s most important writing remains to be his A Treatise of

Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the Experimental Method of

Reasoning into Moral Subjects, a work he began at 16 years of age and

continued to labor on intermittently during the ensuing 10 years.1 The

Treatise is composed of three books or volumes, of which the first two, “Of

the Understanding” and “Of the Passions,” were published together in

January 1739. The third volume, “Of Morals,” was published more than a

year later, in November 1740. The importance of the Treatise is gleaned

from the fact that Hume’s subsequent writings are largely the recasting and

continuation of Hume’s chief aim in the Treatise: the proposal of a new

science of human nature which serves to securely undergird all the other

sciences.

In the Treatise’s “Introduction,” Hume explains this aim. He writes that

despite the seeming success of previous philosophies, “we still lie under

[ignorance] in the most important questions, that can come before the

tribunal of human reason.”2 He points to the presence of controversy and

1
David Fate Norton, “An introduction to Hume’s thought” in The
Cambridge Companion to Hume, Ed. David Fate Norton (Cambridge, Mass.:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 2.
2
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, eds. David Fate Norton and
Mary J. Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3.
For facility, this work would be cited as THN; moreover, citation would
indicate the Book, the Part of the Book, the Section of the Part, and
Paragraph number of the Section, e.g., THN I, Part 3, Sec. 5, par. 2. In the
case of passages from the “Introduction,” they would be indicated as, for
example, “Introduction,” THN, par. 1.
3
dispute in the answers to the said questions as indicative of this ignorance,

or at least, of the lack of certainty in these philosophies.

Hume directs us to consider the fact that all sciences and its

speculations are linked to human nature, and therefore, the keys to

validating the results of the sciences and other forms of inquiry are:

understanding how human nature really functions; and comporting these

sciences with human nature’s actual operations. In other words, Hume

believes à la Descartes, that the ongoing confusion, conflict, and uncertainty

obtaining in the sciences of his day are due to false foundations: “[p]rinciples

taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduc’d from them, want of

coherence in the parts, and of evidence in the whole.” 3 In their lieu, he

advances “to explain the principles of human nature . . . [which are] a

compleat system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new,

and the only one upon which they can stand with any security.”4 Therefore, if

these sciences are to provide valid conclusions, they must be founded on the

science of human nature.

Meanwhile, Hume furthers that this new science of human nature

which serves as “the only solid foundation for the other sciences” must of

itself be solidly grounded. Its own foundation is to be secured by its reliance

and employment of “experimental philosophy” or the subscription to the

methods of experience and observation.5 What this entailed was that the
3
“Introduction,” THN, par. 1.
4
“Introduction,” THN, par. 6.
5
“Introduction,” THN, par. 7.
4
elucidation of the principles of human nature required the use of

empiricism’s methodology and not of rationalism’s. Gilson and Langan

explain that “[n]egatively, it means avoiding rationalistic hypothesis about

the constitution ‘in themselves’ of material and spiritual substances, and

great a priori pronouncements about the nature of our reasoning power.

Positively, . . . it means reducing the whole structure of our comportment to

its sensory, empirical, ‘experimental’ beginnings.”6

The intention to provide a new and secure footing for knowledge by

establishing a new foundation for it, as well as the delineation of the

methodology or approach in endeavoring this, are similarly asserted by

Hume in his later work, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, which

was published in 1748.7 For in substance, the Enquiry is a recasting of Book I

of the Treatise, and is the result of—at least, if Hume’s “Advertisement” of it

is to be believed—the failure of his initial work to obtain commercial and

critical success from its intended audience.8 This accord between the

Treatise and the Enquiry is apparent in Hume’s statement in the latter that

the only recourse against confusion, superstition or unfounded beliefs “is to

enquire seriously into the nature of human understanding, and [into] . . . an

6
Etienne Gilson and Thomas Langan, Modern Philosophy: Descartes to
Kant (New York: Random House, 1963), 251.
7
Originally, it was entitled Philosophical Essays Concerning Human
Understanding; later in the 1757 edition of the work, its title has adopted the
current form it has today.
8
David Hume, “Advertisement” in An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding, ed. Eric Steinberg (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.,
1993). Citations include Section, followed by Part (if applicable), and page
number.
5
exact analysis of its powers and capacity.”9 Similarly, the statement in the

Enquiry which declares that “there are many positive advantages, which

result from an accurate scrutiny into the powers and faculties of human

nature,”10 establishes further that close link between these two works.

There is, however, the matter about Hume’s later disavowal of the

Treatise in favor of the Enquiry. Again, in the “Advertisement” of the latter,

Hume writes that he has “never acknowledged that juvenile work” (the

Treatise was published anonymously) and has now desired “that the

following Pieces [namely, the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, the

Dissertation on the Passions, and the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of

Morals] may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments

and principles.”11 How does one account for this?

John Nelson’s Two Main Questions Concerning Hume’s Treatise and

Enquiry seems to afford a cogent answer. In this essay, Nelson addressed

the questions why Hume disowned the Treatise, and what saves the Enquiry

from a similar disavowal.12 With regard to the first query, he examines the

“obvious” answer derived from Hume’s explications found in the

“Advertisement” and some of his letters, namely that the Treatise’s literary

style was objectionable. Nelson also contends with the arguments espoused

9
Enquiry, Sec. I, page 6.
10
Enquiry, Sec. I, page 7.
11
Enquiry, “Advertisement.”

John O. Nelson, “Two Main Questions Concerning Hume’s Treatise

12

and Enquiry” in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 81, No. 3 (Jul., 1972), 333.
6
by other Hume scholars who subscribe to this notion that “non-philosophical

but literary reasons” were the source of Hume’s disavowal. As regards the

second question, Nelson states that its answer is determined by the

response to the first query posed.

We can briefly rehearse Nelson’s answers to these questions. He

argues that Hume’s rejection of the Treatise in favor of the Enquiry cannot

be viewed to stem from “literary reasons” when one considers Hume’s other

declarations about this matter found in his letters. Basing his argument on

Hume’s correspondence with his friend and publisher, William Strahan, ten

months before the former’s death, Nelson quotes Hume explaining his

“Advertisement” as “a compleat Answer to Dr. Reid and to that bigotted silly

Fellow, Beattie.”13 Nelson points out that these words of Hume betray no

indication that literary reasons lay at the heart of his repudiation of the

Treatise; but in fact, upon closer scrutiny of the remark, that philosophical

reasons are at issue in Hume’s disavowal of the Treatise.

Nelson argues that if the Enquiry was viewed by Hume as “a compleat

Answer” to Reid and Beattie, and both did not bother to criticize Hume for his

literary style,14 then the Enquiry would have to constitute as a response to

13
David Hume, Letters of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1932), 2, 301, quoted in Nelson, “Two Main Questions,”
336.
14
Nelson reveals that Reid, a fellow Scotsman, had even sought
Hume’s comments on the former’s Inquiry into the Human Mind for its
literary style, i.e., its lack of “Scotticisms.” See Nelson, “Two Main
Questions,” 336-337.
7
philosophical criticisms and not literary ones. And hence, the difference

between the Treatise and the Enquiry does not reside in literary style either.

Thus, in as much as Hume himself says that “the Philosophical

Principles are the same in both [Treatise and Enquiry],” and discounting now

the validity of “literary reasons” for the rejection of the Treatise, another

explanation for this must be sought. With this, Nelson turns towards his

answer: the Treatise was repudiated by Hume because he later recognized

this work as constituting yet another metaphysical account.

Nelson explains that with the scathing remark at the end of the

Enquiry to “commit to the flames” books of metaphysics, a self-reflexive

critique took over Hume and prompted him to jettison the Treatise, not so

much because of its aim and philosophical principles (which he still

maintained in the Enquiry and other subsequent works), but because of its

manner of supposing that material reality, space and time, the self are

merely perceptions. As Nelson notes, the Treatise proposed that “the

ultimate elements of the world are perception and nothing more. [And in]

contemporary terminology this is the metaphysics of neutral monism.”15

Realizing himself afflicted by that which he sought to “cure” in others, Hume

henceforth excised from his work those parts contaminated with

metaphysics. The result of which is an Enquiry still adhering to Hume’s aim

declared in the Treatise, i.e., establishing a “philosophy of human nature”

15
Ibid., 340.
8
from which other sciences are to be founded AND to be limited, but freed

from the “hubris” of claiming to account for the ultimate principles of reality.

Thus, although Hume claimed—quite rightly—that the Enquiry was a

recasting of the Treatise, the former does not merely improve upon the

“expression and reasoning” of the latter; it also expands and develops

further the insights (at times, by glossing over some lengthy discussions) of

the Treatise. For as one commentator explains it: “Hume does not merely, as

he suggests, add or improve by subtraction. His recasting includes some

lengthy and important additions . . .”16

In sum, beginning with his Treatise and even in later works such as the

Enquiry, Hume was concerned in providing a novel account of how human

nature—human understanding—operates; with such an account, the moral

sciences and their claims can thus be founded, hereby preventing confusions

due to varying dogmatic speculations.

Skepticism and Rationalism’s excesses

From his consideration of human nature’s operations, Hume was led to

adopt a skepticism directed against the prevailing rationalism of his time,

and the claims of the said theory. For noticeably, Hume has been

straightforward in his goal of limiting the excesses of rationalism and its

claims. He endeavors this by adopting two types of skepticism which are

16
Norton, “An introduction,” 18.
9
exhibited in the Enquiry. The first is skepticism against reason’s ability to

justify knowledge or a skepticism against rational belief; the second is

skepticism against rationalism and reason itself

The first type is a skepticism that is directed at reason’s ability to

provide justification for our beliefs concerning the external world that we

encounter. It is a skepticism that denies a rational basis for causal

inferences. This skepticism is apparent in Hume’s search for “what is the

nature of that evidence, which assures us of any real existence and matter of

fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses.”17

Hume employs this skepticism in his account of the origin of ideas

wherein he undertakes to divide “[a]ll the objects of human reason or

enquiry . . . into two kinds . . . Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact.”18 With

this distinction, Hume identifies two kinds of knowledge attendant to human

nature. Accordingly, claims or statements which are intuitively or

demonstratively certain belong to the first, e.g., a triangle has three sides.

Meanwhile, statements which declare contingent events and “are not

ascertained in the same manner” as those of relations of ideas, that is,

intuitively or demonstratively, belong to the category of matters of fact.19 In

particular, knowledge on matters of fact is concerned with causal relations

supposedly existing among and between external objects.

17
Enquiry, Sec. IV, Part I, 16.
18
Enquiry, Sec. IV, Part I, 15.
19
Enquiry, Sec. IV, Part I, 15.
10
 Hume pointed out that the proof, evidence, and justification of claims

from relations of ideas are self-evident in as much as they are contained

within the perception itself. The same, however, cannot be said of

statements from matters of fact since their contrary is possible: that “today

is raining” does not in any way preclude the logical possibility of today being

a cloudless day. In other words, its opposite is possible without being

demonstratively false.

From his analysis of matter of fact statements, Hume drew several

conclusions. First, “[a]ll reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be

founded on the relation of Cause and Effect.”20 Second, “the knowledge of

this relation is not, in any instance, attained by reasonings a priori; but arises

entirely from experience.”21 Moreover, “all our experimental conclusions

proceed upon the supposition, that the future will be conformable to the

past.”22 And lastly, custom or habit is the principle which makes us expect,

for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in

the past, or as Hume puts it: “All inferences from experience . . . are effects

of custom, not of reasoning.”23

What Hume’s conclusions mean are, matter of fact statements are not

the result of deduction from or analysis of the natures of objects, but are,

instead, due to causal inferences. For no rational analysis of an object’s

20
Enquiry, Sec. IV, Part I, 16.
21
Enquiry, Sec. IV, Part I, 17.
22
Enquiry, Sec. IV, Part II, 23.
23
Enquiry, Sec. V, Part I, 28.
11
properties can yield the conclusions obtaining in matter of fact statements,

e.g., a billiard ball would move when hit by another billiard ball, because

were that so, contrary outcomes cannot be conceived. This is clearly not the

case, however; for contrary outcomes can be conceived without incurring

logical contradiction.

From whence then do such statements acquire their truth or veracity?

Hume’s answer is from experience: from the experience of how a past event

unfolded or occurred, and from the regularity of its occurrence, the verity of

conclusions on future but similar events is produced. Hence, it is not reason

that produces these conclusions or knowledge, but it is the habitual

conjunction of events as observed or experienced by an individual which

grants knowledge of events not immediately present in one’s consciousness.

In the end, what this entails for Hume is that, reason cannot and does not

provide the justification for claims concerning matters of fact. For him,

reason’s epistemic justification for knowledge of matters of fact is, hence,

unfounded and illusory.

Hume’s skepticism does not end there, however. For not only does he

deny the ability of reason to provide epistemic grounding and justification,

he also denies its primacy in moral enquiry. His skepticism extends beyond

reason’s epistemological claims, for it endeavors to limit the validity of

reason’s reach to “quantity and number” and rejects its very employment in

enquiries regarding matter of fact: Thus, he asserts that “that the only

objects of the abstract sciences or of demonstration [rationalist

12
methodology] are quantity and number, and that all attempts to extend this

more perfect species of knowledge beyond these bounds are mere sophistry

and illusion.”24

Quite obviously, Hume was reacting against the prevalent rationalism

of his time, which to his estimation, has overstepped its bounds. He hereby

cautions against a blind submission to reason’s conclusions. He resists all

forms of rationalist dogmatism and urges a healthy doubt of its bold

declarations. Hume speaks of this in the following:

It is confessed, that the utmost effort of human reason is, to reduce

the principles, productive of natural phenomena, to a greater
simplicity, and to resolve the many particular effects into a few
general causes, by means of reasonings from analogy, experience,
and observation. But as to the causes of these general causes, we
should in vain attempt their discovery; nor shall we ever satisfy
ourselves, by any particular explication of them. These ultimate
springs and principles are totally shut up from human curiosity and
enquiry.25

Hume explains further the tasks his skeptical philosophy has with its

opposition to rationalism and its faith in reason: “[Skeptical philosophy]

always talk[s] of doubt and suspense of judgment, of danger in hasty

determinations, of confining to very narrow bounds the enquiries of the

understanding, and of renouncing all speculations which lie not within the

limits of common life and practice.”26

24
Enquiry, Sec. XII, Part III, 112.
25
Enquiry, Sec. IV, Part I, 19.
26
Enquiry, Sec. V, Part I, 26.
13
 Nonetheless, while he did espouse a skeptical outlook, Hume was no

thoroughgoing skeptic. His skepticism was directed towards demolishing

rationalism and clearing its debris, and limiting its unfounded or dogmatic

speculations. It was directed towards limiting rationalism’s excesses.

Perceptions, imagination, and the production of belief

Hume’s theory of knowledge develops the empirical epistemology of

his predecessor, John Locke. But while he adheres to Locke’s position that, in

terms of data, the mind is a blank slate or a “tabula rasa,” Hume finds

Locke’s vocabulary and identified elements of the mental world inadequate.

Hence, instead of adopting Lockean “ideas,” Hume proposes a more

nuanced basic element, perceptions of the mind.

Perceptions, according to Hume, are of two distinct kinds, “impressions

and ideas;” they are differentiated from each other by their “degrees of force

and liveliness, with which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into

our thought or consciousness.”27 Impressions, Hume says, refer to “all our

sensations, passions, and emotions, as they make their first appearance in

the soul”; their presence in the consciousness is more lively and forceful. 28

Ideas, on the other hand, are faint images of impressions and are thus, dull

and less lively presences in the consciousness. Moreover, all authentic ideas

are based on impressions, that is, all ideas are faint copies or images of

impressions. Consequently, impressions are prior to ideas in as much as the

27
THN I, Part 1, Sec. 1, par. 1.; Enquiry, Sec. II, 10.
28
Ibid.
14
origin of the latter is the former. Those ideas, therefore, which cannot be

traced to an impression are to be deemed false and invalid, according to

Hume; they are to be rejected since they can only cause confusions.

Hume has been careful to indicate what he means when he says that

impressions are the origin of ideas. For the question arises whether

impressions, as origin, are causes of ideas, and if so, does this not contradict

Hume’s own rejection of metaphysical causality as a real relation, i.e., a

relation that is not conjured by the mind but exists apart from the mind’s

association of its perceptions. What can be inferred as an answer to the

above is that Hume’s own theory of causality is consistently employed in his

account of the “causal” relation between impressions and ideas. Its

employment in this case results to understanding impressions as “causing”

their corresponding ideas only insofar as there is “[t]he constant conjunction

of our resembling perceptions [that is, impressions and their corresponding

ideas].”29 In other words, for Hume impressions do not metaphysically cause

their corresponding ideas, but are only said to cause them inasmuch as our

experience yields that the appearance of the former always precedes that of

the latter.

Meanwhile, aside from this distinction among perceptions, Hume adds

that impressions and ideas can be either “simple or complex.”30 Simple

perceptions cannot be further separated into other basic perceptions, while

29
THN I, Part 1, Sec. 1, par. 8.
30
THN I, Part 1, Sec. 1, par. 2; Enquiry, Sec. II, 11.
15
complex perceptions are compounds of simple ones. Further still, an

absolute correspondence exists between simple impressions and their simple

ideas; while between complex ones, such correspondence does not

necessarily obtain.

Unlike ideas, impressions are further divided into “those of SENSATION

and those of REFLECTION.”31 Hume declares that the impressions due to

sensation cannot be accounted for; this is perhaps due to the fact that such

an account would admit to knowledge of objects in themselves, and as such

would directly constitute a metaphysics. Since Hume asserts that we can

only know perceptions and not objects in themselves,32 he is restricted from

advancing an account of sensation. With regard those of reflection, Hume

says that these impressions are produced from ideas which in turn are

derived from a prior impression. “Of this impression there is a copy taken by

the mind, which remains after the impression ceases; and this we call an

idea. This idea . . . , when it returns upon the soul, produces the new

impressions . . . , which may properly be call’d impressions of reflection

because deriv’d from it.”33

Now, the faculty of the mind that it is responsible for producing what

amounts to knowledge on matters of fact in Hume’s epistemology is the

31
THN I, Part 1, Sec. 2, par. 1.
32
“[M]y intention never was to penetrate into the nature of bodies, or
explain the secret causes of their operations. . . I am afraid, that such
enterprise 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.” See THN I, Part 2, Sec. 5, par. 26.
33
Ibid.
16
imagination. In the Treatise, Hume first treats of imagination in the

discussion of the distinction between ideas present in the memory and

imagination. He observes that the imagination’s ideas are not as lively and

strong as those present in memory, but instead are “faint and languid and

cannot without difficulty be preserv’d by the mind steady and uniform for

any considerable time.”34 Further, like those of memory, none of the ideas of

imagination “can make their appearance in the mind, unless their

correspondent impressions have gone before to prepare the way for them.”35

As regards its operation, the imagination unlike memory is free “to

transpose and change its ideas” in any manner, that is, it can unite,

separate, or change an idea’s order of succession.36 Further, Hume notes

that the imagination is “guided by some universal principles, which render it,

in some measure, uniform with itself in all times and places.”37 These

associative principles are distinct from the imagination and exert “a gentle

force” on it which is not wholly indispensable to imagination’s operation. To

wit, these are the associative principles of RESEMBLANCE, CONTIGUITY, and

CAUSE & EFFECT. Hume argues that it is largely through these associative

principles of ideas that imagination is “guided” or is “attracted” towards the

formation or production of belief.

34
THN I, Part 1, Sec. 3, par. 1.
35
THN I, Part 1, Sec. 3, par. 2.
36
THN I, Part 1, Sec. 3, par. 4.
37
THN I, Part 1, Sec. 4, par. 1.
17
 Hume’s account of imagination and its significance to this theory of

knowledge includes a further contrast with memory. He states that the

distinction between imagination and memory is not by their reliance on

impressions for their simple ideas; nor are they significantly differentiated

from each other because memory “preserve[s] the original order and

position of its ideas, while the imagination transposes and changes them, as

it pleases.”38 Rather, the two faculties’ main difference is “the superior force

and vivacity” of memory’s ideas as compared to those of imagination. In

other words, it is a matter of feeling attending the idea that differentiates

memory from imagination.

Now, Hume’s identification of the presence of “force and vivacity” in

the ideas of memory and imagination would have established a clear

criterion by which one faculty is distinguished from the other. He complicates

matters, however, when he acknowledges the possibility that the memory’s

idea may become so weak as to be construed to be that of imagination;

conversely, it may occur that imagination’s idea gain such force and vivacity

that it is taken to be an idea of memory. 39 Notwithstanding this, Hume’s

identification of the characteristic of “force and vivacity” in ideas provides

the key in understanding the relationship of imagination to belief, and

ultimately, to Humean knowledge. This is because vivacity of perceptions is

38
THN I, Part 3, Sec. 5, par. 3.
39
THN I, Part 3, Sec. 5, par. 6.
18
the essential character of belief or assent. When this quality is present in an

idea, that idea becomes or is believable.

Hume construes belief therefore as a sentiment in which the mind

more vividly conceives of an object. Belief involves “a more vivid, lively,

forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination

alone is ever able to attain. . . It is an act of the mind, which renders realities

. . . more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the

thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and

imagination.”40 Similarly, “Belief or assent, which always attends the memory

and senses, is nothing but the vivacity of those perceptions they present;

and that this alone distinguishes them from the imagination.”41

A difficulty emerges from such an account, however: if that which

necessitates belief is “vivacity of a present perception,” and this vivacity is

present in memory’s ideas as that which distinguish the latter from those of

imagination, how is it that imagination are said to cause belief? How is it that

imagination, whose ideas are “faint and languid”; which Hume indicates to

be unable to attain “a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of

an object;” can produce belief? Or in other words, how does the imagination

make an idea believable, that is, forceful and with vivacity?

Hume’s distinction between fiction and belief is helpful in this regard. A

believed idea, by Hume’s account, is one which may contain all the parts and

40
Enquiry, Sec. V, Part II, 32.
41
THN I, Part 3, Sec. 5, par. 6.
19
composition of a fictive idea, but its manner of being conceived is different

from that of fiction.

An opinion or belief is nothing but an idea, that is different from

fiction, not in the nature, or the order of its parts, but in the manner
of its being conceived. . . . [This manner] gives [believed ideas]
more force and influence; makes them appear of greater
importance; infixes them in the mind; and renders them the
governing principles of all our actions.42

Waxman’s amplification and clarification of this point is instructive:

“Hume’s sense of ‘belief’ should not be equated with ‘believe to be true,’ i.e.

affirmation. . . . We should consider ‘believe to be true’ to be, from Hume’s

perspective, secondary and derivative by comparison with its primary sense

of ‘believe to be real,’ i.e. belief in the real existence of a content present in

sensation, reflexion, or thought.”43 To believe therefore, is primarily to assent

to the reality of what is in one’s perception, which is not the case in fiction.

Since assent is due to vivacity or liveliness of an idea, Hume contends

with the question of what causes this. Proceeding with some difficulty in

identifying the cause, he nonetheless is able to state a definition of belief

which allows for the identification of that cause. Hume declares that belief is

“A LIVELY IDEA RELATED TO OR ASSOCIATED WITH A PRESENT

IMPRESSION.”44(sic) He states that the vivacity of an idea which enables

belief is brought about when the imagination is led or guided by the

associative principles of ideas to conceive an idea in a lively manner, due to

42
THN I, Part 3, Sec. 7, par. 7.

Wayne Waxman, Hume’s theory of consciousness (Cambridge:

43

Cambridge University Press, 1994), 10.

44
THN I, Part 3, Sec. 7, par. 5.
20
the presence of an object to the senses or memory. The facility which further

induces liveliness is moreover due to custom or habit of witnessing two

impressions conjoined together. In sum, Humean belief is produced when

these associations of ideas are carried out by the imagination and is aided by

the presence of the object and by custom.

This process in which belief is produced by the imagination receives

more illumination through a consideration of knowledge as a type of belief. A

reprisal of Hume’s understanding of the two kinds of knowledge based on

“objects of human reason” is required at this juncture. It can be recalled that

in the Enquiry Hume differentiated between knowledge based on relations of

ideas and that on matters of fact. As mentioned above,45 knowledge from

relations of ideas is “intuitively or demonstratively certain . . . [since]

[p]ropositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought,

without dependence on what is any where existent in the universe.” 46 Within

the ambit of relations of ideas are the truths of Geometry, Algebra, and

Arithmetic.

Knowledge on matters of fact, in the meantime, is concerned with so-

called causal phenomena in the world. Knowledge in this case means

believing in a particular causal phenomenon to be real or to certainly take

place. As such, knowledge on matters of fact is a type of belief wherein the

mind assents to the occurrence of causal phenomena.

45
See page 8.
46
Enquiry, Sec. IV, Part I, 15.
21
 Hume argues that such belief or knowledge is not demonstratively or

rationally certain for causal relations in themselves are not demonstrable or

rationally deduced. His arguments proceeds from an identification of

causation as “the only one, that can be trac’d beyond our senses, and

informs us of existences and objects, which we do not see or feel,”47 and thus

enables knowing or believing beyond the ken of immediate consciousness.

Hume then undertakes to examine how causation induces belief on matters

of fact statements. He shows the impossibility of inferring causality by sheer

analysis of the qualities of supposedly causally-related objects by arguing

that other possible effects between these objects can be logically admitted.

Thus, Hume demonstrates that the logical necessity of an effect proceeding

from a cause that is essential to causation is not inferred or discovered;

hence, this necessity is not really present in supposedly causally-related

objects.

Causation, in other words, is not rationally inferred; and belief in causal

relations between objects or causal phenomena is not rationally justified or

grounded. For Hume, our certainty in such beliefs, in such kind of knowledge,

is not guaranteed by reason. Instead, our certainty of knowledge on matters

of fact is derived elsewhere.

Hume’s answer to the question of from whence is certainty of this

belief or knowledge derived reveals his adherence to what Anne Jaap

Jacobson a radical idea: “that in the most important aspects of human life –

47
THN I, Part 3, Sec. 2, par. 3.
22
over a vast range of phenomena – we are and must be creatures ruled by the

non-rational in our nature.”48 Consequently, the subscription to reason and

rational argumentation as directors of our conduct in life is hereby greatly

undermined by Hume.

In the meantime, his analysis of causation continues with his

contention that it is EXPERIENCE from which causality is inferred. Further,

this analysis leads to the discovery of a new relation between cause and

effect which is constant conjunction. Hume explains that what was supposed

as “necessary connection” is at root, the experience of constant conjunction

of two objects. Constant conjunction alone, however, remains insufficient to

induce belief in causality; Hume thus asks “whether experience produces the

idea by means of the understanding or imagination [or] whether we are

determin’d by reason to make the transition.”49 In other words, Hume is

asking if it is experience of constant conjunction and the imagination which

produce belief, or if it is experience with reason which effects it.

Having earlier denied the cogency of demonstrative arguments, Hume

concludes: “Reason can never show us the connexion of one object with

another, tho’ aided by experience, and the observation of their constant

conjunction in all past instances.” Instead, he asserts that it is the

imagination and the principles of association by which “the mind . . . passes

48
Anne Jaap Jacobson, “David Hume on human understanding” in
British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment: Routledge History of
Philosophy, Vol. V. (New York and London: Routledge, 1996), 151.
49
THN I, Part 3, Sec. 2, par. 4.
23
from the idea or impression of one object to the idea or belief of another.” 50

The faculty of the mind responsible for producing belief in causal relations is

imagination which is aided by associative principles.

Imagination, however, by itself or even as it is aided by the associative

principles does not reach belief. It has to be coupled with custom: “Objects

have no discoverable connexion together; nor is it from any other principle

but custom operating upon the imagination, that we can draw any inference

from the appearance of one to the existence of the other.” 51 Custom is the

link of necessity binding the inference drawn from the constant conjunction

of supposedly causally-related objects. “When we are accustom’d to see two

impressions [cause and effect] conjoined together, the appearance of idea of

one immediately carries us [imagination at work] to the idea of the other.”52

Custom provides the idea of “necessity” the vivacity which makes causal

relations believable. Pithily, causality is not thought; it is felt.

Finally, Hume attaches the notion of probability to this type of

knowledge. Knowledge of matters of fact, that is, knowledge drawn from

causality—Hume reiterates—is never rationally justified. Instead, because of

its origin in the operation of the imagination, it can only be probable. Hence

ultimately, it is the probability and not the rationality of belief that accounts

for knowledge. For as Hume puts it, probability is “the concurrence of several

views in one particular event . . . . [which] fortify and confirm it to the

50
THN I, Part 3, Sec. 6, par. 12.
51
THN I, Part 3, Sec. 8, par. 12.
52
THN I, Part 3, Sec. 8, par. 10.
24
imagination, beget[s] that sentiment which we call belief, and gives its object

the preference above the contrary event.”53

With this account of belief and causal knowledge, reason with its

grounding and justification is rejected by Hume. Belief in causality, that on

which a substantial area of the practical conduct of human life is based, is

not guaranteed by reason. For Hume, we know, that is, we believe in causal

phenomena not because we reasoned or analyzed the properties of given

objects. Rather, it is because our imagination is led by natural associative

principles to construct lively ideas whose vivacity custom has facilitated.

Hence, our certainty of causality cannot be based on reason. Our certainty

can only be imagined.

~0~

Gilles Deleuze once remarked of Hume as a genius who among his

“most essential and creative contribution” to the history of philosophy is the

supplanting of knowledge with the latter’s concept of belief. Deleuze infers

the important consequence of this replacement: “if the act of thinking is

belief, thought has fewer reasons to defend itself against error than against

illusion.”54 An implication can be drawn: the mind is not reason whose

singular function is to oppose itself to error, to falsehood, to mistaken

judgments. The mind, that which constitutes human nature, is largely non-

53
Enquiry, Sec VI, 39.
54
See Gilles Deleuze, Empiricism and Subjectivity: An Essay on Hume’s
Theory of Human Nature, trans. Constantin V. Boundas (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1991), ix-x.
25
rational. This is not to say that the issue of veracity, of truth, is unimportant

in Hume. This is only to indicate the poverty of thought attending the

equation of mind with reason.

As Deleuze reads Hume, the danger is illusion. We can recall that

Hume makes the distinction between belief and illusion in his explanation of

imagination’s ideas. Hume sought to provide a distinguishing mark for

believable ideas in contrast to fictive ones. Hume, and Deleuze stresses this,

opposes belief to fiction, to illusions. For Deleuze, it would seem, Hume’s

imagined certainties need to be constantly guarded, not against from being

mistaken, false or different, but from blurring into imagined illusions.

Hume does unseat reason as the mind’s faculty for knowing and

replaces it with imagination, a capacity that is less unfettered and nearly

limitless in its power. Certainly however, Hume’s conception of reason can

be faulted for being restrictive, having relied largely on Locke’s and

Berkeley’s conceptions of it. Reason has been limited largely to deductive

and inductive functions. Hume’s replacement and limited view of reason are

apparent in his moral and political philosophies where he declares “reason to

be but a slave to the passions” and that it “can never be a motive to any

action of the will.”

What is very significant with Hume’s replacement is the engendering of

a new set of problems that need to be confronted, one centering on how the

imagination is governed (or guided) by the association of ideas which in

themselves are not universal principles of necessary connections. These

26
associations are conventional and customary, given largely by one’s culture:

the transition of the perception of beer to that of ice cubes in a glass is

naturally smooth for a Filipino, whereas it would be jarring for a German or a

Scotsman, for instance. Despite the difference of associations, the imagined

certainty of the Filipino would not be opposed to those of the German or the

Scot in this case. Varied imagined certainties can exist simultaneously

without contradicting (logically or rationally) each other.

The difficulty, if Deleuze is to be believed, lies elsewhere.

The danger of imagined illusions or of certainties becoming illusions is

chaos. The imagination, tasked with the production of knowledge crucial to

practical and social life, is capable of conjuring fantasies that may not cohere

with the uniformity of nature, with experience. As Hume puts it, one can

imagine billiard ball B being hit by ball A to remain unmoved, to remain at a

standstill. Nothing can impede the imagination from supposing this

occurrence. But in the face of experience, this is illusory and may have an

unwanted consequence (losing a bet, for instance). In the more significant

areas of practical life, such imagined illusions will prove disastrous if not

fatal. They will undermine much of social and political life, as well as the

ethical.

In this, Hume’s imagination seems to refuse the unbridled creativity or

re-imagining of the world that some postmodern thinkers like Lyotard,

Foucault, and even Deleuze undertake. He refuses or is unable to concede to

27
chaos—to dis-order—which allows for a “new order of things.” It may well be

because the certainties of Hume’s time do not allow him to.

28
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