INTRODUCTION

David Hume is of the renowned philosophers in the Modern Period. He was born in 1711 in
Edinburgh by Scottish parents. He is an Empiricist. He believes in the doctrine of Empiricism
which holds that true knowledge comes from experience. Other Empiricists include John Locke
and George Berkeley. Hume’s notion on constancy and coherence, self, substance, God and
ethics will be seen below

CDDONSTANCY AND COHERENCE

David Hume argues that the belief that things exist external to us is the product of our
imagination. This imagination according to Hume deals with two special characteristics of our
impressions. Then from impressions our imaginations becomes aware of both constancy and
coherence. According to Hume constancy is the arrangement of things for example He says if
you look out of the window: there is the mountain, the house,
and the trees. If you shut down your eyes or turn away and then later look at the same view
again, the arrangement is the same ,and it is this constancy in the contents of your impressions
that leads your imagination to conclude that the mountain, house and tress exist whether you like
them or not. Hume continues by saying that even though constancy is the arrangement of things,
coherence comes with the process of change from our impressions. He says <our impressions
have a coherent relation to the process of change> for example if a log of wood is put into the
fire and after some time the log changes into ashes it means that a great change has take place in
the fire. According to Hume this coherence in their changes is one of the characteristics of
external objects. Hume does not belief the existence of external objects. He says this is a belief
and not a rational proof to assume that our impressions are connected with things. This
assumption is without any foundation in reasoning. Hume now extends his skeptical line of
reasoning beyond objects or things to consider the existence of the Self, Substance and God.
 THE SELF

Here, Hume denies the idea of the Self. This may seem paradoxical, that I should say that I do
not have an idea of myself. Hume goes ahead to ask that <From what impression could this idea
of Self be derived? >.He asked this question because he wanted to test what we mean by a
<Self>. He continues that < Is there any continuous and identical reality that forms the ideas of
Self?. Hume says < when he enter most intimately into what he calls myself , he stumbles on
some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, love or hatred , pain or pleasure. Hume
continues by saying that there is nothing like <myself> because all what he keeps observing is
perception. So Hume denies the existence of a continuous Self-identity and says that the Self is <
nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions.> How then, do we account for what
we think is the Self? Hume says that the power of the memory gives the impression of our
continuous identity. Hume argues that the mind is a kind of theatre where several perceptions
successively make their appearance and then disappear.

THE SUBSTANCE

Hume denies the idea of substance because of his continuous denial of the existence of the Self.
According to Locke , the idea of substance is something which has color or shape and other
qualities, though he spoke of it as <something we know not what.>Berkeley on his part also
denied the existence of Substance underlying qualities but retained the idea of spiritual
substances. Hume denies the existence of substance in any form. He goes further to say that if
what is meant by Self is some form of Substance, then no such substance can be derived from
our impressions of sensation. Hume says that if the idea of substance is conveyed to us by the
senses then it can be perceived by the eyes and it must be a colour, if perceived by the ears, it
must be a sound, and if perceived by the palate then it must be a taste. Hume concludes that we
no idea of substance, distinct from that of a collection of particular qualities.
 GOD

Hume’s notion that our ideas cannot reach our experience leads him to raise skeptical
questions about the existence of God. Most attempts to demonstrate the existence of God rely on
some version of causality. Among these, the argument from design has always had a powerful
impact on religious believers. This is because the argument from design begins with the
observance of a beautiful order in nature. Hume is aware of this argument but he quickly sorts
out the elements of the problem leaving the argument with less than its usual force. The
argument of design brings forth an order which resembles the kind of order that the human mind
is able to impose on unthinking materials. From this observation we conclude that unthinkable
materials do not contain the principle of orderliness within themselves. Our experience tells us
that as a watch requires an ordering cause so too is the universe. But Hume says < its uncertain
because the subject lies entirely beyond the reach of human experience.> If the whole argument
from design depend on the proposition that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably
bear some remote analogy to human intelligence, then Hume says ,the argument cannot prove as
much as it claims. According to Hume we derived the idea of cause from repeated observations
of two things. <How then can we assign a cause to the universe when we have never experienced
the universe as related to anything we might consider a cause.> The use of analogy cannot solve
the problem because the analogy between the watch and the universe is not exact. Hume is just
emphasizing that the order of the universe is simply an empirical fact and that we cannot infer
from it the existence of God.This doesnot necessarily mean atheism even though Hume is seen to
be one. But Hume is just simply testing our idea of God the way he tested our idea of Self and
Substance by his rigorous principle of empiricism.
 . of ETHICS

Hume’s skepticism did not prevent him from taking ethics seriously. In the opening page of the third
book of his Treatise of Human Nature, Hume writes that<morality is a subject that interests above us
above all others>.Because of his strong interest in ethics he hoped to do for that subject what Galileo
and Newton had done for natural science. In the first section of his Enquiry concerning the principles
Morals, his says that<moral philosophy is in the same condition as...astronomy before the time of
Copernicus>.According to Hume older sciences with it abstract general hypothesis had to give way to a
more experimental method. For Hume the central fact about ethics is that moral judgments are formed
not by reason alone but through feeling. So he goes further to analyzed that reason plays a considerable
role in our discussions about ethical decisions but it’s not sufficient alone to produce moral blame or
approbation. The reason why the role of <Reason> is limited in is because <Reason> makes judgments
concerning the truth of empirical< Matters of fact> and analytical <relations of ideas>.moral
assessments are emotional reactions. For example, do we judge murder to be a crime? This act cannot
always and in all circumstances be considered a crime. The same action might be called self-defense or
official execution. The judgment of good or evil is made after all facts are known. For Hume, moral
assessments involve sympathetic feelings of pleasure and pain that we experience when observing the
consequences of someone’s action. For example if my teacher is robbed feel sympathetic pains for him,
and this pain constitutes my moral condemnation of the robber’s action, if i see someone help an old
woman carry her load, I feel sympathetic pleasure for the woman, and this pleasure for the woman
constitutes my moral approval of the person who helped her out. Hume now realizes that to build a
system of ethics on the faculty of feeling is to run the risk of reducing ethics to a matter of taste,
whereby moral judgments are subjective and relative. Therefore, to designate feeling or sentiment as a
source of praise or blame implies that our moral judgments flow from a calculus of individual self –
interest or self-love. Hume , therefore rejects these assumptions by affirming that moral sentiments are
found in all people ,that people praise or blame the same actions, and that praise or blame is not
derived from a narrow self-love .Hume writes <A generous ,a brave, a noble deed, performed by an
adversary ,commands our approbation ,while in its consequences it may be acknowledged prejudicial
to our particular interest>.Furthermore the sympathetic feelings that we experience are not restricted
to events that we see before us. According to Hume, the qualities that trigger our sympathetic feelings
of moral approval include whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment
of approbation. Hume says that qualities that generate praise are useful and agreeable. We find in
Hume that a clear criterion of moral judgment is the virtuous behavior that is useful and agreeable to
people who are impacted by this conduct. In Hume’s words, <personal merit consists altogether in the
possession of mental qualities, useful or agreeable to the person himself or to another>.Hume’s
empirical approach to morality had its vocal critics. Hume grounds the entire plan of morality in unstable
human faculties and emotions while others says that morality needs to be fixed, permanent and
absolute .Another critic we find in Hume is the role of God which is completely absent from his account.
Thus, his whole approach is both flimsy and atheistic. Jeremy Bentham after reading Hume’s moral
theory wrote, <I felt as if scales had fallen from my eyes >. He said this because he was in search of a
non religious approach to morality that was based in empirical fact and not in mysterious rational
intuitions .Bentham was so interested in Hume’s contention that we assess actions based on their
usefulness or what Hume also expressed as <utility>. This became the basis of the ethical theory of
utilitarianism, championed by Bentham and many others throughout the nineteenth century and
through the present

CONCLUSION

From the above analysis, Hume says that our imagination through impressions becomes aware of
constancy and coherence. Hume denies idea that there is the existence of the self. Hume says
there is nothing like< myself> . He says this because he keeps observing only perception. Hume
continues to deny the idea that substance exists because of his continues denial of the existence
of the self. Hume is also skeptical of the existence of God. This made him to raise skeptical
questions on the existence of God. ‘For Hume the central fact about ethics is that moral
judgments are formed not by reason alone through feelings.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Socrates to Satre and Beyond, A History of Philosophy, 4th Edition, 2008.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pdf).