Hume Skepticism

Hume Skepticism

Hume asked, "what reason do we have in thinking the future will resemble the past?" It is reasonable to think that it will because there is no contradiction in supposing the future won't resemble the past. But it is also true that is possible for the world to change dramatically and our previous experience would be completely useless in judging future experience. We want to say that past experiences have been a good predictor. We are compelled to do so and it is almost as if we can't help ourselves. But we are merely stating that in the past, it has been a good predictor. Hume says we are begging the question. We are still in the past if we say that past pasts were reliable predictors of past futures.

So we see that the past really only tells us about the past. Our real problem is does anything about the past tell us anything about the future? Hume believes that in nature, it does. He says that nature itself is uniform and constant in causing a particular effect and "no instance has ever yet been found of any failure or irregularity in the operation." But when it does fail, it is some secret cause in the particular parts. Since we are accustomed to transferring the past into the future, we feel compelled to make these secrets understandable in order to reconcile