Hume and Matters of Fact

Hume and Matters of Fact

According to Hume, there are two types of beliefs, relations of ideas and matters of facts. Relations of ideas are indisputable. Such as a widow is a woman whose husband died. Such thoughts are usually definitions. Since it is impossible for a Widow to be anything other then the definition, these ideas are indisputable. Matters of facts claim that if the opposite is imaginable, then it is possible. Matters of fact are debatable, such as the belief in a God or that the world will end. While it is true that these abstract ideas are easily debatable, other ideas that we held as true are also only matters of fact, such as putting wood in a fire will make I burn. While we hold that it is true that everything falls towards the earth, and that the sun rises, it is possible that the sun will not rise and that things will not fall towards the earth, these beliefs are matters of fact because we can visualize the opposite occurring

Hume denies reason any power because he is an empiricist. Instead three main principles exist that help humans form ideas; they are resemblance (when looking at a picture a person thinks of the object), contiguity (thinking of an object that is close spatially), and cause and effect (association). Hume claims that reason alone cannot establish matters of facts. There is no reason to believe that what happened one time will happen again. For example, there is no reason for Adam to believe that a rock will fall if he drops it unless he experiences it many times. Even with experience one cannot reason a matter of fact to be true, because the universe may not be uniform. There is a chance