What was david hume big ideas?

Question

what worked and what did not worked?

Also what was hegel big ideas? and what worked and did not worked?

Please only serious response.

Answer 1

David's hume two big ideas:

1) the problem of induction.  Just because something has been a certain way in the past (like the sun has always risen) doesn't mean that we have any reason to believe that it will be so in the future (the only justification that we have for thinking that the sun will rise tomorrow is because it has in the past, but we do not know that the future will be like the past...the only justification we'd have for the latter is the fact that IN THE PAST the then-future has been like the past)

2) he argued that we never perceive a cause.  we may seem one thing and see something else "react", but we never see the moment of causation.  We just see constant conjunctions of two items.  It is out of habit, rather than reason, that we believe in things like cause.

Answer 2

David Hume

Syämasundara: Today we are discussing philosopher David Hume. He is probably the most famous of the British philosophers. He was very  skeptical about achieving certain knowledge, so he came to the conclusion that the only knowledge we can possess is a mere sequence of ideas, none of which can be proved to be true. In other words, we can only derive any knowledge from our senses, but even that knowledge is mere assumption.

Srila Prabhupäda: Yes. We say also, because our senses are imperfect, so there is no possibility of achieving perfect knowledge by sense exercise. It is not possible. That is our philosophy.

Syämasundara: He says there is no other source of knowledge except the senses.

Srila Prabhupäda: No. We don't agree. Therefore it is called aväì-manasä gocaraù, adhokñaja—there are so many names. The senses are imperfect. They cannot reach. Just like we cannot know what is there in the sun, but a geologist or astronomer, he can say, one who has studied. Therefore our process of knowledge is to take from the authorities. That is perfect. Our senses cannot read, that is a fact. But it is not that without senses, no knowledge can be... No. We receive by senses, but from superior authority, one who knows. That is perfect knowledge. According to him, there is no possibility of having perfect knowledge?

Syämasundara: Yes.

Srila Prabhupäda: That is a skeptic.

Syämasundara: Yes. He says that all that we are, all that we know, is merely ideas, a sequence of ideas.

Srila Prabhupäda: But behind the ideas there must be some fact; otherwise how we get the ideas?

Syämasundara: He separates fact from idea. For instance, I may think this table is red, but it is actually brown. So my idea is incorrect.

Srila Prabhupäda: Your idea may be, but actually it has got a color, either red or yellow. So if you have eye disease, you cannot see actually, but one whose eyes are not diseased, he can see whether it is yellow or red. Just like sometimes glaucoma—you see the moon as two moons, but actually there is one moon. But due to your eye disease you see two moons. But one who is not diseased, he sees one moon. Therefore we have to take knowledge from a person who is not diseased. Not that because my eyes are diseased, I cannot see things right way, I shall say, "Oh, there is no possibility of having right knowledge." That is not correct.

Syämasundara: In fact, he calls the soul a bundle of perceptions, that it is nothing but a set or sequence of ideas.

Srila Prabhupäda: But as soon as he says "ideas," there must be some concrete things.

Srila yämasundara: Yes. He admits that the external world is full of concrete things, but he thinks that we are also one of those things because we are only a bundle of perceptions. Our consciousness is only made up of our observations of material nature.

Srila Prabhupäda: Yes. So far direct perception is concerned, it is like that. But indirect perception, taken from authorities, that is different.

Syämasundara: He distrusts any kind of authority and says that the only kind of things that we can know for sure are mathematical proofs and immediate sense perceptions. Like we can  perceive that there is time and there is space, like that. That is the only knowledge he will admit.

Srila Prabhupäda: And beyond the time and space?

Syämasundara: We can't know anything.

Srila Prabhupäda: You cannot, but there is a process. You cannot know; that does not mean beyond the mind is relative time and perception. Just like a small insect, he takes birth in the evening, and from evening to morning, his birth, his marriage, his begetting children, everything is done, and in the morning he dies. There are many insects. They are called diwali pokali. At night they will throng together, in India. So for this insect, it is very difficult to understand that there is another animal which is called man, who has got this duration of his lifetime period in only twelve hours of his life. But the insect cannot go beyond that. Just like when we hear from Bhagavad-gétä that Brahmä lives such-and-such, we disbelieve sometimes. But everything is relative. With your relative body, your duration of life, your knowledge, your perception, everything is relative. So you are teeny human being. What is impossible for you is not impossible for others. He is talking from the relative platform.

Syämasundara: Yes. He believes there is only relativity. He doesn't think there's anything absolute.

Srila Prabhupäda: Relativity... He does not believe that there are other things. But as soon as one says relative, the opposite word is absolute; otherwise wherefrom we take this word relative?

Syämasundara: Well, his idea is that things only exist in relation with each other.

Srila Prabhupäda: Yes. Then what is the supreme relative?

Syämasundara: He doesn't admit any supreme.

Srila Prabhupäda: His knowledge is imperfect.

Syämasundara: He says just like a cherry, say a fruit...

Srila Prabhupäda: In logic there is relative study, and at the end of all relative truth there is absolute truth, the summum bonum. So he has no idea of the summum bonum, or the substance.

Syämasundara: No. He denies any substance. He says just like a cherry or a fruit, it has certain sensory qualities such as sweetness, color, like that. He says that we are just like that, humans. We have certain "sensory qualities." We are made up of a series of mental activities or a complex of ideas, but this is all we are.

Srila Prabhupäda: No. We have got senses also. The color is only, what is called, sensory qualities. It is a quality, but to appreciate that quality, we have the senses. An inert object, it has got the quality, but living entity, it has the senses to appreciate the quality.

Syämasundara: But he says these senses are only a bundle of perceptions, of ideas.

Srila Prabhupäda: Whatever it may be, the living entity is superior to the inert matter. In Sanskrit language they are called tan mäträ. They are created for the sense; they are sense objects. I have got senses, I must appreciate something. That something is that quality or sensory quality. I have eyes, I must see something. So therefore there is color, there is beauty...

Syämasundara: He postulates three laws whereby perceptions are associated or connected with one another. He says first of all, there is the principle of resemblance. For example, I see a picture and it impels me to think of the original of that picture. The second principle is the principle of contiguity. If I mention a room in a building, this impels me to think of other rooms in other buildings. And the third principle is the principle of cause and  effect, just like if I think about a wound I automatically think of pain. So in these three ways he thinks that our whole being is made up of this stream of ideas, association of ideas, one idea follows another, perpetually.

Srila Prabhupäda: That is called relative world. That is the meaning of relative world. You cannot understand what is father without a son; you cannot understand son without a father. You cannot understand husband without a wife. This world is like that. It is called relative world.

Syämasundara: He thinks that is what our being is—it is simply ideas. From our birth to our death we simply are made up of a bundle of perceptions and ideas. Simply that, nothing more.

Prabhupäda: Beyond this idea?

Syämasundara: He denies the existence of any ultimate reality. Only the phenomena of senses.

Srila Prabhupäda: So wherefrom do these phenomena come, unless there is noumena?

Syämasundara: Well, he says that it is possible that all this existed since eternity and there was no cause. It's possible that there is no cause, that it's just existing.

Srila Prabhupäda: What about the manifestation—past, present and future?

Syämasundara: He says that this may be an eternal existence of things, but there may not be any cause.

Srila Prabhupäda: Then why death takes place, if there is no cause?

Syämasundara: It's just like any machine which is born and dies.

Srila Prabhupäda: When you say machine, machine is made by somebody. You cannot compare it to a machine. A machine is created by somebody. There is beginning of the machine.

Syämasundara: Or just like the seasons, they come and go.

Srila Prabhupäda: Yes. They again come. So what is this?

Syämasundara: This may be an eternally existing fact which has no cause or no creator. This is his idea.

Srila Prabhupäda: There is no creator?

Syämasundara: No creator. He says, however, that if we prefer, we can say that there is a creator, if we like to. In other words, he bases everything on this idea that you can do what you like to do.

Srila Prabhupäda: So that he can go on talking whatever he likes. (laughter) All nonsense. All he wants that license: you can go on talking all nonsense, I can go on talking all nonsense. You are right, I am right, everything is all right. Yata mata tata patha. Yata mata—as many opinions there are, so many (indistinct) are there also. So it does not apply in legal sense. Just like the same example that I give always, "Keep to the right." Then if somebody says, "My opinion is, 'Keep to the left,' " but as soon as he does it, he is arrested.

Syämasundara: We'll discuss that in a minute or two. But he divided human understanding into two classes. The first class is the relationship among ideas, just as mathematical compositions, they are true and certain, whether or not the things they refer to exist in nature. Just like two plus two equals four. This is a relationship among ideas. And the second-relationship among facts. He says that these cannot be proved by reasoning. They are merely assumed on the basis of sense experience. For example, that sun will rise tomorrow. This is a relationship among facts. But it i