A Study Of Hume’s Belief Theory In Causal Reasoning

Hume’s epistemology is usually regarded as a destructive skepticism,but his intention to strike a balance between skepticism and natural common sense is ignored.Hume clearly realized that the investigation of the origin,scope and method of human cognition inevitably led to people’s doubts about the reality of causality and the inevitability of causal reasoning.This makes it impossible for modern philosophers to use deductive reasoning and empirical observation as justification for the authenticity of causal reasoning proposition and the legitimacy of people’s belief in causal reasoning proposition.At this time,we must find another way to defend the legitimacy of people’s belief in causal reasoning,and make it the dominant principle of people’s action.Hume thinks that it is the habitual psychological tendency formed after people experience the constant meeting of similar objects.Habitual psychological tendency will not only make people think of the idea of result(the process of inference)when the cause image is presented in front of the sense organs,but also transfer the strong and lively part of the mind given by the present cause image to the idea of result(the process of believing in the inference result),The transfer of intensity and liveliness makes a pure concept of result have the same emotional and will influence as the current impression,which will eventually promote us to produce action(emotion determines behavior),and action is a good medicine to cure all the problems of skepticism.Therefore,under the guidance of natural common sense with causal reasoning belief as the core,we will not lose too far on the road of skepticism.However,it is not difficult to find that this causal reasoning belief theory,which is based on people’s habitual psychological tendency,inevitably makes Hume face some theoretical and practical problems that are difficult to solve.They are: it is lack of universal significance to explain the generation of causal reasoning belief with habitual psychological tendency,and it is impossible to conduct quantitative research on the formation of psychological tendency;The particularity of the original impression contradicts with the transmission principle of strong liveliness;It is difficult to measure the degree of confidence in things;It is difficult for words to accurately "hit" the nature of belief with feeling as the core.It is undeniable that Hume’s belief in causal reasoning not only prevents him from falling into the morass of pilangism,but also makes his discussion on human nature science form a complete reasoning chain;From the perspective of psychogenesis,it provides a way to defend the rationality of belief,which is different from deductive reasoning and empirical induction;The discussion on the legitimacy of causal reasoning belief enlightens the discussion on the essence of belief and the relationship between belief and knowledge in modern epistemology.