Gateway to the Epicureans David Hume | Ms.Carmina Reads

[00:00:00]live and today we will continue reading gateway purchase and their modern heirs edited and with a brief phase by Spencer to start off I would like to say everybody is welcome here whether you're watching live or on the re from anywhere in the world or in the country I myself I am in for you. So this section, this is section three of the book and I [clears throat] will begin this chapter.

[00:00:42]Pretty long and I hope you're hearing me well. I'm using this microphone today.

[00:00:50]Hume, an inquiry concerning human understanding from 1948.

[00:01:00]of a particular providence and of a future state.

[00:01:08]It reads, "Humes makes Epicurus defense his belief offers no warrant for believing in an omnipotent or benevolent creator.

[00:01:23]typical objections to Epicuranism, including that it generates moral laxity that his own arguments might lead not simply to denying to denying God's benevolence and existence outright.

[00:01:43]Right? So, okay, let's begin. Now it saysly engaged in conversation with a friend who loves skeptical uh skeptical.

[00:01:57]He advanced many principles of which I can by no means approve. Yet asation to the chain of reasoning carried on throughout this inquiry. I my memory as accurately as I can in order to submit them that began with my admiring the singular good fortune of philosophy which as it liberty above all other privileges and chiefly flourishes from the opposite received its First birth in an age and country of freedom and even in its most extravagant principles by any creeds cons con for except the banishment of pro protagoras last event proceeded partly from other motives. There are scarcely any instances to this bigoted jealousy with which the present Epicurus lived at Athens to an advanced age in peace and tr even admitted to receive the Cesar Dutal character and to offici the most sacred rights of the established religion and the public encouraged of the public encouragement of pensions and salaries was afforded equally by the wisest of every sect of philosophy.

[00:03:58]How recroite such kind of treatment was will easily be conceived if we reflect that even at present when she may robust she bears with much difficulty the inclemency of the seasons persecution which blow upon her.

[00:04:25]You admire say of philosophy. What seems to result from the natural course of things and to be this pretent this pertinent bigotry of what you be is really her offspring who after ally with sub super separates himself entirely from the interest of his parents and becomes ter persecutor.

[00:05:05]Speculative dogmas of religion. The present occas man formed an idea of religion more suitable to their weak apprehension and composed objects of traditional belief. More of argument or disment or disputation.

[00:05:39]After the first alarm therefore was over, therefore was over which arose from the new paradoxes and principles of the philos even after during the ages of antiquity to have lived in great harmony with the a fair partition of mankind between them. The former claiming all the ing all the vulgar and illiterate indeed. Hello to show your support. Subscribe if you want to see me again. I really truly appreciate it.

[00:06:28]And now this says 103.

[00:06:33]It's leave politics entirely out of the question and never suppose that a wise mind is just the philosophy such as those of Epicurus which denying a divine existence and conates seem to loosen in a great measure the ties of morality pericious to the peace of civil society.

[00:07:10]that in fact these pers persecutions never in any age experience of the pernitious consequences of philosophy but arose entirely from passion and assert that if Epicurus had been accused psychopans or informers of those days and proved his principles of philosophy to be salutary as those of his adversaries to expose him as the public hatred and jealousy to expose him to the public.

[00:08:02]I wish said I you would try your eloquence upon make a speech of Epicurus which might satisfy not the mob of Athens but city to have contained any mob.

[00:08:22]Okay, which you might satis that ancient and polite city to have contained any mob. But the more philosophical part of this oddable of comprehending his arguments, the matter would the matter would replied he and if you please, I shall suppose myself a picture for a moment.

[00:08:49]And shall deliver you such a harang as will fill all the earn with black one to gratify the malice of my adversaries.

[00:09:04]Very well. Pray.

[00:09:12]I come hither, oh ye a assembly, what I maintained in my school, and I find myself impeached by furious calm and dispassionate and dispassionate inquirers. Your deliberate directed to questions of public good and the interests of the commonwealth areations of speculative philosophy and these magnificent but perhaps fruitless inquiries but more useful occupations.

[00:09:54]But so far as in me lies, I will prevent dispute concerning the origin and government of worlds, we shall only acquire public interests. And if I can persuade you that they are entire and security of government, I hope that you will presently send us back to our schools.

[00:10:26]the most sublime but at the same time the religious philosophers not satisfied with the tradition of your forefather in which I will um I willingly acquies indulge a tra curios oh excuse me trash curiosity in which oh oh excuse me again in trying how far and they thereby excite instead of satisfying the doubts which naturally arise by inquiry. They paint in the most magnificent colors the order, beauty, and wise.

[00:11:16]Ask if such a glorious display of intelligence could proceed from the fuous from concourse of atoms. Or if chance could produce what the great I shall not examine the justice of this argument.

[00:11:37][clears throat] I shall allow it to be and accusers can desire. It is sufficient if I can prove from this is entirely speculative and that when in my philosophical disquisitions I deny a I endure not the foundations of society but advanced principles which if they argue consistently must allow to be solid and satisfactory.

[00:12:18]Thanks for reading with me everybody.

[00:12:19]Remember to give me a thumbs up to show your I wish said I you would try your eloquent and make a speech of Epicurus which might satisfy not the mob of a Athens to be contained any to have contained any mob but the most philosophical part of this audience.

[00:12:50]He supposed capable of comprehending this his arguments replied he and okay I know I read this Okay. So moving from lost with lost Solid and satisfaction. Yes.

[00:13:58]Okay.

[00:14:00]Now it says here 105.

[00:14:04]You have acknowledged that the chief or sole argument of a divine existence which I never questioned where there appear such marks of intelligence and design that you think it extra chance or the blind unguided force of matter. You allow that to causes from the order of the work.

[00:14:35]You infer that there must have been project thought in the workmen.

[00:14:43][clears throat] If you cannot make out this point, you allow and you pretend not to establish a conclusion in a greater latitude than the phenomen.

[00:14:57]These are the concessions. I desire you to mark the consequences.

[00:15:07]When we infer any particular cause from an effect, we must proportion be allowed to ascribe to the cause inequalities. But what are exactly sufficient to produce D raised in any scale may serve as a proof that the counterbalancing weight exceeds 10 Offord a reason [clears throat] that it exceeds a 100. If the cause to produce it, we must either reject that cause or add to it such qualities as But if we ascribe to it farther qualities or affirm it capable conjecture and arbitrary and arbities without reason or authority.

[00:16:14]Same rule holds whether the cause is science to be brute unconscious matter or the cause be known only by the effect.

[00:16:25]We never ought to ascribe it ascribe to it requisite to produce the effect. Nor can we by any rules of just reasoning and infer other effects from it beyond those by which [clears throat] by which no one merely from the from the sight of one of Suks's that he was also a statuary or architect and was an artist skillful marble than in colors. The talent and taste displayed in the particular work conclude the workman to be possessed of the cause must be exactly and precisely proportionate.

[00:17:25]We shall never find in it any or afford an inference concerning any other design or performance such quality for producing the effect which we examine.

[00:17:44]Hello, it's now number 106.

[00:17:57]I'm checking that I have enough time.

[00:18:00]Number 106 to be the authors of the existence or order of the universe. It follows thatigence and benevolence which appears in its workmanship. But nothing further.

[00:18:22]We call in the exist except we call in the assistance of exaggeration and arguments and reasoning. So far as the traces of any arbit attributes appear, so may we conclude these attributes to exist. The superition of farther attributes is the superosition that in distant regions of space or periods of time as a display of these attributes in a scheme of administration more suitable to such a we can [clears throat] never be allowed to mount up from the universe the effect to and then descend downwards to infer any new effect from that cause as not entirely worthy of the glorious attributes which we ascribe to that deity.

[00:19:28]The knowledge of the derived solely from the effect. They must be exactly adjusted to never refer to anything further or be the foundation of any new inference and conclusion.

[00:19:50]You find certain phenomena in nature.

[00:19:52]You seek that you have found him. You afterwards become the so enamored of you. Imagine it impossible. But the most but he must produce something greater of ill and disorder. You forget and benevolence are entirely imaginary or at least without any foundation in reason any qualities. But what you see he has actually exerted and displayed.

[00:20:38]Therefore, all philosophers be suited to the to the present appearances of nature.

[00:20:46]appearances by arbitrary suppositions in order to suit them to the attributes which you gracious. Okay, I may finish this yet.

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[00:21:22]This is 107.

[00:21:26]When your authority, oh Athenians, talk of a golden or silver age which preceded with a reverence. But when philosophers who pretend to exact hold the same discourse, I pay them not.

[00:21:49]I own the same obsic.

[00:21:55]Ask who carried them into the the celestial regions? Who admitted them into the book of fate that they thus rashly affirm that their deities have any purpose beyond what has actually appeared.

[00:22:16]If if on the steps or by the gradual ascent of reason and by drawing inferences from still insist that they have aided the the ascent of reason by the wings of imagination.

[00:22:37]Thus change their manner of inference and argue from causes to effects. Pursu The present world would be more suitable to such perfect beings as the gods and forgetial beings any perfection or any attribute but what found in the present world.

[00:23:06]Hence all the fruitless industry and save the honor of the gods. Well, we must acknowledge the reality of that evil which the world so much abounds.

[00:23:25]And isn't that true?

[00:23:28]Intractable qualities of matter we are told or the observance of general reason is the sole cause which controlled the power and benevolence of Jupiter and every sensible creature so imperfect and so unhappy. These attributes then then are it seems take it for granted in their greatest latitude and upon that supposition perhaps be admitted as possible solutions of the ill phenomena for granted or why ascribe to those to the cause inequalities. But what actually your brain to justify the course of nature upon suppositions which for all you know may be entirely hand of which there are to be found no traces in the course of nature. They were considered only as a particular method of accounting for the visible phenomena of the universe. But no just reasoner will ever presume to infer from it any single fact and particular. If you think that the appearance appearances of things prove sub to draw an inference concerning the existence of these causes in such a complicated and sub everyone should be indulged in the liberty of conjecture and argument. But here you and arguing from your in inferred causes conclude that any other in the course of nature which may serve as a fuller display of particular attributes. Ied, oh, excuse me. I must admonish you that you have departed from to the present subject and have certainly added something to the attributes of the cause beyond what appear.

[00:25:54]Never with tolerable sense or propriety add anything to the cause. Number one is the odiousness of this do of that doctrine which I teach in my gardens or what do you find in this whole question wherein theity of good morals or and order of society is the least concerned. I deny a providence you say of the world who guides the course of events and punishes the vicious with infamy and disappointment.

[00:26:53]Honor and success in all their undertakings. But surely I deny not the course itself.

[00:27:02]everyone's inquiry and examination. I acknowledge that in the present order of things virtual reception from the world experiences of mankind. Friendship [clears throat] is the chief joy of human life andness.

[00:27:29]I never balance between the virtuous and the vicious course of life. But I mine mind every advantage is on the side of the former knowing all your suppositions and reasonings. You tell me indeed that this disposition of things pro but whatever it proceeds from the disposition itself on which depends our happiness or misery conduct and deportment of in life is still the same. It is still open for as behavior by my experience of past events. And if you affirm that while a divine distribution. Oh, excuse me. A supreme distributive justice in the particular reward of the good and punishment of the bad beyond the ordinary course which I have before endeavored to detect. You persist in imagining which you so earnestly contend, you may safely infer consequences from it and excuse me and add something to the experienced order of nature by arguing from to your gods. You seem not to remember that all your reasonings and on this to causes and that every argument deducted from causes to effects must.

[00:29:19]Sophism since it is impossible for you to know anything of the cause not inferred but discovered to the full in the effect.

[00:29:35]Hello Louisa Alberto Alberto Gomez.

[00:29:46]Romero Gomez Lu Alberto.

[00:30:21]Okay, now I will read which of course is a continuation of this long- winded letter. Let's see if we can finish it.

[00:30:35]Okay. 109. But what must a philosopher think of those vain reasoners who instead of regarding our scene of things as the sole object of their contemplation so far reverse the whole enter this life merely a passage to something further. A porch which leads to a greater building. A prologue which serves only to introduce the peace e and give it more grace and propriety once. Do you think idea of the gods from their own conceit and imagination? Surely for It would never point to anything further. But but that the divinity may possibly be endowed with attributes which weeded by principles of action which we cannot discover to be satisfied. All this will free allowed but is mere possibility and hypothesis.

[00:31:57]We never have reasons principles of action in him but as far as we know as as far as we know them have been exerted and are there any marks of a distributive justice in the world? If you Since justice here exerts itself, it is satisfied. If you have then no reason to ascribe justice in our sense of it to the between information and negation by saying that the justice of the gods at present exerts itful extent. I answer what you have no I answer that you have no reason to give it as you see it at present exert itself number thus I bring the dispute oh Athenians to a short issue with my to a short issue with my antagonists the course of nature lies open to theirs. The experience train the experience train of events is theate our conduct. Nothing else can be appealed to in the field or in the Senate of in the school or in the closet. In vain would our limited understanding break through those our fond imagination. While we argue from the course of nature and infer in particular cause which first bestowed and first preserved, preserves or embrace a principle which is both uncertain and useless. It is uncertain reach of human experience. It is useless because our knowledge of it of this cause excuse being derived entirely from the course of nature. We can never according to the rules of justice with any new inference or making additions to the common experience.

[00:34:35]Establish any new principles of conduct and behavior.

[00:34:44]Okay, I will try to finish this one. One one I have not the artifice of the demagogues.

[00:35:00]As you were pleased to make me stand for the people, you insinuate yourself into my favor by you know I have always pressed a particular attachment.

[00:35:13]But as indeed I think you ought the only standard of your [clears throat] of our judgment fact. I doubt not. But from the very same experience to which you this reasoning which you have put into the mouth of Epicurus.

[00:35:39][clears throat] If you saw for instance a half-finished building surrounded with leaves and mortar and all the instruments of masonry, could you not infer from the effect that contra and and contravenence and could you not return again to the effect and concluded and conclude that the building would soon be finished and other art could bestow upon it.

[00:36:23]If foot, you would conclude that a man had passed that way and that he though a faced by the rolling of the sands or inundations of the water.

[00:36:42]Do you refuse to admit the same method of reasoning with regard to the other to the order of nature life only as an imperfect building which you can infer a superior intelligence and which can leave nothing imperfect. Why may you not infer a more finished scheme in some distant point of space or time?

[00:37:13]Are not these methods of reason?

[00:37:17]What pre pretense can you embrace the one while rejecting the other?

[00:37:29]Number one, one two. The infinite is sufficient foundation for this difference in my conclusions in works allowable to advance to advance from the effect to the cause inferences concerning the effect the examine examine the alterations which it has probably undergone or may still undergo. But method of reasoning plainly this that man is a being whom we know by experience we are acquainted with and whose projects and inclinations have a certain connection which nature has established for the government of such a creature. When therefore we skill and industry of man as we are otherwise acquainted with the nature of the animal may be expected from him. And these inferences will be founded in experience and observation from the single work of production which um we examine possible for us to argue in this manner because our knowledge of all the qualities which we ascribe.

[00:39:10]It is impossible they could point to anything further.

[00:39:17]The print of a foot in the sand can only prove we consider alone of a foot in the sand can only prove when considered alone that there was some figure was produced. But the print of a human foot proves likewise from our other experience which also left this impression though affected by time and other accidents here and descending again from the cause infer alterations in the effectation of the same simple chain of reasoning.

[00:40:02]We comprehend in this case a hundred and concerning the usual figure and members that species of animal and members of that species of animals without which this method of argument must be considered.

[00:40:28]Number 103.

[00:40:34]The case is not the same. Oh, excuse me, not 103. This is number 113.

[00:40:42]And with our reasonings from the works of nature, the deity is known to us only in a single being and it is a s Ed under any species or genus from whose experienced attributes or qualities we analogy future qualities in him as the universe shoots wisdom and goodness as it chews a particular degree of these perfect um perfections.

[00:41:23]We particularly adapted to the effect with which we examine but further [clears throat] but for same attributes we can never be authorized to infer or suppose by any rules of just reasoning position. It is impossible for us to argue from the cause or infer any alteration in fallen under our observation.

[00:41:53]Greater good produced by this being a more impartial distribution of rewards and punishments must proceed and equity. Every supposed add addition to the works of nature makes an addition to author of the author of nature and consequently being entirely unsupposed arguments can never be admitted but as mere conjuncture conjecture and hypothes subject and of the unbounded license of conjunction that we tacidly consider ourselves as in the place of the supreme will on every occasion observe the same conduct which we ourselves in his situation have embraced as reasonable.

[00:43:00]But besides that the ordinary course of nature may convince us that and maxims very different from ours.

[00:43:11]Besides this, I say it must evident to reason from the intentions and projects of men to those of beings so different and in human nature. It [clears throat] is a certain experience co certain experience cohesion of designs and inclinations so that when by any fact we have it may be reasonable from experience to infer another and draw a long chain of conclus but this method of reasoning can never have placed with regard to be to a being.

[00:43:59]is much less analogy to any other being in the universe than the sun to a waxing and who discovers himself only by this by some faint traces of or out to ascribe to him any attribute or perfection.

[00:44:22]What we may really be a defect or where it never were it never or where were it ever so much a perfection the being where it appears not to have been really exerted to the full and than penageric than of just reasoning and sound in the world. And all the religion which is nothing but a species of philosophy will never be able or give us measures of conduct and behavior different from those which are no new fact can ever be inferred from the religious hypothesis.

[00:45:21]No event, word or punishment expected or dreaded beyond what is already known by practice and observation.

[00:45:37]Yes. So that my apology to Epicurus will still appear nor have the political interest of society any connection with the philosophical disputes concerning metaphysics.

[00:45:52]114.

[00:45:54]There is still one circumstance, replied.

[00:46:00]I should allow your premises. I must deny your conclusion. You conclude things can have no influence in life because they ought to have influence.

[00:46:14]Considering that men reason not in the same manner you do, but draw many consequences to and suppose that the deity will inflict punishment on vice and bestow rewards on virtue beyondary course of nature. Whether this reasoning of theirs is just or not is no matter.

[00:46:39]It it conduct must still be the same. And those who attempt to dis disabuse disabuse you I know be good reasoners but I cannot allow them to be good citizens and free. They free men from one restraint upon their passions and make the in one respect more easy and secure.

[00:47:12]After all, I may agree with your general of liberty, though upon different premises from those on which you endeavor to found to tolerate every principle of philosophy. Nor is there an instance that any government by such indulgence. There is no enthusiasm among philosophers. Their doctrines are not no restraint can be put upon their reasonings. But what can be the sciences and even to the state by paving the way for persecution and oppress mankind are more deeply interested and concerned number 115.

[00:48:10]But there appears to be, continued I, with regard to your mayor propose to you without insisting on it, lest I lead into reasonings of two.

[00:48:25]I much doubt whether it be possible for a cause to be known only by its effect or to be of so singular and particular in nature as as to have no parallel and no similarity with any other cause or objects.

[00:48:51]our observation. It is only when two species of objects are found to be constantly one from the other and where an effect and where an effect and could not be comprehended under any known species.

[00:49:17]that we would form a conjunct a conjecture or inference as experience and observation and analogy be indeed the only re the only guides of this nature. Both the effect and cause must bear a similarity and resemblance which we know and which we have found in many instances to be conjoined own reflection to pursue the consequences of this principle. I shall just observe that the entire suppose the universe an effect quite singular and unparalleled to the proof of a deity a cause no less singular and unparalleled your reasonings upon that our attention [cough] excuse me How we can ever return to the cause to from our ideas of the former infer any alteration on the latter or any addition to thank you for reading with me.

[00:50:50]Be safe. I appreciate you. I love you all. Bye.