Empiricism has been one of the most influential movements in the evolution of western philosophical thought. The founding fathers of western empiricism were John Locke in general and David Hume in particular. David Hume, an English philosopher, who took birth in the era of brutality and the dark ages of the west was deeply averse to the Church authorities.
He believed that human experience is an unparallel source of getting knowledge of the world. He was the one who denied the concept of casualty which was a benchmark of his predecessors. He reasoned that if we believed that there was some kind of a connection between the events followed by one another, the cycle would keep going on unstoppably. He raised the question that why did man decide on the basis of his habit, memory and experience that every incident of human life is interrelated with his past one? Now, if we take a glimpse over that claim we can easily find some faults. If the past event has no connection with the present one, the whole concept of cause and effect is wiped out. For instance, how does fire engulf the whole forest if there is no cause behind it? How does a ball turn back whenever hit on the wall?
Moreover, Hume also negated the existence of God. He said that if God were there, man should not have relied on his help. A man should be able to use his empiricism in order to weather the storms of his life. He himself was a mysterious and doubtful human being. He once said, “There is no certain knowledge of anything.” Despite him being in a state of denial about God, he would sometimes say, “There is someone who is God.” If it were the case, would he be talking about the inner conscience of man? That remains undefined. Once he was asked about the life after death, to which he responded, “Is it possible that the coal is put in the fire and the fire doesn’t catch it up?” Nonetheless, David Hume was the one who rendered the world an impactful philosophical idea of empiricism. He is rightly called “the Voltaire of England.”
AWAIS AHMED
LAHORE
