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Single Idea 21285

[filed under theme 12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 4. Pro-Empiricism ]

Full Idea

Every event, before experience, is equally difficult and incomprehensible; and every event, after experience, is equally easy and intelligible.

Gist of Idea

Events are baffling before experience, and obvious after experience

Source

David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 8)

Book Ref

'The Existence of God', ed/tr. Hick,John [Macmillan 1964], p.109

A Reaction

If you don't believe this, spend some time watching documentaries about life in the deep oceans. Things beyond imagination swim around in front of you. But we can extrapolate, once the possibilities are revealed by experience.

The 20 ideas with the same theme [reasons for favouring the empirical view of knowledge]:

1500 When we sleep, reason closes down as the senses do [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus]
543 All men long to understand, as shown by their delight in the senses [Aristotle]
1822 Reason can't judge senses, as it is based on them [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius]
5702 The senses are much the best way to distinguish true from false [Lucretius]
5729 If the senses are deceptive, reason, which rests on them, is even worse [Lucretius]
16637 The absolute boundaries of our thought are the ideas we get from senses and the mind [Locke]
3938 Geometry is originally perceived by senses, and so is not purely intellectual [Berkeley]
2183 We can only invent a golden mountain by combining experiences [Hume]
2186 We cannot form the idea of something we haven't experienced [Hume]
2194 How could Adam predict he would drown in water or burn in fire? [Hume]
2702 Only madmen dispute the authority of experience [Hume]
2205 You couldn't reason at all if you lacked experience [Hume]
2217 When definitions are pushed to the limit, only experience can make them precise [Hume]
21285 Events are baffling before experience, and obvious after experience [Hume]
6577 For Kant, our conceptual scheme is disastrous when it reaches beyond experience [Kant, by Fogelin]
16925 Appearance gives truth, as long as it is only used within experience [Kant]
12108 All real knowledge rests on observed facts [Comte]
9082 Clear concepts result from good observation, extensive experience, and accurate memory [Mill]
5185 It is further sense-experience which informs us of the mistakes that arise out of sense-experience [Ayer]
21685 Empiricism says evidence rests on the senses, but that insight is derived from science [Quine]