Hume's Notions of Certainty and Evidence. Their Meaning in Context

SOFÍA CALVENTE

Belo Horizonte

Congreso; 40th Annual Hume Conference; 2013

Universidade Federativa de Minas Gerais

While examining the main argument of Treatise 1.4.1, Of scepticism with regard to reason, several Hume interpreters have posed the question about the meaning of the term evidence, especially in the passage where Hume says that ?all the rules of logic require a continual diminution, and at last a total extinction of belief and evidence due to the fallibility of our mental faculties and the need for a check of its operations, which results in a gradual weakening of our reasonings and ends up with a suspension of judgment. Our aim is to depict the background of possible meanings that this notion acquired in Early Modern philosophical lexicons and treatises to help understanding Hume´s use of the term. We intend to offer a philosophically contextualized approach to the term ´evidence´ to clarify its role within Hume´s theory of knowledge. For that purpose, it is important to distinguish it from ´certainty´, despite the fact that some interpreters tend to see them simply as synonyms. We will point out similarities and differences between the definitions provided in the treatises and lexicons, and Hume´s own. By these means, we will show that it is possible to understand Hume´s use of ´evidence´ as ´grounds for belief´ in both a psychological and an epistemological sense. Finally, we will define Hume´s notion of certainty as a state of mental satisfaction that is provisional to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the subject under consideration: relations of ideas or matters of fact. If ´evidence´ were associated plainly to belief, it would be hard to explain what Hume is meaning for demonstrative evidence that leads to knowledge, not to belief. But if it were taken as a synonym for ´conviction´ or ´assent´, it would be the same as certainty, which is inconsistent with Hume´s meaning of the latter as a particular mental state of stability and lack of hesitation. In terms of ´evidential grounds´, ´evidence´ plays a role in justifying our beliefs, because Hume does not admit certain and obscure propositions as the Scholastics did. If a belief is not supported by evidence it is mere credulity or illegitimate belief. On the other hand, assurance and conviction can consistently be related to certainty. Nevertheless, due to Hume´s mitigated skepticism, that mental satisfaction is not a permanent state, as it was to the Scholastics. It can be more lasting in the case of intuitive and demonstrative certainty than in the moral and physical ones, but it is always subject to fall into uneasiness, due both to psychological factors and to the appearance of contrary experiences.