A discussion on human understanding

Reading in the book "A Discussion on Human Understanding" by David Hume – Imad Al-Husnawi Hume, from the beginning, aspires to establish a science of man, and this ambition led him to explore human nature. The starting point in this research was to investigate the scope of human mental capacities and the limits they do not cross. Hume is a sensual philosopher, as described by Badawi in his encyclopedia, who believes that all mental perceptions fall into two categories or types distinguished by differences in strength and vitality. The perceptions of the less powerful and less vital type are called ideas, while the other are impressions. "Impressions are the only original perceptions, and ideas are merely copies of our impressions." One of the most significant issues raised and studied by Hume, and which spread among researchers under his name, is the discussion of causality or causation. Hume denied that there is a necessary connection between cause and effect or between event and result. This stance is similar to that of Al-Ghazali or the Ash'ari theologians, who deny causality in the sense that the result is necessarily contained within the cause. Although opinions are similar, the starting points are entirely different. Al-Ghazali denied causality to uphold monotheism and to preserve the ability of causation and action for the Creator alone. The claim that things possess in themselves the power to produce conflicts with his view that God is the only Creator. Hume’s denial of causality results from his theory of knowledge, considering it a product of sensory experience. Sensory experience only witnesses the repetition between events and results, and this repetition is what led us to imagine that there is a necessary relationship between the two events. Bertrand Russell, in his book "The Wisdom of the West," explains Hume’s position: "Hume disagrees with rationalists; they believe that the connection between cause and effect is an inherent trait in the nature of things. For example, as we saw in Spinoza’s belief that, if we contemplate things with enough breadth and scope, we can deduce that all phenomena should be as they are, although it is usually acknowledged that only God is capable of viewing things from this perspective. But in Hume’s view, these causal links cannot be known..." Discussion on Human Understanding Hume