well done Amara
Now let me quote this
To follow Kant one must also understand something about the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Hume had previously submitted that
if one follows the strictest rules of logical induction and deduction from experience to determine the true nature of the world, one must
arrive at certain conclusions. His reasoning followed lines that would result from answers to this question: Suppose a child is born
devoid of all senses; he has no sight, no hearing, no touch, no smell, no taste...nothing. There’s no way whatsoever for him to receive
any sensations from the outside world. And suppose this child is fed intravenously and otherwise attended to and kept alive for
eighteen years in this state of existence. The question is then asked: Does this eighteen-year-old person have a thought in his head? If
so, where does it come from? How does he get it?
Hume would have answered that the eighteen-year-old had no thoughts whatsoever, and in giving this answer would have defined
himself as an empiricist, one who believes all knowledge is derived exclusively from the senses. The scientific method of
experimentation is carefully controlled empiricism. Common sense today is empiricism, since an overwhelming majority would agree
with Hume, even though in other cultures and other times a majority might have differed.
The first problem of empiricism, if empiricism is believed, concerns the nature of "substance." If all our knowledge comes from
sensory data, what exactly is this substance which is supposed to give off the sensory data itself? If you try to imagine what this substance is, apart from what is sensed, you’ll find yourself thinking about nothing whatsoever.
Since all knowledge comes from sensory impressions and since there’s no sensory impression of substance itself, it follows logically
that there is no knowledge of substance. It’s just something we imagine. It’s entirely within our own minds. The idea that there’s
something out there giving off the properties we perceive is just another of those common-sense notions similar to the common-sense
notion children have that the earth is flat and parallel lines never meet.
Secondly, if one starts with the premise that all our knowledge comes to us through our senses, one must ask, From what sense data is
our knowledge of causation received? In other words, what is the scientific empirical basis of causation itself?
Hume’s answer is "None." There’s no evidence for causation in our sensations. Like substance, it’s just something we imagine when
one thing repeatedly follows another. It has no real existence in the world we observe. If one accepts the premise that all knowledge
comes to us through our senses, Hume says, then one must logically conclude that both "Nature" and "Nature’s laws" are creations of
our own imagination.
