philosophy
Isn't David Hume's conception of the principle of causality, and the doubt he casts on the ability to reach the conclusion that our senses lead us to, that everything is the result of a cause and effect, itself a form of empiricism? Hume also came to cast this doubt from his observation of the world. Isn't that so?
There is a daily assumption that what is not empirical is not acceptable. This itself is of course not an empirical assumption.
Arriving at doubt from observing the world is completely consistent with his method. If you observed and didn't see something, you doubt it. What's inconsistent here?
Rabbi, sometimes it seems like you present "intuition" as if it were a single piece: if we are forced to rely on it on one level (for example, logic or everyday induction), then we must also accept it on other levels (such as metaphysics, God, or cosmic causality). But perhaps there is a fundamental difference between different types of intuition?
It seems that basic intuitions – such as the sun will rise tomorrow, or that the floor will hold me when I stand on it – are part of our existential-experiential structure, almost inevitable, and therefore difficult to challenge. In contrast, metaphysical intuitions – for example, that the world must have a first cause – do not stem from everyday experience but from distant abstraction, and are even very vulnerable to psychological biases such as teleological tendency or cognitive bias.
So, why not argue that there is a spectrum of intuitions, and not everything falls into the same obligatory category? That is, we can accept the inevitable intuitions that structure our very ability to think and live, but reject or at least suspend the more distant and speculative intuitions that are not truly necessary for our existence.
In other words: why accept the dichotomous picture of "absolute skepticism or acceptance of any intuition whatsoever," and not offer an intermediate position, which, like sophisticated empiricism, accepts the necessary minimum but no more?
I am certainly not claiming that intuition is a one-size-fits-all. What I am claiming is that someone who rejects intuition outright (i.e. does not accept products of intuition as acceptable) will have to reject it in all areas. Someone who says they have a different intuition than me, but accepts in principle the validity of intuitions, is a different argument that I did not discuss.
I would also point out that it has nothing to do with the question of necessity. Either you accept the intuition or you don't. Just because you have to accept something doesn't mean it's actually true. Just as even if God is the only basis for valid morality, that doesn't mean one has to accept God's existence. It's possible that there is no God and then there really is no valid morality. The desired and the actual are two different things.
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