Welcome to this 18th lecture on the course Aspects of Western Philosophy and this lecture we will focus on one of the most important philosophers in the Western world, David Hume. So, his importance is something which we are going to see after we discuss David Hume's contributions. We are going to introduce what is known as critical philosophy and the prime contributor is Immanuel Kant and there is one statement made by Immanuel Kant which would actually immortalize David Hume. Kant all of us know is one of most important thinkers in the whole history of philosophy, the great founder of German idealism we can say and Kant once mentioned that it was David Hume who had awakened him from his dogmatic slumbers. So, there is something in Hume's philosophy which actually shakes all of us and when Hume philosophized it has shaken the foundations of Western philosophy and some of the foundations are extremely important because it has implications. Hume's philosophical positions had implications on some of the assumptions or rather it questioned some of the assumptions which were taken for granted by the development of sciences. Say for example, the validity of the process of induction which Hume had shown that it is how shaken it is the problem of induction with the introduction of the problem by Hume had demonstrated that natural sciences to a great extent rest on inductive reasoning and there is something inherently problematic about this so called inductive reasoning and again some of his positions questioned basic foundations of morality or ethics and Hume was a great skeptic a radical empiricist thinker who actually belongs to the tradition of great empiricism which begins from John Locke then continued with Berkeley and many other philosophers, but we would find a kind of logical conclusion of the empiricist position in Hume's philosophy. So, let us begin with a quote from Bertrand Russell, quote David Hume is one of the most important among philosophers because he developed to its logical conclusion the empirical philosophy of George Locke and Berkeley and by making itself consistent made it incredible. He represents in a certain sense a dead end in his direction it is impossible to go further. So, wonderful observation by Bertrand Russell that he represents in a certain a dead end and in his direction it is not possible to go further. So, that is Hume the most radical among all the philosophers probably in the modern western world. Now, let us focus on Hume's position I mean I have already mentioned that Hume belongs to that tradition of empiricist thinkers where John Locke and Berkeley have immensely contributed to the development of the basic the fundamental empiricist doctrine which fundamentally asserts that every knowledge is a result of experience and when Locke said that every knowledge is the result of experience according to him is sensation and reflection Berkeley never deviated from this fundamental position. He had only taken this Lockean position to its logical conclusions and this is exactly what Hume also is trying to do, but in a more extreme fashion. So, he accepts the empirical theory of the origin of knowledge proposed by Locke accepts Berkeley's condention a site precipitate to be is to be perceived. If this is the case then some of the conclusions which Locke and Berkeley had arrived are mistaken this is what Hume sees and then again he concludes from these basic assumptions a radical form of empiricism that makes room for skepticism and even nihilism. So, this is his conclusion it takes us to a kind of skepticism and ultimately to a kind of nihilism which we are going to see it not in this lecture, but we will see this logical conclusions of his position in the next lecture. Now, let us see the objectives. So, there is a fundamental objective like his predecessors he also begins with an understanding or with an examination of human nature and this is something which you find in the approach of almost all these traditional this modern empiricist philosophers Locke Berkeley Hume and many others that they all not distinguish between a logical approach from a psychological approach. So, these two approaches are interming and here we can say that for Hume all sciences have a relation to human nature and hence it is important to study human nature with the science of man. So, when he talks about a science of man it is not necessarily a kind of logical study it is also a psychological study and he should also keep in mind that Hume lived in a period where there was an explosion in the world of human scientific knowledge that was the modern period and Hume was already come up with this contributions or rather it is happening and many such developments were happening all over Europe. So, naturally all great philosophers and thinkers were influenced by these developments in the natural sciences Hume was not an exception to this. So, he also calls it his philosophy a science of man a science of man or moral philosophy he would like to call it the only solid foundation we can give to the other sciences. So, he thought that again you know you can very interestingly see that there is an attempt to establish philosophies foundational status. Philosophy has always been all these great ancient philosophers have always conceived philosophy as a foundational discipline. It is a foundation for all other discipline all other sciences it is quite natural that true that it is a fact that there are tremendous development in the sphere of modern sciences natural sciences, but these philosophers would argue that even these natural sciences the so called technological and other developments which natural sciences undergo they presuppose certain foundations or the foundations of these fundamental scientific enquiries can be located in philosophical assumptions and condemnation. So, that is what Hume also does he says that there must be a laid in experience the foundations of the science of man should be laid in experience and observation like natural sciences. So, he was influenced by the method adopted by natural sciences particularly the Newtonian sciences. So, he proposes an experimental method of reasoning. So, that is what he does exactly he examines the origin of human knowledge he observes it and says that if you observe it if you apply this method the method of natural sciences to the science of man. You can see that this knowledge actually originates from certain foundational sources certain kinds of the foundational archetypes of knowledge and according to Hume these foundational blocks of human knowledge or impressions we are going to discuss that. Now, human nature is the capital or center of the sciences and the science of man should venture to understand it to enquire into the nature of the human understanding and to analyze the powers and capacities of human understanding. So, everything is based upon an examination and analysis of this something called human understanding how knowledge how does a man understand something or how do human beings understand the world knowledge. Knowledge is the basic object of enquiring the major issue is the origin and nature of knowledge. Now, when you talk about a science naturally what comes to our mind is the question of method because all sciences follow natural sciences particularly follow a method a specific method. So, the question of method is intrinsically linked with the notion of science. Now, Hume also proposes when he proposes a new science he has to propose a methodology and he says that experimental method as I have already mentioned should be applied also in the study of man extend the methods of the Newtonian science to the human nature as well observe man's psychological processes and of his moral behavior. So, this is what I mentioned earlier that there is no distinction made between logical and psychological or empirical or whatever these philosophers in that sense are psychologist a problem which the modern the contemporary the 20th century empiricist encounter and try to overcome. We can see that developments in empiricism in the 19th and 20th centuries in west would address this problem initiated by they were all empiricists there were several empiricists but they thought that they should keep a distance from the kind of empiricism these great thinkers like Locke Berkeley and Hume were advocating because that involves a kind of psychologism. So, we can see that approach is fundamentally psychological and the contemporary 20th century or 19th and 20th century empiricists were trying to describe their method as logical rather than psychological. So, there is the whole process called anti-psychologism we will discuss it when we discuss modern empiricism. Now, here again find out their principles and causes again it is a psychological approach and start with the empirical data and employ the method of induction and collect data gain from introspection and observation of human life and conduct. So, this is to give you a picture about what sort of methodology Hume was proposing to adopt in a study of the science of man this figure represents the Humean project in a nutshell. So, the whole approach is to understand the origin of human knowledge here and the questions the most important questions are what is the source of our knowledge you can see that some of these questions are actually repetitions which his predecessors also have raised. The second question is what are the certainty extent and limitations of human knowledge and the third one is what value does certain forms of knowing or certain categories like substance and causality have. So, these are the fundamental questions which Hume was trying to answer and he begins with the origin of knowledge to examine the contents of the mind or perceptions which are derived from experience. So, as I mentioned he follows the fundamental assumptions of empiricist epistemology advocated by Locke and Berkeley where the contents of mind is comprised of what you call perceptions and Berkeley famously has stated that to be is to be perceived.  So, that is the fundamental objects of your study now again perceptions are further divided into impressions and idea. So, this is the Humean contribution into empiricist epistemology. So, you can see that from Locke to Berkeley there is a certain change in approach Berkeley is not a representationalist while Locke was for Locke there was a world a kind of real world out there and which is independent of the mind which perceives it. And for Berkeley this distinction is abolished he would say that there is only ideas and my mind and in Hume we would see that this kind of a radical empiricist approach was taken to its logical conclusions which we will discuss in the next lecture where he would say that the famous statement no matter never mind even the mental substance. Berkeley has questioned the notion of physical substance or material substratum advocated by John Locke and he would say that there are only my mind and the world and its images whatever it perceives. But here for David Hume it was even further radicalized have he would say that even mind itself is not a substance, but a bundle of impressions there is nothing like a substance as such and we would see that David Hume in that sense is a skeptic power excellence. So, he would say that if you examine your perceptions you would find only your impressions and ideas and these are very important terms in Hume's philosophy impressions and ideas they are not one and the same there is a certain difference between impressions and ideas I will explain that shortly. These are the building blocks of all our knowledge. So, fundamentally identifying the building blocks of knowledge and the condense of mind as I have already mentioned our impressions they are sensations and feeling they are so direct sensations this direct sensations which I get the feeling of pleasure pain all these things. So, which is very direct and immediate are strong and vivid because they are so immediate they are very strong and impressions of sensation derive from our senses and impressions of reflection from our experience of our mind feeling of emotions. So, as I mentioned they are vivid they are very strong they are so immediate and direct directly given to me and when you talk about ideas, ideas are related to thinking when I think about say the kind of emotion I have or the kind of feeling I have the sensation I get when I enter this room there is a temperature difference in this room because this room is air conditioned suddenly I feel a difference in temperature it is a feeling it is so vivid and strong I immediately felt it but when I think about this feeling now I am thinking about it that what is the kind of feeling I had when I entered this room there is a sudden change in temperature which I could feel but I do not experience that feeling with all its intensity and strength right now when I think about it now I have only a kind of image of it. So, it is related to concepts believes memories mental images etcetera derived from and our copies of impressions. So, my thinking about that temperature difference right now gives a kind of idea in my mind idea about that temperature difference which is nothing but a copy of the feeling of that temperature difference I experience and I entered this room. So, one is direct and vivid and strong the other one is a little vague because it is a copy a copy can never be like the original they are faint and unclear to that extent and ideas of sensations there are like impressions of sensations and impressions of reflection similarly you have ideas of sensations and ideas of reflection like ideas of sensations are color and ideas of reflection example a kind of an emotion I am feeling so happy so satisfied for certain reasons that so direct, but when I think about it it becomes an idea again a little further a difference of forcefulness and vivacity I have already explained the difference between an idea and an impression is a difference between forcefulness and vivacity ideas are faint copies of impression less forceful a forcible and lively and to listen to music and to imagine or remember that music when I listen to a music I almost become part of it I experience that harmony with all its vivacity all its liveliness, but when I think about it after sometime oh the music which I heard which I listened how wonderful that experience was still I experience it as a pleasant experience, but the intensity is less. So, that is what makes an idea different from an impression impressions are our sensations passions and emotions at they make their first appearance in the soul as they make their first appearance the direct hit. So, it is so intense in that sense the most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensations this is what Hume says the most lively thought is inferior to dullest sensations. So, let us have this figure would explain again would give you a picture about Hume's program once again to summarize once again it starts with the question of the origin of knowledge and when you try to understand the origin of knowledge you would see that there are outward and inward impressions, impressions from senses and impressions from reflection and they are more lively perceptions in that sense and when we hear or see or feel or love or hate or desire or will you have impressions all our sensations passions and emotions as they make their first appearance in the soul I have just explained actually understood that is the kind of definition for an impression and thoughts or ideas or copies of impressions. So, this is what we have seen now again a little bit about impressions the materials furnished us by the senses and experience. They are the basic materials which we receive or which we have which forms the foundation blocks or the building blocks of all our knowledge however complicated it is all knowledge is built up by compounding transposing augmenting or diminishing impressions. So, we make these impressions put together them try to see their relationship between each other and this is how the entire knowledge system which we have built every idea we have is a copy of a similar impression. So, I have an idea about the music which I listened sometime back which is nothing but a copy of my experience my direct feeling when I actually listened it in that music room where there is no impression there is no idea a blind man has no notion of color. So, what Hume was trying to argue is that every knowledge has its foundation in these impressions if there are no impressions no idea. So, let us think about many things which we come across in our life if you apply this Humean idea there are many things in which we take for granted in our lives are problematic. For example, cause effect relationship I say that there are two events are related in such a way that one is the cause of other. For example, when I clap my hand there is a sound my clapping is the cause of the sound but Hume would say that I can hear the clapping I can see the clapping and I hear the sound they are two events. But where is that causal connection where there is no impression there is an impression of two hands coming together and an impression of sound, but there is no impression of the causal necessary connection between the hands coming together and the sound produced. So, there are many such things say for example, God when I talk about God God would save me what do you mean by God where is this impression of God there is nothing like that. So, you can question it you can challenge the validity of several such beliefs several such assumptions and several such concepts which we employ in our day to day life. Now, let us see a little bit more on the relation between impressions and ideas. So, this again is a figure which would give you an idea about this interrelationship. So, you start with impressions here impressions of sensations and impressions of reflection which sensations are arises in the soul from unknown causes we never know from where do they come from and impressions of reflections are derived from the ideas which we have. So, let us see the impressions of sensations like impressions of cold accompanied by the pain and this is being copied a copy of this impression is retained in the mind then it becomes an idea and then again straight away let us come here this produces new impressions of aversion for example, which we which are impressions of reflection which will again copied in the memory of imagination and become ideas. So, and it goes on and on and on. So, everything actually begins with impression then impressions are copied by ideas and these ideas sometimes are capable of producing further impressions and then again there will be an idea produced impressions ideas impressions like that it goes on the entire human system of knowledge develops in this fashion according to human. So, you have the process here once again impression strikes the senses perception heat or cold pleasure or pain this will be retained as a copy which is an idea idea of pleasure or pain which will create new impressions of reflection desire and aversion hope and fear which will be copied in the mind memory and imagination and again it goes on. Now, this passage from impressions to knowledge is a very important part in Hume's epistemology which is as we have already stated impressions are the basic building blocks of all thought and impressions and to each impression there is a corresponding idea and simple ideas are combined in order to produce complex idea. So, by this process which he calls the association of ideas Hume explains how complex systems of knowledge are formed out of this simple vivid impressions which we directly receive complex ideas are made up of materials provided by impressions and when we talk about the formation of complex idea ideas or thoughts exhibit a regularity we can see that one after another they introduce one another with a certain degree of method and regularity as I mentioned when I clap there is a sound there is a regularity in that or when I am thirsty when I drink some water my thirst will be quench that is another regularity. So, everything around me there is a regularity and a wound calls up an idea of pain suggesting a causal relationship that I now experience a pain or a wound calls up the idea of pain suggesting a causal relationship between these two things wound and pain. Ideas are associated with one another in terms of the principles of resemblance, contiguity in time and place and cause and effect this is what he says basically he would say that there are impressions and ideas and nothing else and this whole regularity which we experience necessary connection which we think objects or ideas may have with each other for example wound and pain it is nothing but produced in terms of certain principles like resemblance, contiguity in time and place and cause and effect and complex ideas are formed by the association of ideas according to these principles the process is called association of ideas which is a uniting principle among ideas. It is a very interesting aspect of Hume's work Hume's philosophical theory where he talks about the how ideas are associated with each other by means of a uniting principle some associating quality by which one idea naturally introduces another. So, the idea of hands coming together clapping and the idea of sound. So, some associating quality by which one idea naturally introduces another there is a quality associating quality between these two and what is it. So, again Hume is very careful when he uses words to describe this which he would later on by analyzing the very basis the very foundation the very logical foundation called the causality or cause effect relationship. So, here he says is that what he says is that it is a gentle force which commonly prevails that has unknown courses a given innate force or impulse in man which moves him to combine together certain types of ideas. So, there is something in the human mind a kind of tendency in the human mind a kind of given innate force or a gentle force in the human mind which makes it to connect one idea with another. Now, let us see a little more about relations because this is as I mentioned it is at the center of Humean epistemology. It says that all our reasoning concerns the relations between things. So, everything we understand reasoning knowledge everything we understand in this world is based on relating things among each other all knowledge all understanding even life itself is possible because the human mind has a capacity to relate one idea with another. So, when I go out of this room I know that it is raining. So, I need an umbrella rain umbrella outside the room all these are ideas. So, my mind is capable of rating all these things. So, that I can live a practical life in this world otherwise it is impossible. So, all our reasoning concerns the relation between things they are the objects of human reason or inquiry and when it comes to relations since relations occupy a central role in not only in philosophy, but also in human life human practical day to day life. This idea of this whole notion of relations occupy a very central role. So, Hume dedicates some time to enquire about this relations and he says that logically speaking there are two types of relations possible and philosophically we should try to understand them what is their nature. Because it is upon these types of these two types of relationships all our reasoning is based on. So, what are these two types of basic forms of reasonings number one relations of ideas and the other one is matters of fact. So, objects of human reasoning relations of ideas and matters of fact what you mean by relations of ideas. So, as the title itself indicates there are ideas and certain relationship between them nothing else one idea is related with another in a certain way. And here what he says is that the sciences of geometry algebra and arithmetic are examples where we will find relations of ideas where the relations asserted are necessary. For example, when you say 3 plus 2 is equal to 5 when I say 3 plus 2 equal to 5 I am establishing a relationship or I am asserting a relationship between 3 and 2 and this is necessary nothing would make it different it is always 3 plus 2 is equal to 5. The truth of these propositions of these sciences are independent of questions about existence I need not verified say for example, when I say that there are 20 chairs in this room statement needs to be verified someone needs to come here and count whether there are 20 chairs and it might be true or it might be false it is a contingent proposition you are not certain about it. There is nothing that makes this statement necessarily true I can always add one chair or take out one chair from this room. So, that there is a possibility that whatever number at a given point of time is true may not be true later on, but in the case of 3 plus 2 equal to 5 it is never going to change at all. So, mathematical propositions arithmetic geometry and algebra are domains where you have relations of ideas all reasoning happens by virtue of this relations of ideas and they are going to provide us absolute certainty in that way. Because they are independent of questions about existence and every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain you can demonstrate the certainty of these mathematical statement. And again the truth of these propositions depend on the relations between ideas or on the meanings of certain symbols what is the meaning of 3 and what is the meaning of plus and what is the meaning of 2 what is the meaning of equal to would explain 5. So, it is basically nothing to do with what is this case in the world their truth requires no confirmation from experience the truth of the proposition depends simply on the meaning of terms I have already explained it their truth is independent of any application though mathematics finds some application in the world the truth of mathematical propositions are independent of applicability the truth cannot be refuted by experience and they are formal propositions not empirical hypothesis all about relations of ideas. And here there is a classic example given to relations of ideas the Pythagorean theorem. So, here it talks about a triangle on a right triangle the square of the hypotenuse is. So, let us say a b c. So, the hypotenuse is c and the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides which means a square plus b square is equal to c square. So, this is the Pythagorean theorem which is a classical example for relations of ideas where the truth of these proposition or truth of this judgment depends solely on the meaning of the symbols used here. And has nothing to do with what is the case in the world now when you concentrate on the relations of matters of fact there is no a priori truth revealed here when I say there are 20 chairs in this room when I say there are two human beings in this room when I say the temperature outside is 25 degree Celsius all these are not a priori truths they are not a priori judgments they are not true by virtue of statement alone, but they are a posteriori they are to be discovered by empirical verification they cannot be discovered by thought alone like in the case of Pythagorean theorem. They are discovered by means of sense experience I have to observe I have to just come here and physically count whether there are 20 chairs or more or less I have to verify it and neither intuitively not demonstratively certain these propositions are and judgment concerning matters of fact can be denied without contradiction if someone says that there are 20 chairs in this room I can deny the fact I can say that no it is not correct there are no 20 chairs in this or it is not true that there are 20 chairs in this room without any logical contradiction as I mentioned I can take away one chair or put one other chair and make the also the number of chairs in this room or to put it in other words there is nothing that necessitates this room to contain only 20 chairs 20 and only 20 chairs if there is no logical necessity and it is based on the belief that there is a connection between cause and effect, but at the same time Hume acknowledges that this is a very important relationship and practical life demands that people take for granted the relationship between matters of facts that when I am sweating a lot if I go to a air conditioned room I will get a relief or when I am feeling thirsty if I drink water that will quench my thirst or if I am feeling hungry if I eat something that will satisfy my hunger all these are matters of fact something which is very essential for practical day to day life so Hume never denies it he only says that if you try to argue that there is a necessary connection between this event and that event that is philosophically problematic so he says that it is based on the belief that there is a connection between cause and effect products of inductive inferences see for example how do you know that by drinking water your thirst will be quenched or to put it to raise another question how do you know that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow your answer to this question is that it has risen today morning in the east yesterday morning also it is risen in the east day before yesterday morning also it is risen in the east and all these days I have seen that the sun rising in the east in the morning so it will rise in the morning tomorrow as well Hume's objection is how can you say this you have observed certain events happening in the past certain events that have happened in the past have been observed but from there how can you conclude that the sun will rise tomorrow in the east there is no logical certainty in the sense 1 plus 2 equal to 3 so long as there is no logical certainty one cannot assert it without any doubt so there is always an element of doubt skepticism there is scoffer skepticism according to Hume now there is no causal relationship from what impression or impressions the idea of causation is derived that is Hume's famous question no quality of those things which we call causes can be the origin of the idea of causation we cannot discover any quality which is common to them all what do you mean by this causation a cost b in what sense you can say that there is a necessary connection between a and b so that one is a cost of another or one is a effect of another the idea of causation must be derived from some relation among objects and he says that the basis of this belief is experience a posteriori and not a priori so derivation of causal relation we will invest a little more time on this very important relationship which is very important for Hume and philosophy also so he says that the causality the relation of causality can be understood in terms of three principles the first one is contingency which we have already mentioned very briefly the second one is temporal priority we say that the effect will be followed by the cost the cost will come first and then the effect will turn up and the third one is necessary connection we understand causation as a necessary connection between two events or two things a and b for example so let us take contingency and temporal priority contingency is whatever objects are considered as causes or effects are either immediately or immediately conjugates spatial contingency is not essential to the idea of causation see here the thing is that there is a kind of immediate or immediate conjugative between two objects we tend to assume that they are costly related one follows the other here again when it comes to temporal priority experience confirms that cost must be temporarily prior to the effect so there is an idea of temporal succession and effect cannot be perfectly contemporary with its cost so as the simple example which I have cited when I clap there is the sight of two hands coming together and the sound produced so there is a temporal priority I do not hear the sound first and see the clap later it is always the other way round and necessary connection is the common belief now let us come to this important aspect of causality, contingency and temporal succession are not really essential to the idea of causation because just because something is conviguous or just because there is temporal priority we cannot say that one is a cause of another but to assert causal relationship we need to invent another important category which is called necessary connection a is a cause of b because a and b are necessarily connected the common belief that cause effect relationship is necessary and neither contiguity nor temporal priority is an essential element of causal relation I have already explained this so you need something like a necessary relationship between cause and effect from what impression or impressions is the idea of necessary connection derived that is the humane problem that is the humane question he even challenges you are talking about necessary connection now show me the impressions from where you have derived this notion of necessary connection and if there are no impressions there is no knowledge impressions are the building blocks of all knowledge so if you can show me the impressions of this necessary connection I would accept your position otherwise I am sorry I cannot so necessity is there are certain important questions about necessity which humerizes on what basis do we assert that it is necessary that everything whose existence as a beginning should also have a cause so the very foundation of the notion of causation is that there is a belief that everything that exist has a cause and hume says how how can is why what is your basis of such a belief on what basis do you contend that everything that exist should have a cause why do we conclude that particular cause must necessarily has a particular effect a particular cause must necessarily have a particular effect or what is the nature of the inference we draw from the one to the other and the idea that everything has a cause neither intuitively certain nor demonstrable that is what he says and again we conceive an object as non existent at one moment and as existent at the next moment without having any distinct idea of a cause or productive principle we can always do that and again our belief in causation arises from mere experience and observation we experience two events coming together always so since that was our experience the example which I have cited sun rising in the east every day morning I see sun rising in the east so I assume that there is a connection between morning and suns rising in the east so there are two important views which would assert that causation is a necessary relationship so one is that if everything if anything began to exist without a cause it says that everything has a cause if as Hume says anything began to exist without a cause it would cause itself which is impossible because in order to cause itself it should exist so there should be something which has caused it the second one is a thing which came into being without a cause would be caused by nothing and nothing cannot be the cause of anything nothing cannot be this is something which lock has initiated and to which Hume's criticism is they beg the question by presupposing the validity of the very principle which they are supposed to demonstrate namely that anything which begins to exist must have a cause so in that sense Hume shatters Hume actually shows that demonstrates that all these conceptions about causation are inherently problematic and he asserts that causation is not a logical relationship there is nothing logically necessary about the cause of relationship knowledge about cause is not the result of intuition never look beyond objects and the ideas which we form of them so we have the objects we have the ideas never say that there is a relationship which we can establish between these two no object implies the existence of any other object so when I say that the heat produces warmth there is a kind of causal relationship I am implying Hume says that you have heat you have warmth never say that you have a relationship between them because there are no impressions which suggest such a relationship all distinct ideas are separable there is no logical connection between them there is no logical necessity between heat and warmth and the basis of causality according to so here Hume employs a psychological method that is what I mentioned in the beginning that the Humean method is also psychological or it is fundamentally psychological so he examines how do we form the idea of causality the basis of causality so here he says that we infer the existence of one object from another by experience we frequently experience the conjunction of two objects flame and warmth fire and warmth conjunction trapping and sound again a conjunction so two objects are joined together and their frequent conjunction has been experienced by us and we see flame and the sensation heat these objects have appeared in a regular recurrent order of contiguity and succession one after another always conjoint in my experience whenever there is an occurrence of fire there was an occurrence of warmth or heat whenever there was an occurrence of hands clapping there was an occurrence of sound so all my experience I have seen that you know there is a kind of constant conjunction between these two events and we call the one cause and the other effect and infer the existence of the one from that of the other and the questions are from what impression or impressions the idea of necessary connection is derived where is that impression you have the impression of clapping and you have the impression of sound you have the impression of fire you have the impression of warmth but where is the impression of necessary connection between these distinct events that is something which we never see only the only thing we have seen is that in our experience we have observed that they appear jointly one after another they are eternally or constantly conjoined not from the experience of constant conjunction then not from observation of regular sequences of causal connection we perceive only their constant conjunction no impressions about causal relationship and there is no necessary relationship necessity is the effect of observation of several instances of constant conjunction and again this is only an internal impression of the mind something which the mind creates it is not objectively present but the mind attributes the mind superimposes on the world or on impressions the propensity so this is very carefully used words it is a propensity caused by custom or association it is a habit of mind according to Hume that since two objects are conjoined we have seen them coming one after another on several instances there is a propensity or a tendency of the mind to see an internal connection between them that is a custom that is a habit of the mind or association to pass from an observe thing to another that is constantly conjoined to that so when I see clouds I would infer that it is going to rain because that is my experience I have seen them joint conjoined again in psychological terms this Locke explains the process of a causality or causation the psychological effect of observation of instances of constant conjunction so it is the habit of mind it is trace back to a kind of propensity of the mind it is custom something which ultimately the mind brings in and imposes in the world tendency of the mind to pass naturally from one idea to another to form or from an impression to another an idea propensity or custom we pass beyond experience and expect that every event will have some cause there are no uncaused events and in this connection Hume also introduces this problem of induction because basically the causal relationship is based on something what we understand as induction inductive relationship where we observe several particular cases and conclude a general principle from that we have observed that all crows are black in color I mean that is my observation and I would conclude that all crows are black which include past present and future instances of crows appearances so this process of induction Hume found is problematic because induction is the drawing of inferences from past experience of constant conjunction of two objects to present or future events the principle of induction cannot be logically deduce from experience I can only say that things have been like that they were regularly conjoined but from that experience I cannot deduce a kind of necessary connection between events induction involves a leap from observed cases to the unobserved which is uncertain so it always leaves a room for uncertainty according to Hume there is no logical necessity guaranteed there is no certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow the famous Humean statement and let us conclude before that let us see some of these issues which will figure in again when we discuss the next lecture because again we are going to concentrate on other aspects of Hume's philosophy in the next lecture and Hume's influence is going to be visible in all the philosophers we are going to discuss here after so Hume's impact are I mean he has created a kind of or initiated a kind of skepticism about the world self and personal identity issues which will we will discuss in our next lecture then we have already seen his refutation of the principle of causality in this lecture and the problem of induction we have already mentioned it so these issues and problems have the tremendous influence on philosophy after Hume particularly the concept of causation the problem of induction because modern science to a very great extent relies on two processes of reasoning induction and detection and it is very important that you know most of modern science develops on the basis of observations and experiments which are nothing but based on inductive reasoning and Hume is questioning the very foundation Hume is questioning the very basis of this process of making induction the validity of this inductive reasoning is being questioned. So, these issues which will we will discuss in the next lecture so as I already mentioned we have just introduced Hume and one more lecture we dedicate to understand some of his other teachings the very important philosopher he is no doubt in that and here after we can see that you know Kant I have already mentioned and when it comes to 19th and 20th century philosophy the influence and impact of Hume is tremendous and phenomenal. So, let us wind up this lecture thank you.


Now, the Hope 23 Yahya Bello Presidential Campaign Organization has refuted in strong terms a fake report that Governor Yahya Bello has also picked a silent form. Yahya Bello Presidential Campaign Organization described the report as a laughable concoction of desperate aspirants who would do anything to be in the shoes of Governor Bello. Don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


The Internet of Things, IoT, has become increasingly important in the construction industry due to its ability to provide significant efficiency gains. However, small construction projects often lack the necessary resources to implement IoT technologies. This study identified the key barriers to implementing IoT technologies in small construction projects in Malaysia. These included database and technology issues, as well as management challenges. The findings suggest that these barriers should be addressed through improved databases and technology, better project management, and more effective communication between stakeholders. Additionally, this study provides practical implications for future researchers and construction workers who can use the findings to improve the implementation of IoT technologies in small construction projects in Malaysia. This article was authored by Esan Lakkar, Muhammad Basik Khan, Nasir Shafiq, and others.


The US Sixth Fleet has provided credible combat forces and reliable partnership since 1950. And this year, the command celebrates a significant milestone. Established February 12, 1950, 2020 marks the 70th anniversary of the US Sixth Fleet. Each day, Sixth Fleet forces are constantly on alert and ready to respond to threats or crises around the region. Our people and ships are readily postured, capable of responding to any tasking at a moment's notice. There are more than 100 countries and more than 30% of the world's land mass in our area of operation. That includes 67% of the world's coastline stretching from the North Pole to Antarctica. The responsibility is great. Our sailors operate from bases in Rota Spain, Siganela Sicily, Suda Bay Creek, and Gaeta, Italy. The command itself is headquartered in the historic and strategically located Maritime port city of Naples, Italy. In 1807, the United States' first overseas naval installation was established at Port Mahone on the Spanish island of Minorca. From conflicts with the Barbary pirates to the invasion of Normandy, and now, today's missions in and around the Mediterranean Sea, the US Navy's history in this massive area of the world stretches back more than 200 years. Today, Sixth Fleet has six standing task forces, and the Navy's most advanced command and control ship, USS Mount Whitney, along with four forward-deployed Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers. Rotationally deploying carrier strike groups, Marine expeditionary units, support ships, and land-based patrol aircraft are all at the Fleet Commander's disposal. For 70 years, the Sixth Fleet has enhanced transatlantic security through support to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, building partnership capacity, and working with partners to promote trade and freedom, stop unlawful activity at sea, and ensure enduring relationships with allies. Our sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen fill these missions and contribute to a safe and secure maritime environment for more than one billion people across Europe and Africa. Together with our global partners, we're making a difference. US Sixth Fleet enables and assists them to combat problems such as illegal fishing, piracy, drug and human trafficking, and environmental degradation. Working with them to improve maritime safety and security, as many nations in our theater have been severely impacted by illegal activity at sea. Throughout Europe and Africa, we assist our allies and partners in developing the capability to collectively respond to crises and conflict from the sea. Sixth Fleet remains a pre-positioned force ready to respond to any crisis or conflict as it unfolds. Our presence enhances security and stability in the maritime domain. The US Sixth Fleet team brings together a robust organization to handle operations, intelligence, logistics, policy, resources, strategy, future operations, and personnel, which harvests and represents the strength of the nation's diversity. Our maritime skills and proficiencies are honed with our partners and allies by conducting more than 70-plus joint exercises annually, including Sea Breeze in the Black Sea, Baltops in the Baltic Sea, and the Express Series around the West, North and East of Africa. With our partners in Europe and Africa, our forces are meeting the challenges of changing the world and continuing to advance the art and science of maritime operations. The task is daunting. The threats are many, but the rewards are great. This is Commander, US Sixth Fleet, a power for peace for 70 years.


Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering IBM Think 2018, brought to you by IBM. Welcome back to IBM Think 2018. This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante, and this is our third day of wall-to-wall coverage of IBM Think. Dinesh Nirmala series, the vice president of analytics development at IBM. Dinesh, great to see you again. We just saw each other a couple of weeks ago. I know, in New York. And, yeah, and of course in Big Data SV. Right. The Strata conference, so great to see you again. Well, thank you. A little different venue here. We had real intimate in New York City and in San Jose. I know. Massive. What are your thoughts on bringing all the clients together like this? I mean, it's great, because we have combined all the conferences into one, which obviously helps, because the messaging is very clear to our clients on what we are doing end to end, but the feedback has been tremendous. I mean, very positive. What has the feedback been like in terms of how you guys are making progress in the analytics group? What are they like? What are they asking you for more of? Right. So on the analytics side, the data is growing by petabytes a day. And the question is like, how do they create insights into this massive amount of data that they have in their premise or on cloud? So we have been working to make sure that how can we build the tools to enable our customers to create insights, whether the data is on private cloud, public or hybrid. And that's a very unique value proposition that we bring to our customers, where regardless of where your data is, we can help you, whether it's cloud, private or hybrid. Well, so we're living in this multi-petabyte world now, like overnight, it became multi-petabyte. And one of the challenges, of course, people have is not only how do you deal with that volume of data, but how do I act on it and get insights quickly? How do I operationalize it? So maybe you could talk about some of the challenges of operationalizing data. Right, so when I look at machine learning, there is three Ds, I always say, and the first D is the data, the development of the models and the deployment of the model. When I talk about operationalization, especially the deployment piece is the one that gets the most challenging for our enterprise customers. Once you clean the data and you build a model, how do you take that model and you bring it into your existing infrastructure? I mean, look at the large enterprises, right?  Zillion data marts and data warehouses. So into all of that, how do you infuse machine learning becomes very challenging. I met with the CTO of a major bank a few months ago and his statement kind of stands out to me where he said, Dinesh, it only took us three weeks to build a model. There's been 11 months, we still haven't deployed it. So that's the challenge our customers face and that's where we bring in the skill set, not just the tools, but we bring the skills to enable and bring that into production. So is that the challenge, it's the skill sets or is it the organizational inertia around, well, I don't have time to do that now because I got to get this report out or maybe you could talk about that a little bit. Right, so that is always there, right? I mean, because once a priority is set, obviously the different challenges pulled you in different directions. So every organization faces that to a large extent, but I think if you take from a pure technical perspective, I would say the challenge is two things, getting the right tools, getting the right skills. So with IBM what we are focusing is that how do we bring the right tools regardless of the form factor you have, whether cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and then how do we bring the right skills into it? So this week we announced the data science elite team who can come in and help you with building models, looking at the use cases, should we be using vanilla machine learning or should we be using deep learning? All those things and how do we bring that model into the production environment itself? So I would say tools and skills. So skills wise, so in the skills there's two, at least two passes, it's like the multi-tool athlete. You've got the understanding of the tech, you know the tools and most technology people say, I'll figure that out. But then there's this data and digital skills. It's like this double deep skills that is challenging. So you're saying you can help sort of kickstart that. And how does that work? That sort of a services engagement, that's part of the... So once you identify a use case, the data science elite team can come in because they have some level of vertical knowledge of your industry. They are very trained data scientists so they can come assess the use case, help you pick the right algorithms to build it and then help you deploy, cleanse the data. I mean you bring up a very, very good point. I mean let's just look at the data, right? The personas that's involved in data, there is the data engineer, there's the data scientist, there's the data worker, there's the data steward, there's the CDO. So that's just the data piece, right? I mean there's so many personas that has to come together. And that's why I said the skills is a very critical piece of all of it. But also working together, the collaboration is important. All right, tell us more about IBM Cloud Private for data. We've heard of IBM Cloud Private. Cloud Private for data is new, what's that all about? Right, so we announced IBM Cloud Private for data this week and let me tell you Dave, this has been the most significant announcement from an analytic perspective probably in a while that we are getting such a positive response. And I'll tell you why. So when you look at the platform, our customers want three things. One, they want to be able to build on top of the platform. They want it to be open and they want it to be extensible. And we have all three available. The platform is built on Kubernetes, so it's completely open, it's scalable, it's elastic, all those features comes with it. And then we put the end to end so you can ingest the data, you can cleanse it or transform it, you can build models or do deep analytics on it, you can visualize it. So you can do everything on the platform. So I'll take an example like blockchain, for example. I mean you have, if I were to simplify it, right, you have the ledger where you are obviously putting your transactions in and then you have a state database that where you're putting your latest transactions in. The ledger is unstructured. So how do you ask that is getting filled? How do you ingest that, transform it on the fly, and be able to write into a persistent place and do analytics on it. Only a platform can do with that kind of volume of data and that's where the data platform brings in, which is very unique, especially on the modern applications that you want to do. Yes, because if you don't have the platform, let's unpack this a little bit. You've got a series of bespoke products and then you've got just a lot of latency in terms of the elapsed time to get to the insights. Along the way, you've got data consistency issues, data quality, maybe it's variable, things change. I mean think about it, right? If you don't have the platform, then you have siloed products. So all of a sudden you got to get a product for your governance, your integration catalog, you need to get a product for ingest, you got to get a product for persistence, you got to get a product for analytics, you got to get a product for visualization, and then you add the complexity of the different personas working together between the multitude of products. You have a mess in your hand at that point. The platform solves that problem because it brings you an integrated end-to-end solution that you can use to build, I mean for example, blockchain in this case. Okay, I've asked you this before, but I got to ask you again and get it on record. Thank you. So a lot of people will hear that and say okay, but it's a bunch of bespoke products that IBM has taken, they put a UI layer on top and called it a platform. So what defines a platform and how have you not done that? It actually created the platform. So we are taking the functionality of the existing products and that's what differentiates us, right? I mean if you look at our governance portfolio, I can sit here and very confidently say no one can match that. So we obviously have that strength. Right, real depth that we can bring. So we are bringing the functionality, but what we have done is like we have taken the existing products and disintegrated into microservices so we can make it cloud native. So that is a huge step for us, right? And then once you make that containerized and microservices, it fits into the open platform that we talked about before and now you have an end-to-end well orchestrated pipeline that's available in the platform that can scale and be elastic as needed. So it's not that we are bringing the products, we are bringing the functionality of it. But I want to keep on this for a second. So the experience for the user is different if you microservice what you say because if you just did what I said to put a layer, UI layer on top, you would be going into these stove pipes and then call the sack and then coming back. Coming back. So the development effort for that must have been fairly massive. I mean you could have done the UI layer in months. Right, right, right. Then it is not really a cloud native way of doing it, right? I mean if you're just changing the UI and the experience that's completely different. What we have done is that we have completely re-architected the underlying product suite to meet the experience and the underlying platform layer. So how long did this take? What kind of resources did you have to throw at this from a development standpoint? So this has been in development for 12 to 18 months and we put a tremendous amount of resources to make this happen. I mean fortunately in our case we have the depth, we have the functionality. So it was about translating that into the cloud native way of doing the app development. And did you approach this with sort of multiple small teams or was there a larger team? What was your philosophy? It was multiple of small teams, right? I mean so if you look at our governance portfolio we got to take our governance catalog, rewrite that code. If you look at our master data management portfolio we got to take. So it's multiple of small teams with very core focus. I mean I ask you these questions because I think it adds credibility to the claims that you're making about. We have a platform, not a series of bespoke products. Right, and we demoed it. Actually tomorrow at 11 I'm going to deep dive into the architecture of the whole platform itself, how we built it, what are the components we used and I'm going to demo it. So the code is up and running and we are going to put it out there in 2Q for everybody to go use it. At Mandalay Bay you're just demoing that or where is that demo? It's in Mandalay Bay. So we have a session at 11.30. Talk more about machine learning and how you've infused machine learning into the portfolio. Right, so every part of our product portfolio has machine learning. So I'll take two examples. One is DB2. So today DB2 optimizer is a cost based optimizer. We have taken the optimizer and infused machine learning into it to say based on the query that's coming in, take the right access path, predict the right access path and take it. That has been such a great experience because we are seeing 30 to 50% performance improvement in most of the queries that we run through the machine learning. So that's one. The other one is the classification. So let's say you have a business term and you want to classify. So if you have a zip code, we can use in our catalog to say, there's an 80% chance this particular number is a zip code. And then it can learn over time. If you tell it, no, that's not a zip code. That's a postcode in Canada. So the next time you put that in there, it has learned. So every product we have infused machine learning and that's our goal is to become completely a cognitive platform pretty soon.  So what can we expect?  We've seen you go from sort of a bespoke product, company division to this platform division, injecting now machine learning into the equation. You're bringing in new technologies like blockchain, which you're able to do because you have a platform. What should we expect in terms of the pace and the types of innovations that we can see going forward? What can you share with us without divulging secrets? So from a product perspective, we want to infuse cognitive machine learning into every aspect of the product. So we don't want to, we don't want our customers calling us telling there's a problem. We want to be able to tell our customer a day or two hours ahead that there is a problem. So that is predictability, right? So we want not just in the product, even in the services side, we want to infuse total machine learning into the product. From a platform perspective, we want to make it completely open, extensible so our partners can come and build on top of it. So every customer can take advantage of Vertigo and other solutions that they build. So you get a platform, you're getting this flywheel effect, inject machine learning everywhere, open API so you can bring in new technologies like blockchain as they evolve. Dinesh, thanks very much for coming on theCUBE. Always great to have you. All right, keep it right there, buddy, we'll be back with our next guest. This is theCUBE live from IBM Think 2018. We'll be right back.