Hume, Rousseau and the Crisis of the Enlightenment

Hume: The Skeptic Who Destroyed Causality

David Hume (1711–1776) is the most consistent and destructive philosopher of the Enlightenment. He took Locke’s empiricism seriously and arrived at conclusions that shook the entire system.

What is causality? We see a ball strike another ball and the second one rolls. We think: the first ball is the cause of the second’s movement. But what do we actually observe? Contiguity in space. Succession in time. Constant conjunction (it has always happened this way). Nothing more. We do not observe any “force” or “necessity”—we infer these. The habit of observing succession creates in the mind an expectation of a necessary connection. But this is a psychological fact, not an ontological truth.

Consequence: the problem of induction. From the fact that the sun has risen a million times, it does not necessarily follow that it will rise tomorrow. Induction is a logically unjustified leap. We act on the basis of habit and belief, not rational justification.

Hume also attacks the idea of a substantial “self.” We think there is an unchanging “I” that undergoes experience. But in self-observation we find only a stream of impressions and ideas—not a single stable “I.” A “bundle of perceptions”—that is what “I” is.

These conclusions should have plunged Hume into despair, but they did not. Nature is stronger than skepticism: when we leave the philosophical study and play billiards with friends, we immediately begin to believe in causality and personal identity. Nature made us so that we cannot adhere to skepticism in life.

Rousseau: “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) is a counter-figure to the Enlightenment. He does not reject reason, but attacks the optimism of civilization. The central thesis: civilization has not improved man, but corrupted him. The “natural man” is good, self-sufficient, lives in the present. Civilization created inequality, property, envy, and false needs.

“Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men” (1755): private property is the source of inequality and injustice. The first person who fenced off a plot of land and declared it his own is the culprit of all social ills. Before that, people lived as isolated, self-sufficient beings.

“The Social Contract” (1762): “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.” How is a legitimate state possible? Through a social contract in which each gives himself to all—that is, to no one in particular. The highest authority is the general will (volonté générale): not the sum of private interests, but their common good. Alienation from the general will is impossible.

Rousseau influenced the French Revolution (Robespierre used his ideas to justify the Reign of Terror—which is telling in itself). He is the father of Romanticism (primacy of feeling over reason, nature as a model) and pedagogical humanism (“Emile”—a novel about natural education, without violence against the child’s nature).

The Enlightenment: Weighing the Balance

The Enlightenment is a grand project: to free humanity from ignorance, superstition, and tyranny through reason, science, and education. “Have the courage to use your own understanding”—Kant. The results are ambiguous: science flourishes, but the French Revolution leads to the guillotine; colonialism spreads “civilization” and slavery at the same time; the industrial revolution frees from poverty and creates new poverty.

Critique of the Enlightenment in the 20th century (Horkheimer, Adorno): reason has become instrumental—not a search for truth, but a means of control over nature and people. Auschwitz is the product not of the absence of reason, but of its abnormal application. This is a heavy legacy.

Question for reflection: Hume showed that causality is a psychological habit, not a logical necessity. How does this change your attitude to “obvious” causal relationships in your field—economic, managerial, technological?