David Hume's "An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding" Defending Philosophy

The most recent book I have been reading is an old philosophical classic of the Western tradition, perhaps David Hume's most succinct and readable book. As it is often said, even if Hume was an absolute philosophical lightweight himself, he is credited with bringing none other than Immanuel Kant out of his self-acclaimed "dogmatic slumber," and Kant is probably the single most influential philosopher of the modern era. But Hume was no lightweight and his Inquiry is a pleasure to read for its clarity and charming prose.

Of what I have read so far there are two primary sections and the first section is what concerns me here: his defence of philosophy and the endeavour he is about to embark on. It struck me several times how consonant Hume is with my current mode of thinking in this apologia if only because of how steadfastly his dismisses claims made purely out of alleged common sense. He laments at one point:

It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have the preference above the accurate and the abtruse; and by many will be recommended, not only as more agreeable, but more useful, than the other. (Section I: Of the Different Species of Philosophy)

 But he also is aware of another common variety of philosophy which is in a way the opposite of easy but nonetheless completes the same task of justifying pre-conceptions without rational inquiry:

Here, indeed, lies the justest and most plausible objection against a considerable part of metaphysics, that they are not properly a science, but arise either from the fruitless efforts of human vanity, which would penetrate into subjects utterly inaccessible to the understanding, or from the craft of popular superstitions, which, being unable to defend themselves on fair ground, raise these entangling brambles to cover and protect their weakness. (ibid.)

Yet Hume is determined that philosophy does have a place in human thought and he does so in a way that would possibly satisfy even those who today would say that philosophy has lost to science, for Hume considers philosophy to be a mode of thought based on reason rather than a branch of thought. He is part of the old school who would consider the natural sciences to be sub-species of natural philosophy rather than separate disciplines. His defence of philosophy, even if it would lead to all manner of subtlety of idea, has several benefits as far as Hume is concerned and he expresses it thus:

Accurate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy fitted for all persons and all dispositions and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners and gives it the air of science and wisdom. (ibid.)

 His defence of philosophy is a defence of rational thought over intellectual carelessness and complacency. I consider Hume to be quite right in his prizing of rationality above popular superstition, though I think he was overly optimistic: as everyone who has argued with another of quite clearly erroneous opinion has learnt, even accurate and just reasoning fails in the more extreme cases of ignorance and stubbornness in error.