Easy Philosophy

One thing the 1700s Scottish philosopher David Hume was right about is that the easy philosophy or the convenient "basis" for believing in a philosophy (as if convenience dictates or reveals truth!) is always more likely to be entrenched in individuals and societies simply because it is easy, however false, vague, or harmful it might be.  An easy philosophy can be accepted, verbalized, and lived out without a great deal of effort; it is just that effort has nothing to do with whether something is true or logically proving that it is true.  While Hume erred greatly as a sensory empiricist who rejected the intrinsic truths of reason and rationalism as metaphysically necessary or absolutely certain, he is still by chance right about the probability of abstract and precise philosophy, even if untrue, ever gaining a stronghold in general society.  A rational person will see many examples supporting this in social experiences, but, as will be addressed below, there is a logically necessary reason why it is always more probable that a given person or group are fools.  Hume states the following:

"It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have the preference above the accurate and abstruse; and by many will be recommended, not only as more agreeable, but more useful than the other." (2)

According to Hume later on the same page, abstract truths and more precise philosophies are more difficult to live by than such popular assumptions, and thus have little to no lasting influence on behavior.  Ironically, he himself would not really be the sincere truth-seeker he presents himself as in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding if he neglects, forgets, or outright dismisses abstract concepts as soon as it is convenient for him, as would the kind of person he is describing.  On one hand, yes, it is very difficult for an irrational person to even think to break free from slavery to assumptions, passive/intentional neglect of the abstract truths of logic, and belief based upon subjective persuasion or emotionalistic preference.  They would almost certainly revert to believing in exactly whatever falsities appeal to them even if a rationalist refuted their errors so that they did not have to arrive at the truth  wholly apart from social prompting.  On the other hand, everything is philosophical whether they acknowledge it or not, and everything is governed metaphysically and epistemologically by the necessary truths of reason, which are true in themselves and thus not constructs of perception, characteristics of the natural world or divine mind, or contrived social norms.

Anyone can realize this without conversational or literary prompting because logic is supremely simple, though it is abstract, as nothing could be more foundational than it.  As self-necessary metaphysical truths and thus epistemologically self-evident truths, logical axioms, which other logically necessary truths stem from, cannot depend on anything prior to themselves; all other things depend on them, so the fool going about their life assuming that their senses are accurate, never discovering the logical axioms they rely on unaware, and at best grievously, haphazardly misunderstanding the nature of reality is no less reliant on reason in one sense than a consistent rationalist.  It is just that the rationalist has true knowledge because they know axioms and other logical truths, and non-rationalists cannot have knowledge, though if it was not logically possible, they would not even exist in their asinine state of being.

The person who waits for social prompting for all philosophical contemplation is deluded, for reason is accessible to all, being inherently true and thus universal and inescapable.  A person has to actively or passively ignore it to truly get through life without recognizing logical axioms for their intrinsic and therefore self-evident veracity, for to doubt or reject them is to rely on them in order to do so!  It does not matter that logical necessities and the deep issues they go ern are abstract and transcend the inferior, practical matters of human life even as they underpin them.  There is no excuse for not knowing them other than being a very young child or so mentally unstable that dissociation and memory problems prevent one from getting past logical axioms and one's own conscious existence.  Indeed, apart from these truths, nothing else can be known, however "obvious" it might seem, as it can only be assumed.

It is always more likely that the masses of people from practically any era will be irrationalists, even if only obliviously.  For a non-rationalist, it would almost always be easier to simply never think about necessary truths or avoiding assumptions.  It would take effort for him or her to actually turn to reason, forsake assumptions, and seek out additional necessary truths--in reality, it could also take a great deal of effort for a rationalist to not stay rational.  Effort alone does not make someone rational, but the requirement of mental effort to discover and cling to necessary truths means that it is of course easier for non-rationalists to remain as they are.  Most people would thus by default, in not aligning with the objective, fixed, and absolutely certain truths of reason that encompass all else, either have to believe and operate based upon subjective, arbitrary belief/whim or upon the happenstance zeitgeist of their region--the culturally popular notions of their day.  This kind of person is what David Hume would really be correct about in the provided excerpt, though he himself was not a rationalist, making parts of his worldview either merely assumed, and thus epistemologically up in the air, or metaphysically in conflict with logical axioms (as with his sensory empiricism), which means to the extent they contradict or denies axioms, they could only be false.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.  Hume, David.  Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993.  Print.