Hume argued that inductive reasoning and belief in causality cannot be justified rationally; instead, they result from custom and mental habit. We never actually perceive that one event causes another but only experience the "constant conjunction" of events.
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Apr 28, 2017 · Hume goes to some length to convince us that we have absolutely no idea of why one event would cause another. All we have, he says, is a sequence of events that customarily follow each other over repeated experiences. We only find, that the one does actually, in fact, follow the other.
Nov 07, 2017 · Hume describes “self” by being able to feel pain or pleasure as the only two sensations which prove self being. “Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time.”. This qoute correlates with the idea of Hume’s where he feels hand create different emotions based off ...
Hume's first definition of cause. "an object followed by another and where all the objects similar to the first are followed by objects similar to the second' and 'if the object had not been, the second would never have existed'. Hume's second definition of cause.
David Hume (/ h juː m /; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, scepticism, and naturalism. Beginning with A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), Hume strove to create a …
By so placing causation within Hume's system, we arrive at a first approximation of cause and effect. Causation is a relation between objects that we employ in our reasoning in order to yield less than demonstrative knowledge of the world beyond our immediate impressions.
Hume's Moral Sense Theory. Hume claims that if reason is not responsible for our ability to distinguish moral goodness from badness, then there must be some other capacity of human beings that enables us to make moral distinctions (T 3.1. 1.4).
According to Hume, the mind is capable of apprehending two kinds of proposition or truth: those expressing “relations of ideas” and those expressing “matters of fact.” The former can be intuited—i.e., seen directly—or deduced from other propositions.
David Hume, (born May 7 [April 26, Old Style], 1711, Edinburgh, Scotland—died August 25, 1776, Edinburgh), Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. Hume conceived of philosophy as the inductive, experimental science of human nature.
Noun. 1. Hume - Scottish philosopher whose sceptical philosophy restricted human knowledge to that which can be perceived by the senses (1711-1776)
Pappas Hume followed Berkeley in rejecting abstract general ideas; that is, both of these philosophers rejected the view that one could engage in the operation or activity ofabstraction — a kind ofmental separation ofentities that are inseparable in reality —as well as the view that the alleged products of such an ...Jan 26, 2011
Introduction. Hume distinguishes, though somewhat informally, between the human being and the human person. The human being is composed for him of both the body and the mind, whereas the human person is the same as the self, the mind, or the soul.
By Hume's fork, a statement's meaning either is analytic or is synthetic, the statement's truth—its agreement with the real world—either is necessary or is contingent, and the statement's purported knowledge either is a priori or is a posteriori.
Since the imagination is a faculty of thought, it is a faculty by which we form such images. 2. The Imagination and Our Other Faculties of Thought.
As a scientist of man, Hume aims to explain some mental functions in terms of others. More specifically, he aims to take a complex and initially puzzling mental function, like our ability to carry out sophisticated pieces of probable reasoning, and show how this function is built up out of several simpler and less puzzling functions. Of course, Hume does not go on forever in this process of breaking down complex mental functions into simpler ones. His science of man leaves some mental functions unexplained. These functions are the basic building blocks from which other, more complex, mental functions are built. This section presents five of the main basic functions that Hume attributes to the inclusive imagination—that is, functions that his science of man does not try to explain. The next two sections show how he uses these basic functions to explain several other, more complex mental and social phenomena—some due to reason, others to the exclusive imagination.
Hume says that every idea is individual or particular. By this, he means both that the idea itself is a particular (not a universal) and that it represents a particular object: when we form an idea, “the image in the mind is only that of a particular object” (T 1.1.7.6; SBN 20). However, we are not restricted to thinking of one particular thing at a time. We can grasp thoughts like all dogs are mammals and all triangles are shapes. If an idea represents just one particular object, then how can we do this—how can we think of all the particular dogs that exist, or all the particular triangles? Hume’s answer is that a “particular idea” comes to serve as an “abstract” or “general” representation; in other words, it comes to represent all the particular things of some sort. He explains how this happens by appealing to the association of ideas.
Hume writes that “men are mightily govern’d by the imagination” (T 3.2.7.2; SBN 534). And imagination is a kind of thought. To understand Hume’s views about imaginative thought, specifically, we must first examine some of his views about thought in general: his distinction between impressions and ideas; his distinction between simple and complex perceptions; and his Copy Principle. Hume’s main discussions of these topics are in A Treatise of Human Nature (hereafter, Treatise) Book 1, Part 1, Section 1; paragraphs 5–7 of Hume’s “Abstract” of the Treatise; and Section 2 of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (hereafter, “first Enquiry ”).
Hume thinks that impressions have more force and liveliness (or vivacity) than ideas in the memory, which in turn have more force and liveliness than ideas in the imagination. But he does not think that the latter all have the same low degree of force and liveliness; some of them have a higher degree than others.
Hume distinguishes two parts or sub-faculties within the inclusive imagination: the exclusive imagination and reason. What difference does he see between these sub-faculties? Again, there seem to be two main answers. First, these sub-faculties differ with respect to their function, or what they do. By “reason,” Hume here means the sub-faculty by which we make demonstrative and probable inferences. In contrast, the exclusive imagination is the sub-faculty by which we form non-rational whimsies and prejudices, and various imaginative “fictions,” which are discussed in section (5) below. Second, these sub-faculties differ with respect to the permanence, irresistibility and universality of their operations. Operations of reason, like inferring causes from their effects, are permanent, irresistible and universal features of human minds. In contrast, the whimsies and prejudices due to the exclusive imagination occur only at certain times and in certain places, and they can be avoided with sufficient strength of mind.
Hume’s science of man aims to explain the most general beliefs and ways of thinking that we adopt in the course of ordinary life and in philosophical reflection . Often, Hume concludes that these beliefs and ways of thinking are not products of demonstrative or probable reasoning but, instead, are fictions produced by the exclusive imagination. According to him, the fictions that we form in ordinary (or “vulgar”) life include our belief in aggregates that have “unity” or oneness, such as one crowd, an aggregate of people; our belief that certain objects persist through time without changing; and our belief, of sensible objects like coffee cups, table, and chairs, that they continue to exist at times when nobody perceives them. Hume thinks that, in the course of philosophical reflection, we tend to form further fictions. For example, when we reflect philosophically on our sensory experiences, we come to believe that the only objects truly “present to” our minds are impressions and ideas, but that some of our impressions are caused by and represent external, material objects; Hume regards belief in these external, represented objects as a new fiction. As well as calling these beliefs fictions, Hume calls the distinctive imaginative process or operation that produces them fiction (for example, see T 1.2.3.11 and 1.4.2.29; SBN 37 and 200–201). This double use of the term “fiction” is in keeping with ordinary eighteenth century English usage. Johnson’s 1755–6 Dictionary of the English Language shows that, in eighteenth century English, the term “fiction” could mean both “the thing feigned or invented” (hence, Hume applies the term to certain ideas and beliefs) and “the act of feigning or inventing” (hence, Hume applies the term to the imaginative processes responsible for those ideas and beliefs).
Like his predecessors Shaftesbury (1671-1713) and Francis Hutcheson (1694-1745), Hume believes that moral distinctions are the product of a moral sense. In this respect, Hume is a moral sentimentalist.
In this respect, Hume is a moral sentimentalist. It is primarily in virtue of our ability to feel pleasure and pain in response to various traits of character , and not in virtue of our capacity of “reason alone,” that we can distinguish between virtue and vice. This section covers the major elements of Hume’s moral sense theory.
He rejects the rationalist conception of morality whereby humans make moral evaluations, and understand right and wrong, through reason alone. In place of the rationalist view, Hume contends that moral evaluations depend significantly on sentiment or feeling.
While sympathy plays a crucial role in Hume’s moral theory as outlined in the Treatise, explicit mentions of sympathy are comparatively absent from the Enquiry. In place of Hume’s detailed description of sympathy, we find Hume appealing to the “principle of humanity” (EPM 9.6). He understands this as the human disposition that produces our common praise for that which benefits the public and common blame for that which harms the public (EPM 5.39). The principle of humanity explains why we prefer seeing things go well for our peers instead of seeing them go badly. It also explains why we would not hope to see our peers suffer if that suffering in no way benefited us or satisfied our resentment from a prior provocation (EPM 5.39). Like sympathy, then, Hume uses humanity to explain our concern for the well-being of others. However, Hume’s discussion of humanity in the Enquiry does not appeal (at least explicitly) to the cognitive mechanism that underlies Hume’s account of sympathy, and he even expresses skepticism about the possibility of explaining this mechanism. So, the Enquiry does not discuss how our idea of another’s pleasures and pains is converted into an impression. This does not necessarily mean that sympathy is absent from the Enquiry. For instance, in Enquiry Section V Hume describes having the feelings of others communicated to us (EPM 5.18) and details how sharing our sentiments in a social setting can strengthen our feelings (EPM 5.24, EPM 5.35).
This argument is referred to as the “Divide and Conquer Argument” because Hume divides reasoning into two types, and then demonstrates that neither type of reasoning can influence the human will by itself. From this, it follows that “reason alone” cannot influence the will.
Hume’s ethical thought grapples with questions about the relationship between morality and reason, the role of human emotion in thought and action, the nature of moral evaluation, human sociability, and what it means to live a virtuous life . As a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, Hume’s ethical thought variously influenced, was influenced by, and faced criticism from, thinkers such as Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1745), Adam Smith (1723-1790), and Thomas Reid (1710-1796). Hume’s ethical theory continues to be relevant for contemporary philosophers and psychologists interested in topics such as metaethics, the role of sympathy and empathy within moral evaluation and moral psychology, as well as virtue ethics.
The remedy of justice is required because the goods we acquire are vulnerable to being taken by others (T 3.2.2.7), resources are scarce (T 3.2.2.7), and human generosity is limited (T 3.2.2.6). Regarding scarcity and human generosity, Hume explains that our circumstances lie at a mean between two extremes.
Hume was an Empiricist, meaning he believed "causes and effects are discoverable not by reason, but by experience". He goes on to say that, even with the perspective of the past, humanity cannot dictate future events because thoughts of the past are limited, compared to the possibilities for the future.
First, Hume contributed to the theory of quantity and of interest rate. Hume has been credited with being the first to prove that, on an abstract level, there is no quantifiable amount of nominal money that a country needs to thrive. He understood that there was a difference between nominal and real money .
When looking at an apple, a person experiences a variety of colour-sensations —what Hume notes as a complex impression. Similarly, a person experiences a variety of taste-sensations, tactile-sensations, and smell-sensations when biting into an apple, with the overall sensation—again, a complex impression.
In "Standard of Taste", Hume argues that no rules can be drawn up about what is a tasteful object.
Hume explains his theory of causation and causal inference by division into three different parts. In these three branches he explains his ideas and compares and contrasts his views to his predecessors. These branches are the Critical Phase, the Constructive Phase, and Belief.
David Hume's mausoleum by Robert Adam in the Old Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh. From 1763 to 1765, Hume was invited to attend Lord Hertford in Paris, where he became secretary to the British embassy. Hume was well received in Paris, and while there he met with Isaac de Pinto.
Empiricist philosophers, such as Hume and Berkeley, favoured the bundle theory of personal identity. In this theory, "the mind itself, far from being an independent power, is simply 'a bundle of perceptions' without unity or cohesive quality".
I think thoughts can be more exciting than sensation or reality. Thought stay with us in the end, while sensations never last. However, a thought of a thing will never measure up to the real sensation of experiencing the thing. Living and sensation show that our actions are real and actually matter in reality.
We attribute a continued existence to objects, even when they are not present to the senses; and we suppose them to have an existence distinct from the mind and perception. If the objects of our senses continue to exist, even when they are not perceived, their existence is of course independent of and distinct from the perception; and vice versa, if their existence be independent of the perception and distinct from it, they must continue to exist, even though they are not perceived. We may more easily discover the principles of human nature, when the decision arises, we will carry along with us this distinction, and will consider, whether it is the senses, reason, or the imagination, that produces the opinion of a continued or of a distinct existence.
We attribute a continued existence to objects, even when they are not present to the senses; and we suppose them to have an existence distinct from the mind and perception. If the objects of our senses continue to exist, even when they are not perceived, their existence is of course independent of and distinct from the perception; and vice versa, ...