David Hume Essay, Research Paper

David Hume, a Scots philosopher and historiographer who lived from 1711-76, carried the empiricist philosophy of John Locke and George Berkeley to the logical extreme of extremist incredulity. Although his household wanted him to go a attorney, he felt an & # 8220 ; unsurmountable opposition to everything but doctrine and larning & # 8221 ; . Mr. Hume attended Edinburgh University where he studied but did non graduate, and in 1734 he moved to a Gallic town called La Fleche to prosecute doctrine. He subsequently returned to Britain and began his literary calling. As Hume built up his repute, he gained more and more political power. He discarded the possibility of certain cognition, happening in the head nil but a series of esthesiss, and held that cause-and-effect in the natural universe derives entirely from the concurrence of two feelings. Hume & # 8217 ; s incredulity is besides apparent in his Hagiographas on faith, in which he rejected any rational or natural divinity. Besides his head work, A Treatise of Human Nature ( 1739-40 ) , he wrote Political Discourses ( 1752 ) , The Natural History of Religion ( 1755 ) , and a History of England ( 1754-62 ) that was, despite mistakes of fact, the standard work for many old ages.

& # 8220 ; Nothing seems more boundless than a adult male & # 8217 ; s thought, & # 8221 ; quoted Hume. Hume took truly conjectural elements from Locke and Berkeley but, rejected some lingering metaphysics form their idea, and gave empiricist philosophy its clearest and most strict preparation. ( Stumpf ) Hume wanted to construct a scientific discipline of a adult male, to analyze human nature by utilizing the methods of physical scientific discipline. But, with conflicting sentiments offered on all topics how can we cognize the true nature of things?

Hume believed that all cognition came from experience. He besides believed that a individual & # 8217 ; s see & # 8217 ; s existed merely in the individual & # 8217 ; s head. Although our organic structure is confined to one planet, our head can roll immediately into the most distant parts of the existence. Hume believed that there was a universe outside of human scruples, but he did non believe this could be proved. The contents of the head can all be reduced to stuffs given us by the senses and experience, and those stuffs Hume calls perceptual experiences. Hume grouped perceptual experiences of the head into one of two classs: feelings and thoughts. ( Stumpf ) Impressions and thoughts make up the entire content of the head. Ideas are memories of esthesiss claimed Hume, but feelings are the cause of the esthesis. In other words, an feeling is portion of a impermanent feeling, but an thought is the lasting impact of this feeling. Hume believed that thoughts were merely dull imitations of feelings. Besides simply separating between feelings there can be no thoughts. For if an thought is merely a transcript of an feeling, it follows that for every thought there must be a anterior feeling.

Hume & # 8217 ; s most original and influential thoughts trade with the job of causality. Neither Locke

nor Berkeley challenged the basic rule of causality. For Hume, the really thought of causality is fishy, and he approaches the job by inquiring the inquiry, “what is the beginning of the thought of causality? ” Since thoughts are transcripts of feelings, Hume asks what gives us the thought of causality. ( Feiser ) His reply is that there is no feelings matching to this thought. How so does the thought of causality arise in the head? It must be, Hume said, that their thought of causality arises in the head when we experience certain dealingss between objects. This thought states that for all effects there is a cause. Hume said that even though the cause preceded the consequence, there is no cogent evidence that the cause is responsible for the effect’s happening. Did you follow along?

Hume besides thrived on 1s self. Hume denied that we have any thought of ego. This may look self-contradictory, that I should state that I do non hold an thought of myself, but Hume once more tests what is meant by a ego by inquiring & # 8220 ; from what feeling could this thought derive from & # 8221 ; ; make you see a tendency forming? Hume compares the head to & # 8220 ; a sort of theater where several perceptual experiences in turn make their visual aspect, & # 8221 ; but adds that & # 8220 ; we have non the most distant impression of the topographic point where these scenes are represented. & # 8221 ;

What led Hume to deny the being of a uninterrupted ego that in some manner retains its individuality through clip was his thorough denial of the being of any signifier of substance. While Locke retained the thought of substance as something, which has colour or form, and other qualities and Berkeley denied the being of substance implicit in qualities but retained the thought of religious substances. Hume denied that substance in any signifier exists or has any consistent significance. If what is meant, by the ego, is some signifier of substance so no suck substance can be derived from our feelings of esthesis.

With Hume & # 8217 ; s premise that & # 8221 ; our thoughts reach no further than our experience, & # 8221 ; would take him to raise disbelieving inquiries about the being of God. Most efforts to show the being of God rely upon some version of causality. Sometimes experimental theoretical accounts are built with no present cognition of what the finished theoretical account will be like. Is the existence a test theoretical account or the concluding design? By this line of examining Hume tried to stress that the order of the existence is merely an empirical fact and that we can non deduce from it the being of God. This does non do Hume an atheist ; he is merely proving out thought of God the manner he had tested our thoughts of the ego and substance by his strict rule of empiricist philosophy that I spoke about earlier.

In stoping I quote Hume in stating & # 8220 ; to whatever length any one may force his bad rules of incredulity, he must move and unrecorded and converse like other work forces it is impossible for him to persist in entire incredulity, or do it look in his behavior for a few hours.