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Questions tagged [hume]

David Hume is a 18th century philosopher and contemporary of Immanuel Kant. He is best known for his skeptics views, empirical analysis, and naturalist positions.

David Hume was a 18th century philosopher and contemporary of Immanuel Kant. He is best known for his skepticism , empirical analysis, and naturalist positions.

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How long should it take to read and understand the intro to 'A Treatise of Human Nature'?

Today I read the intro to 'A Treatise of Human Nature' by David Hume. I'm somewhat new to reading Philosophical texts and I have never read Hume before. The intro is 1936 words long. I took decent notes and made flash cards for some words and ideas…
Joe Cannatti
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Hume on matter of fact

Hume says that ideas comes from impression and matters of fact can't have impression. So is it according to Hume that we do not have any impression of things in the daily life such as table, chair? Then why does he give the example of blue color…
ezaz
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How does 'Is–ought' 'subvert all the vulgar systems of morality' ?

Source:: Hume discusses the problem in book III, part I, section I of his book, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739): ... But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this…
user8572
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How did Hume remain 'jovial', 'merry' and 'unperturbed' despite philosophy's difficulty?

Source: p 231 Bottom, Introducing Philosophy for Canadians: A Text with Integrated Readings (2011 1 ed). How did Hume remain 'jovial', 'merry' and 'unperturbed', despite the difficult perennial problems of philosophy? Would his brain not have hurt?…
user8572
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How "hard" is A Treatise of Human Nature to read?

Can someone, without any prior knowledge of philosophy, pick up Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature and read it without a problem?
user265554
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Constant conjunction of events and probability

Hume argued that it's impossible to say that event A causes event B. For all we know, everytime event B is directly followed by event A, we could be witnessing the "constant conjunction of events." Therefore, although we regularly rely on what we…
user27343
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Hume on contingent existence

In A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume says, "To form a clear idea of any thing, is an undeniable argument for its possibility, and is alone a refutation of any pretended demonstration against it." I think the modern way to put this is to say that…
Kadav
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Did Hume argue against partial support of a statement?

From what I have read, Hume argued that induction cannot be justified. But did he also argue that probabilistic justification isn’t a thing? For example, most of us usually have a notion of a proposition being weakly or strongly supported by…
Baby_philosopher
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Hume's law - misunderstanding?

I have always thought the main argument for/consequence of Hume's law is that just because something is in a certain way, that is not an argument for it to remain that way. E.g., just because homosexual acts were forbidden in most Western countries…
d-b
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Have any philosophers written about why they write philosophy?

I'm thinking particularly about Hume's and Moore's assertions that you can't get an "ought" from an "is". The trouble is if you can't get an ought from an is, why write that down at all, if your intention is not to persuade someone of what they…
Pseudonym
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What were the most influential concepts in Hume's 'Treatise on Human Nature'?

Is there thought within this work that is considered the most revelatory and influential of all ideas presented, or is it just thought of as a generally well written work? If it does contain specific ideas that have been particularly important in…
Cdn_Dev
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Hume on substance

I know Hume believes substance is an illusion based on habit but how does he arrive at this belief? Related to this what is his opinion on physical objects?
J.T. Kool
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Why does Hume believe a priori knowledge retains the value of meaning despite our not experiencing it?

Hume believes that the only meaningful thoughts are those about relations of ideas (known a priori, examples including mathematics and logic) and matters of fact (known a posterior, examples including 'the sun rises' and 'carrots are orange'). But…
Chosen One
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Are Hume's ideas, actually complex ideas?

Hume stated that there are simple and complex ideas. For example, the idea of a pegasus, is complex, because it's composed by "simple" ideas (a horse and wings). But is this very idea about simple and complex ideas, complex? I mean, are Hume's ideas…
John F101
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David Hume encouraged people to “burn” his works. Should we act like this? Why?

To find found out the reason behind Hume’s phrase (connected to his philosophy) and to express own opinion about it.
bbbbbbb
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