Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
David Hume by Allan Ramsay (1766). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in English in 1748 under the title Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding until a 1757 edition came up with the now-familiar name.
Hume was born on 26 April 1711, as David Home, in a tenement on the north side of Edinburgh's Lawnmarket.He was the second of two sons born to Catherine Home (née Falconer), daughter of Sir David Falconer of Newton, Midlothian and his wife Mary Falconer (née Norvell), [14] and Joseph Home of Chirnside in the County of Berwick, an advocate of Ninewells.
Hume's introduction presents the idea of placing all science and philosophy on a novel foundation: namely, an empirical investigation into human psychology.He begins by acknowledging "that common prejudice against metaphysical reasonings [i.e., any complicated and difficult argumentation]", a prejudice formed in reaction to "the present imperfect condition of the sciences" (including the ...
Hume ultimately defends a theory according to which the fundamental feature of virtues is "...the possession of mental qualities, 'useful' or 'agreeable' to the 'person himself' or to 'others'" (EPM, §10, ¶1). As a result, certain character traits commonly deemed virtues by the major religions of the time are deemed vices on Hume's theory.
Followers and interpreters of Hume have sometimes used Hume's dictum as the metaphysical foundation of Hume's theory of causation. On this view, there cannot be any causal relation in a robust sense since this would involve one event necessitating another event, the possibility of which is denied by Hume's dictum. [8] [9]
Hume discusses the problem in book III, part I, section I of his book, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739): In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that ...
In some versions of social contract theory, there are freedoms, but no rights in the state of nature; and, by way of the social contract, people create societal rights and obligations. In other versions of social contract theory, society imposes restrictions (law, custom, tradition, etc.) that limit the natural rights of a person.
Hume focuses on tragedy and its relationship with passions. So far Hume's view on this relationship has been formulated in many different ways, one of which is Hume's conversion theory. According to this theory, painful passions are turned into pleasurable ones using stylistic and formal rhetorical means.