David Hume was a Scottish philosopher born on May 7, 1711, and died on August 25, 1776. His most influential works were A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), An Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748), and An Enquiries concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779).
David Hume was considered an empiricist, he believed that we should focus on things that we can experience. Since he felt this way, David thought that metaphysics is difficult for us to understand because this was something that our own experience would not be sufficient enough to gather any accurate knowledge about it. Therefore, any teachings or ideas that derive from metaphysics is inaccurate. In his work, A Treatise of Human Nature, he believes that every science must have some connection to human nature.
A great inspiration to his empiricist views was Isaac Newton because of the Newtonian maxim, “I do not do hypotheses.” This means that any ideas we call “valid” must be proven by observation and experiment. In Enquiries concerning Human Understanding, he follows this same ideology with human nature because it is “a question of fact, not of abstract science.” He applies this in his book, A Treatise of Human Nature when he elaborates on morality. David explains that morality is derived from experience, and to understand it we should look into a moral offense. Any good morality to David was considered “virtuous” and anything morally wrong is to be called “vicious.” If we experience the murder of a loved one, at first we would feel strong disperse and we would attach immorality to murder. The entire point of this is that David argued that morality is based on feelings of human nature, and not reasoning. The feelings that David specifically suggested were sentimental. Feelings such as empathy, sympathy, etc towards others. He explains that reasoning is instead, how we understand our feelings. Something interesting that he argued about was that reason can not be the motivation to do something. Instead, he believed that for a reason to be motivating, it must have some desire or passion tied to it. For example, we know that studying will get you a better score on your exam, but that reason alone is not enough to motivate you to study. He suggests that we must want something in order to study. In this case, if you have the desire to get an academic scholarship, you will then apply the logic that studying gets you a better score.
Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, is a discussion between three characters: Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes. Cleanthes argues that the evidence in nature is enough to let us reason about God. Demea has opposite views from Cleanthes, he explains that reason is not enough to know the nature of God. Philo agrees with Demea, but he thinks that we are incapable to fully understand God. David Hume was skeptical about religion, and his ideology about God was closely similar to Philo's. Philo later suggests that God can be morally unethical. Demea believes that God was the first cause of the universe, thus setting a cause and effect motion all throughout the world. Cleanthes believes that the nature of the world gives reason about God since God is the intelligent designer of the world. Philo explains that if nature is enough to give insight about God, then God is morally corrupt since there is so much evil in the world. Therefore there can not be such thing as an intelligent designer by Cleanthes’s logic. Instead, Philo believed that our experiences from the world are not sufficient enough to affirm that God is all-power and morally pure.
I recommend you guys to watch this video, it will provide an excellent overview of David Hume.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/
https://www.biographyonline.net/writers/philosophers/david-hume.html
https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/hume/context/
Isaac Ibarra Section 6
Before Spring Break Number of Runs: 31
After Spring Break Number of Runs: 10
I commented on these final report blogs:
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher born on May 7, 1711, and died on August 25, 1776. His most influential works were A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), An Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748), and An Enquiries concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779).
Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, is a discussion between three characters: Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes. Cleanthes argues that the evidence in nature is enough to let us reason about God. Demea has opposite views from Cleanthes, he explains that reason is not enough to know the nature of God. Philo agrees with Demea, but he thinks that we are incapable to fully understand God. David Hume was skeptical about religion, and his ideology about God was closely similar to Philo's. Philo later suggests that God can be morally unethical. Demea believes that God was the first cause of the universe, thus setting a cause and effect motion all throughout the world. Cleanthes believes that the nature of the world gives reason about God since God is the intelligent designer of the world. Philo explains that if nature is enough to give insight about God, then God is morally corrupt since there is so much evil in the world. Therefore there can not be such thing as an intelligent designer by Cleanthes’s logic. Instead, Philo believed that our experiences from the world are not sufficient enough to affirm that God is all-power and morally pure.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/
https://www.biographyonline.net/writers/philosophers/david-hume.html
https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/hume/context/
Isaac Ibarra Section 6
Before Spring Break Number of Runs: 31
After Spring Break Number of Runs: 10
I commented on these final report blogs:
I think the idea of being an empiricist is interesting and I never really though about it in the way explained here. I was trying to think of what specifically would qualify as something not able to be studied. Would he still consider things like gravity appropriate for study since we experience its effects?
ReplyDelete"thought that metaphysics was invalid because this was something we are not able to experience"--
ReplyDeleteIt's not that he thought we can't "experience" metaphysics (if by metaphysics we mean ultimate reality) but that our experience is insufficient to generate knowledge in the strong sense (Cartesian certainty). We can experience and study many things, but in light of our fallibility should be more circumspect in claiming knowledge.
"David argued that morality is based on feelings of human nature"--
Yes, but not mere feelings. THese would be very strong fellow-feelings, feelings of natural human sympathy and empathy, stronger (more "passionate") than logic and reason. "Reason is the slave of the passions," he insisted.
Hume was a religious skeptic, as he was a skeptic generally, so his views apparently aligned with Philo's. The point is not that god is corrupt, but that our experience gives us insufficient basis for asserting the existence of an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful deity. As he famously said, “Epicurus's old questions are still unanswered: Is he (God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? then whence evil?”
The topic of reason not being motivation is something I find interesting as it seems very intuitive. We find a goal and then see a method to get there. Our logical conclusion is to use the method and the goal is the drive not the reason.
ReplyDeleteI think I disagree with Hume in the way of just because we cannot "experience" something, I think we can maybe not claim knowledge per-se, but by building upon the ideas of theoretical knowledge then we can continue to learn and even go back and fix what we thought we knew, with what we have learned. I may have misinterpreted what Hume meant, but that is my take regardless.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the video. I did not know much about Hume before your post and I enjoyed what I had gathered from your post. There are so many different ideas and viewpoints that are out there that it is amazing. Some of them I never knew about before this class and this is another new outlook to me.
ReplyDeleteThe video was great information. I think it gave out a great outlook and more background that I didn't even know about as far as the different viewpoints and observations those have gathered.
ReplyDeleteDeJah Hill
Section 11
Exactly we tend to act off our feelings rather than reason which can cause problems in different ways for example making a wrong judgment that can cause someone something just because you are hurt not because it is right
ReplyDelete