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David Hume Chapter 2 Study Guide

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Recommended: Essays by David Hume

1. Hume’s essay forms the basis for the modern view of scientific, philosophical, and mathematical inquiry. His topic in this essay was the manner in which we establish our understanding of the Natural World. In a sentence, what is the difference between knowledge and understanding? Knowledge is awareness of information and having ideas that can be gained though experience, and understanding is based on the principle of cause and effect that have been accepted. 2. Understanding is a cognitive process. As such, understanding is the product of ideas. In a sentence, where do ideas originate? Ideas are memories or copies of our impressions and are sensations we experience in our day to day activities. 3. In order to establish an understanding of some set of phenomena, an individual’s ideas regarding the phenomenon need to be connected. Hume proposes a set of three fundamental cognitive operations of inference required to connect ideas and establish understanding. What are those fundamental operations (one phrase each)? Fundamental operations are resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and cause and effect. Resemblance seeing picture of tree allows a person to think of a tree. Contiguity in time or place, which is mention one part leads to discussing others. Causes and effects consider what experience is behind to know what is …show more content…

Hume argues amongst other things that sensation is our understanding because we can perceive our sensation therefore we cannot understand causation because we cannot perceive through our sensations. All objects of human inquiry are divided into two categories, relations of ideas and matters of fact. Relations of ideas are every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. Matters of fact, we should be vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. We learn though the nature of evidence which assures in real existence and it is record of our

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Comparing Hume’s Casual Doctrine In the Enquiry and the Treatise Modern Philosophical Texts MA Course 0364481   The first definition of cause Hume presents in his Enquiry is ontological, whereas the second definition is psychological. The key blunder of the skeptic’s interpretation of the Enquiry is the supposition that both definitions are equal, and also the critical error of the supposition that from merely one experiment, an association of ideas can be derived. The aim of this paper is to try to attempt to summarise Hume’s position on causality as it relates to his works throughout his life’s entirety, as well as secondary views on this matter.

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When it comes to Hume’s theories, specifically the principles of ideas, we can evaluate them based on their identities. Out of the three associative principles, “causation is the strongest and the only one that takes us beyond our senses” (Morris and Charlotte). Causation establishes a link between the present and the past and this can be compared to the relation between the cause and effect. Hume tries to show the ways we associate ideas, and the reasons why it’s supposed to stay that way. He doesn’t focus on explaining why we do it this way, he automatically assumes that humans understand this concept.

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Throughout Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I enjoyed reading the parts about how close Huck and Jim were getting throughout their adventures together. The instant Huck and Jim found themselves both escaping the same pain and never wanting to go back to these pains, I knew that they would overcome the fact that Huck was a young American boy and Jim was an older, middle-aged African American slave. During this time period, a slave and young white boy were not the average type of friends. It was not such a big deal for Jim, since he was already on the bottom of the social pole, but for Huck, it seemed to be in the back of his mind because of the fact that he could be in trouble if he was found trying to escape with a runaway slave. During Huck and Jim’s adventure down the Mississippi River, the two run into men named the Duke and the King.

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The statement “Hume takes Empiricism to its logical, most radical endpoint.” Considering his views on the “copy principle”, causation, and the self. The “copy principle” argument by Hume discusses the relationship between simple ideas and simple impressions. He believes that impressions are formed by ideas and he uses the example of a golden mountain.

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Knowledge is a Rajasic knowledge that perceives a multiplicity of being. This started in the late 1720’s. This is the first component of action.

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In the book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by David Hume, Hume provides his own skeptical solution to the question, how is our causal reasoning justified? The word skeptical means that you are not easily convinced and may have some doubt about what you are being told. After evaluating Hume’s proposed skeptical solution , I have come to agree with his argument as I find it to be very logical when looking at he natural instincts of human beings. I believe that it is a common tendency to base our expectations on our past experiences.

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Sense knowledge refers to knowing matter as it is presented to us, imagination knowledge refers to the ability to grasp the figure of an object apart from matter and reason is characteristic of human beings accounting for universal features, and intelligence is of the divine, looking beyond the universe toward eternal truths. These types of knowledge exist hieratically, ascending from organisms to animals to humans to the divine, where each ascending level of knowledge is capable of understand the levels beneath it not that above. This in turn means that human’s do not possess the

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Human beings are a species of never-ending collections of information and facts. This information is later taken and programmed into a person’s mind, and thus, knowledge is formed. Everyday that an idea is learned, knowledge expands, causing a continuous cycle of information collection. Francis Bacon’s New Organon and John Locke’s “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” both raise questions on how knowledge is acquired and understood. Locke believes knowledge is retrieved through experiences in one’s life, yet Bacon argues that knowledge is both innate and through experiences.

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In Book 1 Part 3 Section 1 of David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, the philosopher—grounded in the British skeptical and empirical tradition—attempts to offer his standard and criteria for epistemological certainty, presumably in response to René Descartes’ epistemology presented in his Discourse and Mediations. Hume asserts “there is no single phenomenon, even the most simple, which can be accounted for from the qualities of the objects, as they appear to us, for which we [could] foresee without the help of our memory and experience” (Treatise 1.3.1.1). In other words, Hume argues that knowledge of the world and its objects is only possible a posteriori, but, he asserts in 1.3.1, that statements about the relations of ideas—primarily

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According to Hume overall, all of our ideas and “feeble perceptions” are founded by impressions (Hume). Basically, Hume insists that all ideas can be traced back and associated with the root impression that one first had. This passage begins with Hume justifying that the mind can conceive anything that we have not previously seen and explains that nothing is beyond what we can think unless there is a complete contradiction such as a square that is circle- “To form monsters, and join incongruous shapes…costs the imagination no more trouble than to conceive the most natural and familiar objects” (Hume). These ideas are explained to be copies of the impressions we have already experienced, and ideas must proceed from our first impressions of an experience (our senses- what we see, feel, hear, desire, ect.).

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Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something, which can include facts, information, descriptions or skills acquired through experience or education. However, William Starbucks the author of “The production of knowledge: The challenge of social science research” says, “Knowledge is what people say it is.” Indeed Starbucks is right for everything that one is familiar with is declared as knowledge. Knowledge is therefore debatable hence why there cannot be only two ways of producing knowledge.

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Logically speaking, Hume’s theory makes the most sense due to the knowledge learned from cause and effect. I understand the relationship between the beginning to its adjacent cause and it applies to everyday life in society. Unlike Hume, Descartes suggests the origin of knowledge is logical and through self-doubt. Yet, he is unable to provide proof of the existence of god despite playing a substantial role in his theory.

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Hume and Locke agree that impressions and ideas are what form the background and the foundation of reasoning for humans to rationalize or reason about their experience. Hume however further explains, while he agreed with Locke’s concept,

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Epistemology aspect of writing The word epistemology comes from the Greek words “episteme” means knowledge or understanding and “logia” means science or study. Generally, in philosophy, epistemology is the study of knowledge. It deals with the nature of knowledge. It is concerned with the following questions: how do we know things, what do we know, why we know, is what we know true, and what are the limits of knowledge?

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Knowledge is a more than a collection of facts; it encompasses information gathered and the skills acquired through, either education or experience, a production that stems from one or more human minds. Essentially the two different types of knowledge are shared and personal. The former refers to socially established methods of obtaining knowledge. It is based on facts and concepts, as well as standards of rationality. Shared knowledge travels across borders and generations.

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