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David Hume Research Paper

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Philosophy through the ages has consisted of numerous centuries that always differ from the last. The evolution of intelligent human thought is clearly fossilized into the history of these centuries. An example of the swinging pendulum of philosophy would be the change of rationalism to empiricism. During the rationalist period, it was thought that humans were able to gain knowledge independent from experience and that knowledge came from human reason. However, in the age of empiricism, it was thought that knowledge could only be obtained through experience. The swing of this pendulum developed some very important figures. Those figures were John Locke, George Berkeley, and perhaps the greatest empiricist of all, David Hume. Hume quickly became …show more content…

First off, he does this by delineating impressions from ideas. Impressions are the phenomena that humans gain through experiences, and ideas are anything humans derive from impressions such as memories, thoughts, and beliefs. By understanding these simple premises, one can then go onto understanding the rest of Hume’s philosophy. Now, one can assume just by this initial statement, that Hume is fighting for how humans understand things. However, he does not go on to try to establish any sort of truth except natural truths which he calls relations of ideas. Furthermore, Hume declares that since the mind is not physically able to determine rational and abstract truths then humans should not worry about them. Some of these truths were the mortality of the soul or if there even is a God. One of Hume’s biggest problems with this world was the aspect of causation. Causation is defined as the belief that particular events lead to one another in predictable ways. He earnestly tried to disprove the law that states that no matter how many times something is done, there is still never a one hundred percent chance that it will happen the same way if done again. All of these questions and answers, Hume compiles into one of his greatest works, An Enquiry Concerning Human …show more content…

Normally, moral law is separated into two discussions. Those discussions are either one thinks that humans are inherently good and everyone is equal or it's that humans are inherently evil and everyone is unequal. This can be applied to the argument between communism and capitalism but it is usually used in the moral law argument. The scientific way that Hume approaches this topic is with his idea of impressions and ideas. It is said how do people that are inherently evil come to do good things. If religion is not in question then it must come from something within humans. Hume states that humans eventually learn to do good things because their impressions have led them to that. The best example of this philosophy is the concept of giving food to a homeless man. Evolutionary theory states that giving food to a homeless man is not in the human instincts because it would involve giving up one’s food source. However, because of Hume’s impressions humans have evolved enough to learn from their experiences. By giving away food to the homeless man, the giver not only gets a feeling of satisfaction but a happy feeling from the smile on the homeless man’s face. Also, the giver might then have gained an ally if need be. But it is not just a case of smiles being contagious, Hume reasons that people are more influenced by their feelings rather than reason. If one sees the

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559 Words | 3 Pages

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