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1. Introduction
Along with John Locke and George Berkley, David Hume was one of the most important philosophers in the empiricist movement. Empiricism was a philosophical trend during the 17th and 18th centuries that originated in England. It is during this time that we find a period of great political and social unrest, with the struggle between absolutism, linked to the anglican church, and the parliamentary system. These philosophers focused mainly in the topics of knowledge and political philosophy.
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It is also the age of enlightenment, which gives credit to experience and rejects innate ideas. Science is based on Newton’s physics, and philosophers strongly defend the inductive method. The question I am trying to answer with this paper is where does Hume locate the origin of knowledge, and what limits our knowledge. Let us take a deeper look into his theory in order to find the answer to the question.
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2. John Locke: the Origin of Our Ideas
Before we can talk about Hume’s ideas, we should first take a brief look at Locke’s work, which is similar to Hume’s in certain aspects. According to Locke, all the ideas we possess can be roughly separated into two big groups: simple ideas, which cannot be decomposed, and complex ideas, created by combining the
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Hume says that any idea that appears in our mind is ultimately derived from our impressions. That’s the principle of verification: each idea is related to one impression. All those ideas related to one impression are evident, clear, and they allow us to get to know the world. Thus, knowledge is reduced to impressions. Experience is then both the origin and the limit of our knowledge, as well as the truth criterion. Experience leads to impressions, which are acquired through the senses. These impressions eventually generate an idea that can be referred to as ‘custom’. What we know is because of what we have experienced in the past, and we expect a similar behaviour in the