David Hume

David Hume
Cornelia Roberts-Pryce
Cornelroberts@yahoo.com
Content

David Hume
Abstract
TCO 4 -Given the intellectual climate of post-WWI Europe, analyze the emergence of the philosophies of existentialism and logical positivism based upon the principles of modern humanism
According to lecture 1, the Enlightenment was characterized by a questioning of current beliefs (including religious belief) and customs and a turn towards the benefits of science. People today think that democracy is a direct outgrowth of Enlightenment thinking but Hume, Locke, Voltaire, and others did not think that the general public was able to reason and that it could or should not be educated (Stromberg, 1994).

Introduction The purpose of this paper is to discuss the contributions of David Hume (1711-76) to the period of history during the enlightenment age developing theories of the doctrine of Empiricism. There are two doctrines which follow this principle. The first doctrine is that most, if not all, concepts are ultimately derived from experience; the second is that most, if not all, knowledge derives from experience, in the sense that appeals to experience are necessarily involved in its justification. Neither doctrine implies the other. Hume belongs to the tradition of British empiricism that includes Francis Bacon (1561-1626), John Locke (1632-1704), and George Berkeley (1685-1753). Common to this tradition is the view that knowledge is founded upon sense-perception, which the human mind passively receives. But whereas Locke and Berkeley believe that human knowledge can go beyond sense-experience, Hume contends in the Introduction of his Treatise that our knowledge is limited to sense-experience, and so offers an empiricism that he argues is more consistent than those of his British predecessors.

Hume’s Beliefs

Hume mane contributions to many areas of society including religion, moral philosophy, history, human belief perception and motivation. Hume's major philosophical works (Morris, 2013) — A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740), the Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748) and concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), as well as the posthumously published Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779, remain widely and deeply influential, Hume emphasized the limitations of human understanding while he stressed our dependence on history, experience and the evolution of knowledge practiced through trial and error. (Maley, B, 2007) According to Hume, if everyone had the same access to material things and men were supplied with everything in abundance, justice and injustice would be equally unknown to mankind,(Morris,2013): Hume's “Advertisement” is for the first two books of the Treatise promised subsequent works on morals, politics and criticism, but his Political Discourses, “Of Tragedy,” and “Of the Standard of Taste” are our only hints as to what he might have said about those topics. His political essays range widely, covering not only the constitutional issues one might expect, but also venturing into what we now call economics, dealing with issues of commerce, luxury, and their implications for society. Adopting a descriptive approach to the problems he discusses, Hume emphasizes that current events and concerns are best understood by tracing them historically to their origins. This approach contrasts sharply with contemporary discussions, which treated these events as the products of chance, or of providence.
“Of the Standard of Taste” is a rich contribution to the then-emerging discipline of what we now call aesthetics. This complex essay contains a lucid statement of Hume's views on what constitutes “just criticism,” but it is not just about criticism, as some readers are beginning to realize. Though Hume's account of aesthetic judgment precisely parallels his account of causal and moral judgment, the essay also contains a discussion of how a naturalistic theory might deal with questions of normativity. Hume's History of England, published in six volumes over as many years in the 1750s, recalls his characterization, in the first Enquiry, of history as “so many collections of experiments.” He rejects the theoretical commitments of both Tory and Whig accounts of British history, and offers what he believes is an impartial account that looks at political institutions as historical developments responsive to Britons' experience of changing conditions, evaluating political decisions in the contexts in which they were made, instead of second-guessing them in the light of subsequent developments Hume’s philosophy today
Existentialism is the twentieth century extension of the Enlightenment Movement. (Fernie, 2009) Where the Enlightenment challenged and doubted God and morality, existentialism denies their existence. If God and morality do not exist then man is alone and free, except that this freedom imposes its own constraints. If man is free then it is wrong to deprive him of that freedom, and this extends to influencing others in their lives and the choices they make. Some of these beliefs can be seen in "Les Miserables" and many other major works of literature in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the writers making major contributions to the cause of existentialism, promoted also by the experiences of millions during the second world war.

Conclusion
(Sparksnotes, 2013) Hume observes that while we may perceive two events that seem to occur in conjunction, there is no way for us to know the nature of their connection. We often assume that one thing causes another, but it is just as possible that one thing does not cause the other. If we accept our limitations, we can still function without abandoning our assumptions about cause and effect. Hume also rejects the principle of induction which teaches us that we can predict the future based on what has happened in the past. To Hume this type of reasoning is circular and lacks foundation in reason. Hume also used philosophy that humans are biologically inclined to approve and support whatever helps society, since we all live in a community and stand to benefit. Hume used this simple but controversial insight to explain how we evaluate a wide array of phenomena, from social institutions and government policies to character traits and individual behavior. Some of these beliefs linger today and have been expanded and interpreted by modern day philisophers. .

Bibliography/References
Fernie, Stewart (2009) POTTED PHILOSOPHY
Maley, B. (2007). TWO KINDS OF MEN, TWO KINDS OF ENLIGHTENMENT. Quadrant Magazine, 51(6), 18.

Morris, William Edward, "David Hume", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/hume/>.
SparkNotes Editors. (2005). SparkNote on David Hume (1711–1776). Retrieved October 30, 2013, from http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/hume/

Stromberg, R. N. (1994). European intellectual history since 1789. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.