David Hume Essay

David Hume's Theory of Causality Essay
What Came First: The Chicken or the Egg? David Hume moves through a logical progression of
the ideas behind cause and effect. He critically analyzes the reasons behind those generally
accepted ideas. Though the relation of cause and effect seems to be completely logical and based
on common sense, he discusses our impressions and ideas and why they are believed. Hume's
progression, starting with his initial definition of cause, to his final conclusion in his doctrine on
causality. As a result, it proves how Hume's argument on causality follows the same path as his
epistemology, with the two ideas complimenting each other so that it is rationally impossible to
accept the epistemology and not accept his argument on causality. Hume starts by...show more
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That argument contradicts itself, because it uses itself as a cause for existence in its premise,
when it is proving the concept of cause being a necessity. Therefore, it begs the question to prove
cause and effect by relying on the conclusion to prove the premise. The ideas of cause and effect
cannot vary too far from actual impressions of the mind or ideas from the memory. We must first
establish the existence of causes before we can infer effects from them. We have only two ways
of doing that, either by an immediate perception of our memory or senses, called impressions, or,
by an inference from other causes, called thoughts. For example, "A man finding a watch or any
other machine in a desert island would conclude that there had once been men in that island"
(160). Regardless of the source of the impression, the imagination and perceptions of the senses
are the foundation for the reasoning that traces the relation of cause and effect. The inference that
we draw from cause to effect does not come from a dependence on the two concepts to each other
or from a rational objective look at the two. One object does not imply the existence of any other.
All distinct ideas are separable, as are the ideas of cause and effect. The only way that we can infer
the existence of one object from another is through experience. Contiguity and succession are not
sufficient to make us pronounce any two objects to be cause and effect, unless we
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David Hume On Personal Identity
In his text "On Personal Identity", David Hume discusses and analyses the presence and perception
of one's self. Through the ideas and examples that he provides, Hume explains his main arguments
with regards to how we perceive our own identity and self, and whether this perception is accurate
variable or even possible to be maintained. The first section of this paper serves as an introduction to
Hume's text, highlighting his main arguments, then elaborating on each of his arguments with a
support from his texts through quotations and external research analysis. By referring to Hume's
text, a personal analysis and a synthesis of analysis from credible external sources, the paper aims to
shed the light on the key arguments by Hume in "On Personal...show more content...
But this is not a guaranteed process, because the transition among these relations will may diminish,
so "we have no standard by which we can decide any dispute concerning the time when they acquire
or lose a title to the name of identity", (Hume, 171), which means that the notion of identity is
uncertain, but is only a combination of feelings ideas and perceptions. As an empiricist philosopher,
Hume maintains a bundle' view of personal identity, arguing that the mind does not have a cohesive
union, but rather is formed of a combination of perceptions. And so is the self, which is a bundle of
experiences, liked by resemblance and causation. This bundle is just like links in a chain, and if a
person attempts to find a unifying self–outside these perceptions, it is like he is trying to find a chain
beyond these links
In conclusion, this paper first gave a general overview of Hume's main claim in his text "On Personal
Identity", then proceeded to elaborate on each of the arguments that he raised through his text,
clarifying them through external research, personal analysis and quotations from the text itself. As a
fitting conclusion, one can say that Hume intended for us to think twice before making conclusions
about our one's self based on things like intuition, perception or abstract feelings and impressions, but
rather it should be done through credible empirical evidence, which would dash the doubts and
confirm the

Why Should The Human Brain Be Dissected?
"The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to
speak in public." –( George Jessel ). One can say or try and dissect the brain and try to figure what's
going on inside of it and that's what Philosophers today try to accomplish, but a question can be
raised from this. Why is that why must the brain be dissected? This question is raised for the
simple fact that Philosophers really want to know what's going on the human brain. This can also
go back to "knowing" and believing in something that can be proven as a fact. We will also take a
look into induction which is the process of deriving general principles from particular facts or
instances, and generalization the act or process of perceiving...show more content...
The two general problems posed by Hume is how do we, as human beings, form opinions about
certain issues that we may or may have not personally observed. The second part of his argument
questions various people that have drawn conclusions from something they haven't seen. In the
article, Hume rarely refers to this particular issue as induction; he uses the term generalization a
lot to discuss the topic. This issue has been around for a very long time looking back into our
world's storied history. We look at our observations in the past to sometimes speculate things that
we will see in the future. For example, all of our life's we have only seen one particular type of
species of squirrels. This is the typical brown squirrel that one would see on a daily basis.
Everywhere and every time someone mentions a squirrel you would envision something brown.
You wouldn't think that it was any way possible for there to be another type/color squirrel. This
"assumption" was believed to be true for a long time until someone discovered a black squirrel and
also a gray squirrel which proved those initial thoughts to be in correct. Therefore there statement
was invalid about squirrels, so we can see that this is something that can happen on a day to day
basis. Another great point that arises from Hume is that all events in the future will be as they were
in the past. This idea is only true

David Hume's Future Essay
Hume asked, "what reason do we have in thinking the future will resemble the past?" It is
reasonable to think that it will because there is no contradiction in supposing the future won't
resemble the past. But it is also true that is possible for the world to change dramatically and our
previous experience would be completely useless in judging future experience. We want to say that
past experiences have been a good predictor. We are compelled to do so and it is almost as if we
can't help ourselves. But we are merely stating that in the past, it has been a good predictor. Hume
says we are begging the question. We are still in the past if we say that past pasts were reliable
predictors of past futures.
So we see that the past...show more content...
He starts by telling us that our perceptions, not ideas are the basic units of our mental geography. For
Hume, this means that there is no part of the mind that is not perception. A sensory perception is an
impression (what we see, touch, feel) and a thought perception (thinking, imagining, expecting) is an
idea.
Hume believes our thoughts or ideas are weaker versions of our more lively impressions. Since a
copy implies that the impression is the original, the original would be the more basic one. Hume
seems to imply that every impression would have a corresponding idea and every idea a
corresponding impression.
But this is troubling like induction because it is impossible to find a connection from every A to
B and every B to A. We can see red and later be able to think about red, but how does one think of a
vast ocean without having seen it? We in fact have an idea of many things we have not yet seen.
Hume reconciles this by saying that, like our inexplicable will to move our foot and the foot
moving, there is not simply one A to B. There is a multiplicity of events that cause the movement
(muscles, tendons, nerves, etc.) and likewise with the idea that causes the impression. There simply
are more complex ideas that are composed of simpler ideas, each of which are derived from
corresponding impressions.
Hume asks us to then take this formula and try to contradict it.

Essay on David Hume On Empiricism
Hume On Empiricism
The ultimate question that Hume seems to be seeking an answer to is that of why is that we
believe what we believe. For most of us the answer is grounded in our own personal experiences
and can in no way be justified by a common or worldly assumption. Our pasts, according to Hume,
are reliant on some truths which we have justified according to reason, but in being a skeptic reason
is hardly a solution for anything concerning our past, present or future. Our reasoning according to
causality is slightly inhibited in that Hume suggests that it is not that we are not able to know
anything about future events based on past experiences, but rather that we are just not rationally
justified in believing those things that...show more content...
Science tries to posit explanations for our existence here and for the existence of everything around
us. No matter how many "proofs" exist though, each has to have derived from some "thought" or
"idea" that has no concreteness to it. As Hume first explains in his Enquiry, there are relations of
ideas that lead us to justify certain scientific proofs empirically. Kant calls this analytic versus
synthetic.
In being a naturalist, Hume relates humans as being one in the same with animals, at least when it
comes to causal reasoning. We are no more reasonable than animals because the faculty of the
human mind that allows us to see into the truth has arisen in us naturally. The sharp difference
between humans and animals is the ability to draw on the inference of necessary connections in
nature and being able to think about them. Hume does not doubt that there may exist some God
with a form of discerning between right and wrong, but he denies that our ability to do so came
from such a God. We know a God has to exist only as a cause of the effects we ascribe to him.
Hume describes God as an "empty hypothesis" because he is used only to explain certain
phenomena that we may not otherwise be able to explain. We have no direct knowledge or first
hand experience of God and so we cannot give Him any qualities besides those that we

David Hume's Rationalism Essay
Hume opens his book III of A Treatise of Human Nature with the premise that moral distinctions are
not derived from reason. According to Hume we must turn our reflection into 'our own breast'. Hume
had his own reasons to reject the rationalist interpretation of morality. Hume puts forward six
arguments to reject the rationalist view.
a.Since morals have influence on actions and affections, they cannot be derived from reason alone,
because reason can never have such an influence. "Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent
actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not
conclusions of our reason" .
b.An inactive principle can never be a cause for an active subject. Reason being inactive can never
be a cause for active moral subjects.
c....show more content...
Reason is perfectly inert and it can never either prevent or produce any action or affection.
d.Reason is the discovery of truth or falsehood. Truth or falsehood consiss in agreement or
disagreement with the real relations of ideas or real existence of facts. Therefore whatever
susceptible of this agreement or disagreement can never be an object of reason. And it is evident that
morality is not susceptible of any such agreement or

David Hume Matters Of Fact
David Hume was an 18th century Scottish empiricist philosopher who wrote the essay, An Enquiry
Concerning Human Understanding in 1748. Hume was not only one of the first philosophers to
write in English, but was also the first to really discuss that we cannot know most things with
certainty. In this essay, Hume divides the knowledge that we can know with certainty and that which
we cannot into two categories: relations of ideas, and matters of fact. Relations of Ideas include the
topics of math, such as Geometry, Algebra and Arithmetic. It is this category in which we can have
knowledge with certainty. Relations of Ideas does not use the senses or any outside influences to
discover these truths. These truths are "discoverable by the operation...show more content...
This is based on the fact that the future will be like the past. According to Hume, relationships
between objects are known simply by observing their interactions. Hypotheses are developed based
on common experience and cause is established by observation only. Although there were future
philosophers who disagreed with several aspects of Hume's philosophy of science, Hume was really
the first philosopher to start thinking along the line of how science has progressed in our current
day. He talked about how most knowledge cannot be known with certainty and began to discuss the
idea of probability. Although controversial during his time, Hume did take a bold stand, which was
instrumental in moving science forward. Hume can be summarized with the following

Hume is an empiricist and a skeptic. He develops a philosophy that is generally approached in a
manner as that of a scientist and therefore he thinks that he can come up with a law for human
understanding. Hume investigates the understanding as an empiricist to try and understand the
origins of human ideas. Empiricism is the notion that all knowledge comes from experience.
Skepticism is the practice of not believing things in nature a priori, but instead investigating things to
discover what is really true. Hume does not believe that all a posteriori knowledge is useful, too.
He believes "all experience is useless unless predictive knowledge is possible." There are various
types of skepticism that Hume...show more content...
Fire is burning paper. 2. Fire must burn paper. 3. Fire will burn paper. These are all a priori
judgments. In other words, there are no connections between any of them. Hume does not believe a
priori judgments are viable. In fact, he does not even believe all a posteriori judgments are viable, as
was noted above.
Let us take a moment to talk about Hume's origin of ideas. Hume believes in the classic theory of
the blank slate – that when we are born, we come into the world with no ideas. Impression is an
imprint, meaning that it is something outside the mind. Impressions are not a priori. Consider the
mind to be like a ball of wax, knowledge refers to the imprints on the ball of wax. He's looking for
the intrinsic basis. His problem is that scientist and philosophers base knowledge off a priori. If you
can trace the idea to the impression then you have the best idea. If you can't then the origin is
subjective. Primary qualities are not subjective; they are inseparable from the thing itself. The world
that is out there, that makes an impression on your mind. Trace the idea to the impression. It is
important to note that Hume believes we do not have impressions of the future.
There is no empirical evidence that the past to carry on to the future. If the past has no rule for the
future, experience becomes useless. It is then that customs render the future. " the mind is carried by
custom to except heat

Essay on David Hume's Theory of Knowledge
Knowledge is gained only through experience, and experiences only exist in the mind as
individual units of thought. This theory of knowledge belonged to David Hume, a Scottish
philosopher. Hume was born on April 26, 1711, as his family's second son. His father died when he
was an infant and left his mother to care for him, his older brother, and his sister. David Hume passed
through ordinary classes with great success, and found an early love for literature. He lived on his
family's estate, Ninewells, near Edinburgh. Throughout his life, literature consumed his thoughts,
and his life is little more than his works. By the age of 40, David Hume had been employed twice
and had failed at the family careers,...show more content...
David Hume discovered he was literary celebrity when visiting France in 1763. He retired to
Edinburgh in 1769 and lived a happy life. He passed away August 25, 1776 and left in his will that
he only wanted his name and date on his gravestone, "leaving it to posterity to add the rest,"
(Langley 415).
Skepticism is the belief that people can not know the nature of things because perception reveals
things not as they are, but as we experience them. In other words, knowledge is never known in truth,
and humans should always question it. David Hume advanced skepticism to what he called
mitigated skepticism. Mitigated skepticism was his approach to try to rid skepticism of the thoughts
of human origin, and only include questions that people may begin to understand. Hume's goal was
to limit philosophical questioning to things which could be comprehended.
Empiricism states that knowledge is based on experience, so everything that is known is learned
through experience, but nothing is ever truly known. David Hume called lively and strong
experiences, perceptions, and less lively events, beliefs or thoughts. Different words and concepts
meant different things to different people due to the knowledge, or experiences they have. He
believed, along with the fact that knowledge is only gained through experience, that a person's
experiences are nothing more than the contents of his or her own consciousness. The knowledge of
anything comes from the way

Essay on David Hume: On Miracles
In explaining Hume's critique of the belief in miracles, we must first understand the definition of a
miracle. The Webster Dictionary defines a miracle as: a supernatural event regarded as to define
action, one of the acts worked by Christ which revealed his divinity an extremely remarkable
achievement or event, an unexpected piece of luck. Therefore, a miracle is based on one's perception
of past experiences, what everyone sees. It is based on an individuals own reality, and the faith in
which he/she believes in, it is based on interior events such as what we are taught, and exterior
events, such as what we hear or see first hand. When studying Hume's view of a miracle, he interprets
or defines a miracle as such; a miracle is a...show more content...
Hume's second reason in contradicting the validity of a miracle is that he views all of our
beliefs, or what we choose to accept, or not accept through past experience and what history
dictates to us. Furthermore, he tends to discredit an individual by playing on a human beings
consciousness or sense of reality. An example is; using words such as, the individuals need for
"excitement" and "wonder" arising from miracles. Even the individual who can not enjoy the
pleasure immediately will still believe in a miracle, regardless of the possible validity of the
miracle. With this, it leads the individual to feel a sense of belonging and a sense of pride. These
individuals tend to be the followers within society. These individuals will tend to believe faster
than the leaders in the society. With no regard to the miracles validity, whether it is true or false, or
second hand information. Miracles lead to such strong temptations, that we as individuals tend to
lose sense of our own belief of fantasy and reality. As individuals we tend to believe to find
attention, and to gossip of the unknown. Through emotions and behavior Hume tends to believe
there has been many forged miracles, regardless if the information is somewhat valid or not. His
third reason in discrediting the belief in a miracle is testimony versus reality. Hume states, "It forms
a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous

David Hume Reflection Paper
People often question what and why they believe. Philosopher David Hume tries to explore this idea
in his book, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Majority of people think that the answer is
within our personal experience. According to Hume, our pasts are believable on a couple of truths
which we have given justification to according to reason, but with him being a skeptic, reason is in
no way a solution for the things that concern our past, present, or future. Hume states in his Enquiry
Concerning Human Understanding, that empiricism, "will always, with the generality of mankind,
have preference above the accurate and abstruse" (Hume, Section 1). By coming to learn and
understand Hume's thoughts on the subject, I would have to come to a disagreement about the idea
of empiricism because it mocks the Christian faith and is not consistent with its conclusions.
Empiricists believe that knowledge is found through evidence or experience alone, but this belief
can be proven wrong with evidence from Scripture. Proverbs 2:6–11 of the New International
Version states that knowledge comes fromGod;
"For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds success
in store for the upright, he is a shield for those who walk in blameless, for he guards the course of
the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Then you will understand what is right and just and
fair–every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant

David Hume Identity
When addressing philosopher David Hume's take on the idea of the self, it becomes essential to
begin by stating his disregard for the concept itself. As an man of empiricist tradition, Hume
believes that all knowledge about matters of fact come from our senses and what those senses lead
us to experience. This belief leads him to conclude that everything we are, and will ever be, has to
unconditionally originate from our senses and experiences rather than from an inner self that simply
constitutes our identity. The key argument is the distinction between this mistaken idea of identity
and the idea of diversity within a person, leading to Hume's claim that humans are an ever changing
being composed of a limitless bundle of independent...show more content...
The constant resemblance and continuity of experiences causes a person to neglect an object, a
plant, or even another person as a changing thing but instead identify it as a constant self. Hume
conversely claims that if it weren't for factors such as continuity, resemblance, and causation it
becomes evident that a being is constantly changing and never pertaining to one individual self.
This can be seen in Mr. Nobody, as the plot sets around the last mortal on Earth (118 year old
character) telling the stories of his lifetime, or better yet, the various scenarios his life could have
had and the person he would have resulted being in each independent setting. The main character,
Nemo, faced decisions since an early age that would define his future for the better or the worst.
The plot is divided between various scenarios: his life married to each of the three different girls
in his neighborhood and choosing between which parent to live with after their divorce. Moreover,
the film jumps between scenarios and provides examples of how each combination of experiences
led him to become and be perceived by others differently. In essence, Nemo is not a self or an

David Hume
David Hume's Empiricism
Sanket Thakkar
Oakton Community College
Every philosopher begins with the premises from which he bases his entire philosophical theory.
Descartes rejects all the premises and holds innate into question. He withholds all the assumptions
and only believes in things that can be proven. His goal in subjecting everything to methodical
doubt is you don't know it is true until you have the proof. Descartes begins by doubting his own
existence and starts with the premise, "I think I am therefore I am". He is not sure whether he exists
or not but the fact that he is thinking is the proof that his mind exists. Descartes is Mind–Body
dualist and although mind cannot exist without a body, he believes mind and body are...show more
content...
Simple ideas are copy of a single direct experience/ impression for example, idea of Mount
Everest. Complex ideas are combination of two or more copies of impressions/ experiences for
example, idea of a golden mountain. You have an idea of gold color and you have an idea about
mountain thus even though nobody has seen a golden mountain but you can have idea about a
golden mountain. According to Hume, you only know what your experience will allow you to
know. You cannot know more than what you can experience; knowledge is dependent and
derivative of experience. He says God is complex idea we don't have any proof about God's
existence or inexistence. This point of view of David Hume is completely different to Descartes
who believes in God's existence. According to David Hume, if we have idea of infinity that means
we must have impression of infinite but we cannot touch or feel infinity thus infinity is not a simple
idea. In order for infinity to be complex idea but we don't have anything that is infinite so according
to Hume, concept of infinity doesn't exist. It is just pseudo idea that we have given name which has
no relation to anything actual.
David Hume makes another distinction regarding object of cognition, anything that is thought
about. All the object of human reason or inquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, relation of
ideas and matters of fact. David Hume uses the term "Matters of fact" is the kind of thing

David Hume Induction Essay
David Hume, a philosopher who raised radical doubts about the rationality of the scientific
enterprise. Hume believed that "experience can only assure us of what we are actually observing at
present, or can remember having observed in the past" (Cottingham, 2008). In this paper I will show
that David Hume's claim on induction that when there is real knowledge of an event, it cannot
correctly justify inductive assumptions. Hume felt that things we experience in the present moment
are things that were experienced in the past and are being reflected into the present moment. Hume
provides an example of having bread earlier in the day but no poison him at dinner (Cottingham,
2008). He is simply states that you can never be sure of anything based...show more content...
An example would be this ball from this sac is black. That ball from the sac is black. A third ball
from the bag is black. Therefore, all the balls in the sac are black. This justification is we assume
that something will continue to happen because it has happened the same way before. Hume
believes that this type of assumption is circular and lacks justification in reason. "But Hume's
devastating point is that experience can only assure us of what we are actually observing as
present, or can remember having observed in the past" (Cottingham, 2008). Hume believed that
we all have natural belief in induction. It is important to remember that a functioning daily we
must recognize the limitations of our own knowledge. Hume's claim that none of our beliefs are
justified regardless of how certain a belief is seeming to be questionable. Relying on the past will
continue to leave us in the small circular motion that we have been in and will not allow us to use
the knowledge that will ultimately help us more forward. Looking at the past is to help shape
things for what is next but shouldn't be the only thing we use to shape things. We must use the
knowledge of things will prove and or disprove things even though Hume believe that knowledge
was impossible. Knowledge is what will move us forward and

How Did David Hume Exist
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, and a historian , born on April 26th, 1711 at Edinburgh,
Scotland . Hume was born in a family of lawyers and Politicians. Hume's father who passed away
when David was an infant worked as a lawyer, and his grandfather was the president of the college
of justice. David was raised with his sister and elder brother by his mother who was a Christian
Calvinist devoted to her religion and beliefs . David excelled in the standard course of education
an attended University at the age of 12 which was exceptional at his time. David's family planed
for him to take on his father's career as a lawyer, but David rejected this plan as he found an
irresistible passion towards philosophy, and general learning. However,...show more content...
David being a skeptic doubted a lot of concepts, one of these concepts was the concept of personal
identity. Hume believed that there is no such thing as a personal identity that resembles the core of
people's true selves that is unchangeable throughout life. Hume believed that people's identities are
bundles of different properties and perceptions, and it is impossible to picture someone without these
properties, same way it is impossible to picture the sun without light. Hume argues that the reason
why most people believe that personal identity is unchangeable is the misinterpretation of
self–awareness, Hume believes that humans could never be truly aware of themselves, but through
experience using their senses and imagination they might think that they are truly aware of
themselves, but they are only aware of their surroundings. Therefore, it would be sound to conclude
that Hume's theory of the self is a critical aspect of David Hume's philosophy as it helps shape his
skeptical

David Hume and His Thoughts Essay
David Hume and His Thoughts
Hume begins his argument by observing that there is "a great variety of taste, as well as of
opinions, which prevails the world." This diversity is found among people of the same background
and culture within the same group and is even more pronounced among "distance nations and
remote ages." A "standard of taste" would provide a definite way to reconcile this diversity. By
taste, Hume refers to impressions or emotional responses associated with beauty and ugliness. Each
person perceives beauty differently or, in other words, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Hume
then starts to outline this thesis. Sentiments are subjective and can neither be right or...show more
content...
Beauty, however, exists in the minds of the individuals contemplating it and thus each individual
perceives beauty differently.
3. 5 Principles of Taste of the Ideal Critic
The Ideal Critic possesses delicacy of taste, practice, unprejudiced mind, ability to engage in
comparison, and overall good sense. Hume defines "delicacy of taste" as thus: "where the organs
are so fine, as to allow nothing to escape them, and at the same time so exact as to perceive every
ingredient in the composition." He then uses the story of the two kinsmen from Don Quixote to
illustrate this concept. The main point of this story is that some individuals are more sensitive to
subtle differences in an artwork and that delicacy of taste is required to make a judgment. The ideal
critic can improve their "delicacy of taste" through practice and comparison. In order to do so, the
critic must free the mind from prejudice by being a disinterested observer. The last attribute of an
ideal critic is good sense, which means the ideal critic must be intelligent and rational.
4. Characteristics that Account for Differences in Taste
Hume identifies two characteristics that may account for the differences of taste: "the different
humors of men" and "particular manners and opinions of our age and country." Maturity, character,
position, and culture are unavoidable influences on the judgments

David Hume Research Paper
David Hume was an empiricist philosopher who revolutionized scientific argument and methodology
with his skepticism. Hume was born in a time when there was a great deal of innovation going on,
where new theories and ideas were just starting to surface. Hume's idea of rationality contrasted with
a lot of the rationalists that predated him, namely Descartes. In his Treatise of Human Nature, Hume
argued that reason did not influence action but rather guided our judgment by informing us about the
causes and effects. He separated passions from reason by claiming that passions are not ideas, do not
represent anything, are independent and therefore cannot conflict with truth or reason. By reading
Hume, in particular reading about his theory of passions,...show more content...
He started by clarifying what impressions were, "original impressions or impressions of sensation
are such without any antecedent perception arise in the soul, from the constitution of the body,
from the animal spirits, or from the application of objects to the external organs. Secondary or
reflective impressions are such as proceeding from some of these original ones, either
immediately or by the interposition of its ideas. Of the first kind are all the impressions of the
senses, and all bodily pains and pleasures: of the second are the passions and other emotions
resembling them," (Hume 275). As a result, we receive impressions from our senses; they are inner
impressions and original because they come from physical sources that are outside of us. Passions in
contrast, come from secondary impressions. Passions, according to Hume, "Are completely different
from reason and therefore cannot be put in either category of reasonable or unreasonable" (Hume
23). Hume states, "Judgments only result in opinions and nothing else, therefore when a person
makes judgments about different ideas whether they are reasonable or unreasonable does not matter.
Reason works in influencing our actions in two ways, directing passions to focus on proper objects
and discovering connections that will incite passions, judgments have to incite passions for

David Hume's Theory of Ethics Essay
David Hume is considered to be one of the big three British empiricists, along with Hobbes and
Locke, and lived near the end of the Enlightenment. The Catholic Church was losing its control over
science, politics and philosophy and the Aristotelian world view was being swallowed up by a more
mechanistic viewpoint. Galileo found the theory provided by Copernicus to be correct, that our earth
was not the center of everything, but the celestial bodies including the earth circled the sun.
Mathematicians abounded. Pascal developed the first mechanical calculator and Newtonian physics
was breaking new ground. Not even the arts were immune. Within the same era Mary Shelley
authored Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus. The main theme for this...show more content...
The latter being the kind that he uses as a naturalist.
David Hume's most famous quote is "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and
can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." To understand the implications of
this quote as a basis for an ethical theory you need to understand that every other ethical theory
attempts to derive how things ought to be from how things are. The jumps from matters of fact and
relations of ideas perceived by reason, to value judgments perceived by emotions, are made in
Hume's opinion with no logical reason. There is nothing contradictory in the statement the sun will
not rise in the morning, it is not unreasonable. We only feel that it "ought to" continue rising in the
morning. The scientific method uses inductive reasoning to construct a hypothesis and Hume does
not contend that it should not be used. It has been useful thus far in making predictions and it is the
only tool that we have for understanding the world around us.
David Hume's ethical theory sits between philosophy and modern day psychology. He uses the
empirical method to study the natural tendencies of human beings to engage their emotions, and in
our emotions is where morality could be understood best. One must remember

David Hume Essay
David Hume Hume, David, 1711–76, Scottish philosopher and historian. Hume carried the
empiricism of John Locke and George Berkeley to the logical extreme of radical skepticism. He
repudiated the possibility of certain knowledge, finding in the mind nothing but a series of
sensations, and held that cause–and–effect in the natural world derives solely from the conjunction
of two impressions. Hume's skepticism is also evident in his writings on religion, in which he
rejected any rational or natural theology. David Hume lived in the constitutional monarchy of
George II under the Prime Ministers Walpole,...show more content...
The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and
is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality.
That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more
contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therfore, attempt to
demonstrate its falsehood. (Hume, David S. "Concerning Human Understanding" Section IV, Part I,
20)
At the end of Section 9 Hume writes: "But our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish when we
consider that the experimental (experiential) reasoning itself, which we possess in common with
beasts, and on which the whole of conduct depends, is nothing but a species of instinct or
mechanical power that acts in us unknown to ourselves, and in its chief operations is not directed by
any such relations or comparison of ideas as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties."
Hume's argument that human instincts are similar to animal instincts, however humans differ from
animals in regards to the facts makes sense, but it makes more sense to combine experience with
thought.
Hume's arguments seem directed at Descartes. Hume argues that man gains knowledge from
experience and that we should be skeptical of all other knowledge. Descartes believes all knowledge
comes

David Hume's Argument Analysis
In this passage, Hume purports two ways of coming to a rationally justified belief. The first is by
means of infallible experience, that is, past experiences that are so certain to us that it would be
unwise to dismiss them. For example, most people know that if you drop something, it will fall.
They know this because every time they have dropped something or seen something dropped, it has
fallen. This is the kind of knowledge Hume is indicating, a kind of personal experimentation that is
closely related to the second method of rationally justifying a belief. That second method is a
thorough weighing of evidence from as many relevant sources and experiments as possible. Hume
emphasizes the importance of weighing both sides of an argument....show more content...
Underdetermination is essentially a skeptical view of experimental evidence, arguing that
experimental results, for a variety of reasons, are not sufficient to determine the theories we derive
from them. One of the most essential reasons for underdetermination is the fact that in order to come
to a theory as a result of experimentation, a person must already hold certain theories to be true,
leading to a circular system of proofs, which lead to the conclusion that scientific theories cannot be
concluded through rationally justified means. Underdetermination combined with Hume's definition
of rational justification leads to the conclusion that we most likely cannot rationally justify scientific
theories because our only method of rational justification, according to Hume, is scientific evidence,
and according to underdetermination, that scientific evidence is insufficient to determine scientific
theories, resulting in an inability to prove any scientific theory true or false. The ultimate implication
of the combination of these two ides is that the scientific process does is not one that results in true
or false conclusions, because the conclusions reached are not rationally justifiable. This causes the
removal of any truth value from the scientific process. To put it simply, if Hume and
underdeterminism are true, science has no means of proving anything true or false. However, this is
not to say that scientific theories then become utterly useless, but rather to push science from realism
to instrumentalism, which is an inevitable result of the theses of Hume and

David Hume Essay

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