David Hume British Empiricism

1. David HumeBritish Empiricism Melissa Charles

2. What is Empiricism? • empiricism [Gr.,=experience], philosophical doctrine that all knowledge is derived from experience. • What this mean is , experience and the senses are total knowledge, there is nothing more out there but your senses. • “According to the empiricist, all ideas are derived from experience; therefore, knowledge of the physical world can be nothing more than a generalization from particular instances and can never reach more than a high degree of probability”

3. Who was Davis Hume? • (April 26, 1711 – August 25, 1776) • He was a : Scottish Philosopher, essayist economist and an historian, and considered to the greatest philosopher of his time of the Scottish Enlighten apart others. • He attended the University of Edinburgh when he was probably 12 or even 10. There he studied history, literature, mathematics, philosophy upon many other subjects. • Though by some to be an atheist and skeptic. • Died of Intestinal Cancer or cancer of the intestines . “There is nothing to be learned from a Professor, which is not to be met with in Books."

4. His Thinking • Hume did not accept the idea of the brain to be a mini version of “The Divine Mind” • He saw life as it was, black and white. If the color was yellow,it was yellow– no more no less. • “For Hume, sensations and reflections both fall under the term impressions, while he reserves the term ideas for the results of mental processes such as imagination and memory.” • Hume divided the humans mind way of forming ideas in two parts: • Impression: Goes through and works with the senses,it”s much vivid. Meaning if It is cold outside, it is cold outside • Ideas: They”re not as strong as impressions since they only bring back the impression.

5. More on his Thinking • Science of man: “the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences” Which can be seen through the empirical way, observing and experiencing • Believed in compatibilism: “Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent (people who hold this belief are known as compatibilists).[1] While compatibilists hold that free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive, not all compatibilists would insist that both are true” • Determinism • Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia - determinism, philosophical thesis that every event is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. Applied to ethics and psychology, determinism usually involves a denial of free will,

6. Major works include: • A Treatise of Human Nature(1739-1740), : “an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects'. It contains the following sections: Book 1: "Of the Understanding" - A treatment of everything from the origin of our ideas to how they are to be divided. Important statements of Skepticism. Book 2: "Of the Passions" - A treatment of emotions and free will. Book 3: "Of Morals" - A treatment of moral ideas, justice, obligations, benevolence.” • Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748) • concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) • Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) :This laid the path for the worldly views on the history of religion.

7. A ha ha moment • Hume told his friend Mure of Caldwell of an incident which occasioned his "conversion" to Christianity. Passing across the recently drained Nor’ Loch to the New Town of Edinburgh to supervise the masons building his new house, soon to become No. 1 St. David Street, he slipped and fell into the mire. Hume, being then of great bulk, could not regain his feet. Some passing Newhaven fishwives saw his plight but recognized him as the well-known atheist, and so refused to rescue him unless he became a Christian and recited The Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. This he did, and was rewarded by being set again on his feet by these brawny women. Hume asserted thereafter that Edinburgh fishwives were the "most acute theologians he had ever met".[20] • Ref: Wikipedia.com, dictionary. com