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By the time Hume started work on his ''Treatise'' the notion that sought to found an idea was empirical science of the primary sort of mental content dominated European philosophymind, due, in part, to based on experience and observation. He noted that the works application of Descartes and Locke. Hume instead used the term ''''perceptions'''' experimental method to designate mental content of any sort. He supposed there are two sorts of perceptions, '''impressions''' and '''ideas''', which was a new distinction. Impressions include feelings we get "moral subjects" necessarily differed from our senses, such as of a red tomato currently its use in front of menatural philosophy, as well as desires, emotions, passions, and sentimentsbecause it was impossible to conduct experiments "purposely, with premeditation" on such as my current hunger for the tomatomatters. Hume distinguished impressions Instead, knowledge would be gained "from ideas by their degree cautious observation of vivacity or forcehuman life.. Thus.by men's behaviour in company, I have an impression of the tomato that is currently presentin affairs, and an idea of a tomato I ate last week. Hume supposed our ideas are faint copies of our impressionsin pleasures". [[CiteRef::Owen Biro (2009)|p. 42]]Experimental psychology in the modern sense, with controlled experiments in the laboratory, would not make its appearance until the late 19th century. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown Leary (2016)]][[CiteRef::Biro (20091979)]]
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Descartes' rationalism had a proof of God's existence at its foundation, but it was also a challenge to the theological methodology established by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), which stressed the limitations of human reason, and the need to rely on Biblical revelation. Descartes instead claimed a human capacity to know God and nature through reason alone. However, his rationalist argument for God's existence and guarantorship of the certainty of scientific knowledge was soon rejected as circular. [[CiteRef:: Hyman (2007)]][[CiteRef::Cottingham (1992)]] It was supplanted by Newton's experimental philosophy and Locke's empiricism, both of which stressed experience and observation as sources of the limited knowledge to which humans could aspire, and eschewed metaphysics and speculative hypotheses. [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)]] Both Newton and Locke were nevertheless devoutly religious, though they held non-standard beliefs. Newton authored an entire volume on Biblical prophesies. [[CiteRef::Mandelbrote (2004)]] Like many natural philosophers associated with the Royal Society, they supported a form of natural religion that sought to use the experimental method to demonstrate that the universe exhibited the order and purposefulness of a designed artifact crafted by an all-powerful Intelligence. Hume doubted both revealed religion and natural religion as sources of knowledge, and published strong arguments against both. Unlike Locke, Hume saw that empiricism must place God's existence among those speculative questions to be eschewed. [[CiteRef::Hyman (2007)]] Doubts about God's existence also arose among French intellectuals in the mid-eighteenth century, with the first to openly proclaim himself an atheist being Denis Diderot (1713-1784). [[CiteRef:: Hyman (2007)]][[CiteRef::Bristow (2017)]]
|Major Contributions=Hume was one of a number of eighteenth century British philosophers whose work was inspired primarily by Newton's physical theories and experimental philosophy. Hume and Colin MacLaurin (1698-1746) believed that the mind's operations could be studied by broadly Newtonian observational methods, and in both cases this led them to forms of local skepticism. Joseph Priestly (1733-1804) and David Hartley (1705-1757) applied Newtonianism to both the operations of the mind and to its substance, becoming materialists. George Turnbull (1698-1748) and his pupil Thomas Reid(1710-1796) sought to ground Newtonian empiricism in a common-sense understanding of the world, thus avoiding Hume's skepticism. [[CiteRef::Nichols and Yaffe (2016)]]
Hume's main philosophical contributions to matters relevant to scientific change were made via several works. The first was ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' published in three volumes in 1739 and 1740, when Hume was 29 years old. Since it sold poorly, Hume recast the material into two later publications, ''Enquiries concerning Human Understanding'', published in 1748, and ''concerning the Principles of Morals'' published in 1751. Because of its controversial nature, Hume had ''Dialogs concerning Natural Religion'' published posthumously in 1779, three years after his death. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]][[CiteRef:: Norton (2009)]]
=== Hume and The Science of Human Nature ===
The basic goal of the first three of these Hume's major works is indicated by the subtitle of the ''Treatise''; "an attempt to introduce the experimental method into moral subjects". [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)|p.7]] Hume sought to extend Newton's experimental philosophy from natural philosophy into what was then called '''moral philosophy''', which he defined as the "science of human nature". [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)|p.8]] The field of moral philosophy was much broader then than today, and included topics that we might classify as psychology or cognitive science, as well as epistemology. To Hume, an understanding of the workings of the mind was the key to establishing the foundations of all other knowledge, including "Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion". [[CiteRef:: Norton (2009)|p. 34]] Natural philosophers, like Newton and Boyle, he maintains, had cured themselves of their "passion for hypotheses and systems". [[CiteRef:: Morris and Brown (2016)|p. 8-9]] Hume sought to His work the same cure for moral philosophy, which he saw as full of speculative metaphysical hypotheses and constant dispute. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]] He proposed an empiricist alternative to ''a priori'' metaphysics based on pure reason and the speculative belief systems to which it led. [[CiteRef::Norton (2009)]] He in this area was a naturalist who rejected any appeal thus critical to the supernatural in explanations of human nature. For such beliefs, his ideas regarding scientific methodology and because he argued that we cannot justify many of our beliefs, he is noted as a skepticscientific change. But he also observed that we have non-rational faculties which compel certain sorts of beliefs (such as the belief that there is a world external to my mind of which my senses provide knowledge), and it is these faculties of which he wishes to give a positive descriptive account. [[CiteRef::Biro (2009)]][[CiteRef::Wright (2012)]]
Natural philosophers, like Newton and Boyle, Hume maintained, had cured themselves of their "passion for hypotheses and systems". [[CiteRef:: Morris and Brown (2016)|p. 8-9]] He sought to found an empirical science of work the mindsame cure for moral philosophy, which he saw as full of speculative metaphysical hypotheses and constant dispute. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]] He proposed an empiricist alternative to ''a priori'' metaphysics based on experience pure reason and observation. He noted that the application of the experimental method speculative belief systems to "moral subjects" necessarily differed from its use in natural philosophy, because which it was impossible to conduct experiments "purposely, with premeditation"led. Instead[[CiteRef::Norton (2009)]] As a naturalist, knowledge would be gained "from cautious observation Hume rejected any appeal to the supernatural in explanations of human lifenature.For such beliefs, and because he argued that we cannot justify many of our beliefs, he is noted as a skeptic..by men's behaviour in company, in affairsBut he also observed that we have non-rational faculties which compel certain sorts of beliefs (such as the belief that there is a world external to my mind of which my senses provide knowledge), and in pleasures"it is these faculties of which he wishes to give a positive descriptive account. [[CiteRef::Biro (2009)|p. 42]] Experimental psychology in the modern sense, with controlled experiments in the laboratory, would not make its appearance until the late 19th century. [[CiteRef::Leary Wright (19792012)]]
Due in part to the works of Descartes and Locke, the notion that an idea was the primary sort of mental content dominated European philosophy by the time Hume started work on his ''Treatise''. Hume instead used the term ''''perceptions'''' to designate mental content of any sort. He supposed there are two sorts of perceptions, '''impressions''' and '''ideas''', which was a new distinction. Impressions include feelings we get from our senses, such as of a red tomato currently in front of me, as well as desires, emotions, passions, and sentiments, such as my current hunger for the tomato. Hume distinguished impressions from ideas by their degree of vivacity or force. Thus, I have an impression of the tomato that is currently present, and an idea of a tomato I ate last week. Hume supposed our ideas are faint copies of our impressions. [[CiteRef::Owen (2009)]][[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]][[CiteRef::Biro (2009)]] Noting that there is a regular order to our thoughts, he asserted that the mind has the power to associate ideas. Hume’s concepts about the association of ideas were novel. He posited three associative principles; '''resemblance''' (as when I recognize that the tomato currently before me resembles the one in my garden), '''contiguity''' in time and place (as when I notice that the tomato is on the table to my left) and '''causation''' (as when I notice that bumping the table causes the tomato to tumble to the floor). Hume believed that by thus anatomizing human nature, its laws of operation could be discovered. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]][[CiteRef::Biro (2009)]] [[CiteRef::Owen (2009)]] Hume He argued that the mind could not be an immaterial substance, though he was also critical of materialism. Regarding personal identity, he Hume wrote that “what we call a ''mind'' is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations, and supos’d, tho’ falslyfalsely, to be endow’d with perfect simplicity and identity”. [[CiteRef::McIntyre (2009) | p. 182]] It was Hume's careful analysis of the mind that led to his insights relevant to scientific methodology.
=== Hume and Scientific Methodology ===
