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|Summary='''David Hume''' (1711-1776) was a Scottish historian and essayist.[[CiteRef::Fieser (2016)]] As one of the first important philosophers to write in English, Hume was a skeptic. Hume’s two largest contributions to the field of philosophy lie within his major philosophical works: ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' and ''Enquiries concerning Human Understanding''. He is perhaps most well known for his interpretation of Aristotle’s causation in terms of matters of fact and relations of ideas, and for questioning the rationality behind induction.[[CiteRef::Morris (2001)]] These are known as Hume’s Fork and The Problem of Induction respectively. These skeptical arguments posed a challenge to many great philosophical minds and continue to challenge philosophers today.
|Historical Context=Hume is one of the most notable skeptics in all of history thanks to his contributions to his theories on skepticism of causation, and necessary connection. More specifically, within scientific change, Hume’s arguments are most notably used against infallibilism. Famously, Hume is often associated with the terms '''The Problem of Induction''' and '''Hume’s Fork'''. Hume creates most of his arguments for skepticism within his two texts ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' and ''Enquiries concerning Human Understanding''. At the time, modern philosopher’s philosophers had strived away from Aristotle’s account of causation. In this rejection, they thought themselves revolutionary. Still, those same philosophers kept Aristotle’s distinction between knowledge and belief. Descartes and Malebranche, for instance, were certain of demonstrative scientific knowledge. Locke, on the other hand, was more interested in showing belief is rational enough to assert natural philosophy.[[CiteRef::Morris (2001)]]
Hume took a different approach. He divided that same distinction between scientific explanation and belief into relations of ideas and matters of fact. The distinction was still based on Aristotle's knowledge and belief one, but it translated slightly differently. Similar to Aristotle’s distinction, Hume’s distinction agreed that all propositions could be exclusively divided into one category or the other. Different to Aristotle’s distinction however, it provided a different account for the two types of propositions. This distinction is commonly referred to as Hume’s Fork.[[CiteRef::Hume (1975)]]
|Major Contributions==== Hume’s Fork ===
In Hume’s entrance to the debate of causation, Hume translates the Aristotelean distinction between scientific knowledge and belief into his own terms. These are: