Hume's Science of Human Nature

Hume's Science of Human Nature PDF Author: David Landy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367891718
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Hume's Science of Human Nature is an investigation of the philosophical commitments underlying Hume's methodology in pursuing what he calls 'the science of human nature'. It argues that Hume understands scientific explanation as aiming at explaining the inductively-established universal regularities discovered in experience via an appeal to the nature of the substance underlying manifest phenomena. For years, scholars have taken Hume to employ a deliberately shallow and demonstrably untenable notion of scientific explanation. By contrast, Hume's Science of Human Nature sets out to update our understanding of Hume's methodology by using a more sophisticated picture of science as a model.

Hume's Science of Human Nature

Hume's Science of Human Nature PDF Author: David Landy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367891718
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
Hume's Science of Human Nature is an investigation of the philosophical commitments underlying Hume's methodology in pursuing what he calls 'the science of human nature'. It argues that Hume understands scientific explanation as aiming at explaining the inductively-established universal regularities discovered in experience via an appeal to the nature of the substance underlying manifest phenomena. For years, scholars have taken Hume to employ a deliberately shallow and demonstrably untenable notion of scientific explanation. By contrast, Hume's Science of Human Nature sets out to update our understanding of Hume's methodology by using a more sophisticated picture of science as a model.

Hume's Scepticism and the Science of Human Nature

Hume's Scepticism and the Science of Human Nature PDF Author: Paul Stanistreet
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351929380
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
This book explores the relationship between Hume's sceptical philosophy and his Newtonian ambition of founding a science of human nature. Assessing both received and 'new' readings of Hume's philosophy, Stanistreet offers a line of interpretation which, he argues, makes sense of many of the apparent conflicts and paradoxes in Hume's work and describes how well-known controversies concerning Hume's thinking about causation, induction and the external world can be resolved. Stainstreet argues that Hume's notorious sceptical arguments are not the episodic outbursts of an unsystematic philosopher, but emerge as part of his attempt to provide science and philosophy with grounds which face up to and withstand the scepticism to which reflective thinkers are naturally prone. Offering important new contributions to Hume scholarship, this book also surveys and assesses the new research responsible for the recent sea-change in thinking about Hume. It offers an accessible overview of these developments while suggesting significant revisions to current readings of Hume's philosophy.

Hume's 'A Treatise of Human Nature'

Hume's 'A Treatise of Human Nature' PDF Author: John P. Wright
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521833760
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Examines the development of Hume's ideas and their relation to eighteenth-century theories of the imagination and passions.

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals PDF Author: David Hume
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1613107668
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
DISPUTES with men, pertinaciously obstinate in their principles, are, of all others, the most irksome; except, perhaps, those with persons, entirely disingenuous, who really do not believe the opinions they defend, but engage in the controversy, from affectation, from a spirit of opposition, or from a desire of showing wit and ingenuity, superior to the rest of mankind. The same blind adherence to their own arguments is to be expected in both; the same contempt of their antagonists; and the same passionate vehemence, in inforcing sophistry and falsehood. And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles. Those who have denied the reality of moral distinctions, may be ranked among the disingenuous disputants; nor is it conceivable, that any human creature could ever seriously believe, that all characters and actions were alike entitled to the affection and regard of everyone. The difference, which nature has placed between one man and another, is so wide, and this difference is still so much farther widened, by education, example, and habit, that, where the opposite extremes come at once under our apprehension, there is no scepticism so scrupulous, and scarce any assurance so determined, as absolutely to deny all distinction between them. Let a man's insensibility be ever so great, he must often be touched with the images of Right and Wrong; and let his prejudices be ever so obstinate, he must observe, that others are susceptible of like impressions. The only way, therefore, of converting an antagonist of this kind, is to leave him to himself. For, finding that nobody keeps up the controversy with him, it is probable he will, at last, of himself, from mere weariness, come over to the side of common sense and reason.

Hume’s Science of Human Nature

Hume’s Science of Human Nature PDF Author: David Landy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351383248
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Hume’s Science of Human Nature is an investigation of the philosophical commitments underlying Hume's methodology in pursuing what he calls ‘the science of human nature’. It argues that Hume understands scientific explanation as aiming at explaining the inductively-established universal regularities discovered in experience via an appeal to the nature of the substance underlying manifest phenomena. For years, scholars have taken Hume to employ a deliberately shallow and demonstrably untenable notion of scientific explanation. By contrast, Hume’s Science of Human Nature sets out to update our understanding of Hume’s methodology by using a more sophisticated picture of science as a model.

Human Nature and Historical Knowledge

Human Nature and Historical Knowledge PDF Author: Leon Pompa
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521892209
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This is a challenging book about the presuppositions of historical knowledge.

Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature

Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature PDF Author: David Hume
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465501460
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 11

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Book Description
THERE are certain sects, which secretly form themselves in the learned world, as well as factions in the political; and though sometimes they come not to an open rupture, they give a different turn to the ways of thinking of those who have taken part on either side. The most remarkable of this kind are the sects, founded on the different sentiments with regard to the dignity of human nature; which is a point that seems to have divided philosophers and poets, as well as divines, from the beginning of the world to this day. Some exalt our species to the skies, and represent man as a kind of human demigod, who derives his origin from heaven, and retains evident marks of his lineage and descent. Others insist upon the blind sides of human nature, and can discover nothing, except vanity, in which man surpasses the other animals, whom he affects so much to despise. If an author possess the talent of rhetoric and declamation, he commonly takes part with the former: If his turn lie towards irony and ridicule, he naturally throws himself into the other extreme. I am far from thinking, that all those, who have depreciated our species, have been enemies to virtue, and have exposed the frailties of their fellow creatures with any bad intention. On the contrary, I am sensible that a delicate sense of morals, especially when attended with a splenetic temper, is apt to give a man a disgust of the world, and to make him consider the common course of human affairs with too much indignation. I must, however, be of opinion, that the sentiments of those, who are inclined to think favourably of mankind, are more advantageous to virtue, than the contrary principles, which give us a mean opinion of our nature. When a man is prepossessed with a high notion of his rank and character in the creation, he will naturally endeavour to act up to it, and will scorn to do a base or vicious action, which might sink him below that figure which he makes in his own imagination. Accordingly we find, that all our polite and fashionable moralists insist upon this topic, and endeavour to represent vice as unworthy of man, as well as odious in itself.

Human Nature and Human History

Human Nature and Human History PDF Author: Robin George Collingwood
Publisher: Ardent Media
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description


An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding PDF Author: David Hume
Publisher: e-artnow
ISBN: 8027303893
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 119

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Book Description
"An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" is a book by David Hume created as a revision of an earlier work, Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature". The argument of the Enquiry proceeds by a series of incremental steps, separated into chapters which logically succeed one another. After expounding his epistemology, Hume explains how to apply his principles to specific topics. This book has proven highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber."

A Treaties of Human Nature

A Treaties of Human Nature PDF Author: David Hume
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781656573704
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
A Treatise of Human Nature is a book by Scottish philosopher David Hume, considered by many to be Hume's most important work and one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. The Treatise is a classic statement of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. In the introduction Hume presents the idea of placing all science and philosophy on a novel foundation: namely, an empirical investigation into human nature. Impressed by Isaac Newton's achievements in the physical sciences, Hume sought to introduce the same experimental method of reasoning into the study of human psychology, with the aim of discovering the "extent and force of human understanding". Against the philosophical rationalists, Hume argues that passion rather than reason governs human behaviour. He introduces the famous problem of induction, arguing that inductive reasoning and our beliefs regarding cause and effect cannot be justified by reason; instead, our faith in induction and causation is the result of mental habit and custom. Hume defends a sentimentalist account of morality, arguing that ethics is based on sentiment and passion rather than reason, and famously declaring that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave to the passions". Hume also offers a skeptical theory of personal identity and a compatibilist account of free will.