Space and the Self in Hume's Treatise

Space and the Self in Hume's Treatise PDF Author: Marina Frasca-Spada
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521891622
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
A rich and original examination of Hume's discussion of the idea of space.

Space and the Self in Hume's Treatise

Space and the Self in Hume's Treatise PDF Author: Marina Frasca-Spada
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521891622
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
A rich and original examination of Hume's discussion of the idea of space.

Essays

Essays PDF Author: DAVID HUME
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 9361157671
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 90

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Book Description
The 18th-century collection of philosophical articles "Essays" was penned by Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume. The essays' broad range of subjects reflects Hume's varied interests in politics, literature, and philosophy. "A Treatise of Human Nature," one of Hume's most important essays, examines human thinking and makes the case for a more sceptical and empirical philosophy. He promotes a study of human nature based on observation and experience, challenging conventional beliefs about causality, identity, and the nature of knowledge. Hume's writing is distinguished by its empiricism, wit, and clarity. His writings, which provide insights into human nature, the basis of knowledge, and the difficulties of moral and aesthetic judgments, continue to have an impact on the domains of philosophy and economics. The compilation offers a thorough understanding of Hume's contributions to philosophy and is still studied because of its significant influence on Western thought.

Custom and Reason in Hume

Custom and Reason in Hume PDF Author: Henry E. Allison
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191615528
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
Henry Allison examines the central tenets of Hume's epistemology and cognitive psychology, as contained in the Treatise of Human Nature. Allison takes a distinctive two-level approach. On the one hand, he considers Hume's thought in its own terms and historical context. So considered, Hume is viewed as a naturalist, whose project in the first three parts of the first book of the Treatise is to provide an account of the operation of the understanding in which reason is subordinated to custom and other non-rational propensities. Scepticism arises in the fourth part as a form of metascepticism, directed not against first-order beliefs, but against philosophical attempts to ground these beliefs in the "space of reasons." On the other hand, Allison provides a critique of these tenets from a Kantian perspective. This involves a comparison of the two thinkers on a range of issues, including space and time, causation, existence, induction, and the self. In each case, the issue is seen to turn on a contrast between their underlying models of cognition. Hume is committed to a version of the perceptual model, according to which the paradigm of knowledge is a seeing with the "mind's eye" of the relation between mental contents. By contrast, Kant appeals to a discursive model in which the fundamental cognitive act is judgment, understood as the application of concepts to sensory data, Whereas regarded from the first point of view, Hume's account is deemed a major philosophical achievement, seen from the second it suffers from a failure to develop an adequate account of concepts and judgment.

Imagination in Hume's Philosophy

Imagination in Hume's Philosophy PDF Author: Timothy M. Costelloe
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474436412
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Defines the cutting-edge of scholarship on ancient Greek history employing methods from social science

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding PDF Author: David Hume
Publisher: VM eBooks
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
Moral philosophy, or the science of human nature, may be treated after two different manners; each of which has its peculiar merit, and may contribute to the entertainment, instruction, and reformation of mankind. The one considers man chiefly as born for action; and as influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment; pursuing one object, and avoiding another, according to the value which these objects seem to possess, and according to the light in which they present themselves. As virtue, of all objects, is allowed to be the most valuable, this species of philosophers paint her in the most amiable colours; borrowing all helps from poetry and eloquence, and treating their subject in an easy and obvious manner, and such as is best fitted to please the imagination, and engage the affections. They select the most striking observations and instances from common life; place opposite characters in a proper contrast; and alluring us into the paths of virtue by the views of glory and happiness, direct our steps in these paths by the soundest precepts and most illustrious examples. They make us feel the difference between vice and virtue; they excite and regulate our sentiments; and so they can but bend our hearts to the love of probity and true honour, they think, that they have fully attained the end of all their labours.

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals PDF Author: David Hume
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Conduct of life
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description


Stability and Justification in Hume's Treatise

Stability and Justification in Hume's Treatise PDF Author: Louis E. Loeb
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198033508
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature is famous for its extreme skepticism. Louis Loeb argues that Hume's destructive conclusions have in fact obscured a constructive stage that Hume abandons prematurely. Working within a philosophical tradition that values tranquillity, Hume favors an epistemology that links justification with settled belief. Hume appeals to psychological stability to support his own epistemological assessments, both favorable regarding causal inference, and unfavorable regarding imaginative propensities. The theory's success in explaining Hume's epistemic distinctions gives way to pessimism, since Hume contends that reflection on beliefs is deeply destabilizing. So much the worse, Hume concludes, for placing a premium on reflection. Hume endorses and defends the position that stable beliefs of unreflective persons are justified, though they would not survive reflection. At the same time, Hume relishes the paradox that unreflective beliefs enjoy a preferred epistemic status and strains to establish it. Loeb introduces a series of amendments to the Treatise that secures a more positive result for justified belief while maintaining Hume's fundamental principles. In his review of Hume's applications of his epistemology, Loeb uncovers a stratum of psychological doctrine beyond associationism, a theory of conditions in which beliefs are felt to conflict and of the resolution of this uneasiness or dissonance. This theory of mental conflict is also essential to Hume's strategy for integrating empiricism about meaning with his naturalism. However, Hume fails to provide a general account of the conditions in which conflicting beliefs lead to persisting instability, so his theory is incomplete. Loeb explores Hume's concern with stability in reference to his discussions of belief, education, the probability of causes, unphilosophical probability, the belief in body, sympathy and moral judgment, and the passions, among other topics.

Reflecting Subjects

Reflecting Subjects PDF Author: Jacqueline Anne Taylor
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198729529
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Offers a reconstruction of Hume's social theory and examines his moral philosophy, account of social power, and system of ethics.

The Riddle of Hume's Treatise

The Riddle of Hume's Treatise PDF Author: Paul Russell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199751528
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
It is widely held that Hume's Treatise has little or nothing to do with problems of religion. Contrary to this view, Paul Russell argues that it is irreligious aims and objectives that are fundamental to the Treatise and account for its underlying unity and coherence

The Cambridge Companion to Hume's Treatise

The Cambridge Companion to Hume's Treatise PDF Author: Donald C. Ainslie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521821673
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
This Companion evaluates Hume's philosophical arguments in A Treatise of Human Nature and considers their historical context, particularly within British empiricism.