Questions tagged [hume]
David Hume is a 18th century philosopher and contemporary of Immanuel Kant. He is best known for his skeptics views, empirical analysis, and naturalist positions.
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What does Hume think about Occam's razor?
Let's define Occam's razor as this:
That it is not rational to believe something unnecessary or extra about reality without a specific reason to believe it. In other words, the facts that are ...
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Does Hume propose that causes might actually just be explained by coincidence?
Does Hume propose that what people interpret as casual connections could instead be explained by coincidence?
I want to know if this is an accurate understanding.
Hume says something to the effect of:
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Hume says we can't determine a causal connections between objects. Why separate the system into objects at all?
A summary of Hume's perspective is as follows:
When we reason about matters of fact to reach new conclusions, we use cause and effect: when a dropped ball hits the ground (observation), it bounces (...
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Does Hume's objection to causality apply to human actions?
I heard the example with the kid and the toys from this video (TL;DW A kid who has only been playing with cotton toys gets a rubber ball and is surprised to see it bounce. His father is not surprised ...
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What was Hume's specific view with empiricism?
I've stumbled across empiricism and Hume's view on it. It really interests me, but with the sources I've encountered, I still lack a clear understanding of his view on it.
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David Hume on Miracles
David Hume's definition of a miracle (refining, paraphrasing): X is a miracle if (and only if) not X is an even greater miracle.
Is this definition problematic in any way?
When anyone tells me, that ...
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Does the Introduction of Teleology into Ethical Discourse Solve Hume's Is/Ought Problem?
For Hume, no one could describe objective reasons for thinking that a man ought to do something generally, becuase there was no way to derive an ought from an is. But, if a classical view of causality ...
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Starting An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Will this be fun?
As someone with a deep interest in philosophy and the intricacies of human understanding, I have decided to embark on an exciting intellectual journey, delving into the realm of David Hume's "An ...
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Does the claim of an is/ought gap presuppose relevance logic (at least for morality-talk)?
Imagine Hume's remarks but with reference to the usual disjunction introduction:
In every system of conjunction, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for ...
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Hume’s Empiricism and the Possibility of an Epistemology Grounded in Metaphysics
Was epistemology continued in metaphysics? Was the impossibility of an epistemology grounded in metaphysics made impossible by Humean empiricism in the sense that a posteriori questions of fact are ...
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Does Newton’s First Law of Motion assist in validating the Uniformity Principle?
Does Newton’s First Law of Motion assist in validating induction?
The Principle of Uniformity holds that the events of the future will resemble those of the past. That principle underpins the ...
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Logical relations between reasons and behavior cannot be cause and effect?
I'm listening to this lecture on mental causation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RefjI1lGT-Q&t=1466s
At 22:50, the lecturer says, "Hume told us didn't he that there can't be logical ...
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Why is mind interacting with matter any more problematic than matter interacting with matter?
So there's this supposedly an 'interaction' problem for substance dualism, that isn't there for physicalism or idealism. I've never understood this.
So as Hume pointed out, we see event a followed by ...
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Does Hume undermine determinism? [closed]
The problem of induction (kind courtesy David Hume) states that causality isn't deductively justified.
Determinism, predicated on causality, isn't justified.
Ergo, free will is (at the very least) ...
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Does Kant read the is/ought question in a way different from the "normal" reading?
First, to quote Hume:
In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the ...
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Can Hume’s views on induction and on miracles be reconciled?
Here's a summary of his conclusion about induction.
Thus not only our reason fails us in the discovery of the ultimate connexion of causes and effects, but even after experience has inform'd us of ...
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Does David Hume hold an opinion on the kinds of objects of causation?
I'm reading about causality in the Treatise of Human Nature by D. Hume but I can't seem to find out exactly what he considers objects to be when talking about causes and effects. At some points he ...
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Has the “is-ought” problem finally met its match?
In the current online issue of Skeptic magazine, Gary Whittenberger publishes “Meta Ethics: Toward a Universal Ethics — How Science & Reason Can Give Us Objective Moral Truths Without God”. In the ...
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Is Hume talking about noumena in section 12 of the Enquiry?
So I'm almost done with the Enquiry and came across something in this section that reminded me of Kant's phenomena and noumena. If this is the case, I'm just curious, why hadn't anyone made this ...
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An argument against Hume's idea of necessary connection
In section 7 of the Enquiry Hume talks about necessary connection being an ambiguous metaphysical concept since even though we see events happening one after another (ex. hitting a billiard ball ...
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What does Hume mean when he relates association of ideas to languages?
In the Enquiry, section 3 Hume says:
Among different languages, even where we cannot suspect the least
connexion or communication, it is found, that the words, expressive of
ideas, the most ...
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What does Hume mean by metaphysics that fall under superstition?
Hey guys I'm reading Hume's 'An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding' and there's something I can't quite understand. Through sections I and II Hume talks about how he is trying to come up with the ...
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Is/ought - do any philosophers say any claim of “is” is an ought already?
That there are no neutral claims involving “is” (or the verb to be) by our limited nature. I can see how this would solve a lot of problems, but not all the problems it may cause.
Just wondering if ...
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Is it logically coherent to imagine a person who has no prior conception of the world?
I'm working my way through An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and I've come to realize there's a specific problem I've had with several philosophers' writings: they tend to assume as part of ...
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Hume's Law and determinism?
So I've been reading on the is-ought distinction.
Let's say I have a supercomputer and am given the initial conditions of an isolated system which contains humans. Then I see the time evolution of the ...
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Does this difficulty with philosophical enquiry compared with natural sciences still exist?
I've just started Hume's "A Treatise on Human Nature" and in the first chapter he speaks of a difficulty faced by philosophers, that physical scientists don't face. The problem being that ...
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The problem of induction and coherentism
My understanding of the problem of induction is this. You want to hypothesise that the future is like the past (let us call this hypothesis H), and so justify the scientific practice of making ...
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Hume's induction using circularity fallacy
Hello everyone, i was going through this reading of a book in which it present Hume's induction wrong using circularity . I was trying to find some error in it as given there but could not pinpoint ...
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Does volition provide any unique insight into causality?
According to Hume, we don't see a necessary connection between cause and effect. But I'm wondering if volition (moving our bodies) is something that is of a different character than causality we see ...
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Is there a Possible World in which Humeanism isn't true?
I'm an amateur philosopher, interested in the work of Ned Hall:
Mindscape podcast: Ned Hall on Possible Worlds and the Laws of Nature (Dec-2019)
PhilPapers: Humean Reductionism About Laws Of Nature (...
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Questioning Kant's resolution to induction
From what I haved gathered from the first sections of the Critique, Kant wants to resolve the problem of induction by adding the a priori concept of (the necessity between) cause and effect to our ...
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David Hume encouraged people to “burn” his works. Should we act like this? Why?
To find found out the reason behind Hume’s phrase (connected
to his philosophy) and to
express own opinion about it.
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Did David Hume ever express the concept of "compresence" personally?
In David Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature", Hume introduces the concept of "bundle theory". Bundle theory is the idea that the identity of objects (or selves) is defined by ...
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Does Bayesian epistemology solve Hume’s problem of induction?
Or, does it just sidestep it? Or, is it just completely unrelated to it? I’m having trouble seeing what the connection might be. It seems to me that Bayesians solve it by saying, take:
Your prior ...
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Hume's Law on the principle of explosion [closed]
The WikiPedia page of Hume's Law stated the following:
An alternative definition of Hume's law is that "If P implies Q, and Q
is moral, then P is moral". This interpretation-driven ...
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What role does Hume's principle (HP) play in neo-logicism?
What role does Hume's principle (HP) play in neo-logicism?
From what I understand Frege used Hume's principle in Freges theorem to create Peano axioms from HP by using second-order logic and that ...
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Does Hume's Fork have a third prong?
If so, does it have a name? I'm especially interested in search terms that I can use for further reading.
In physics, we're familiar with the distinction between "relations of ideas" and &...
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Can "why-is" close the "is-ought" gap? [closed]
[UPDATE: Clarified that choosing what-ought-to-be from what-can-be is based on our knowledge of ourselves, not on our knowledge of good and evil]
“I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of ...
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Is there any inconsistency in Berkeley's philosophy?
Does Berkeley's empiricist philosophy contain any inconsistencies? What are the inconsistent sides of Locke's or Hume's philosophies? How is Berkeley's world different from a Matrix-like world?
The ...
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Hume's law - misunderstanding?
I have always thought the main argument for/consequence of Hume's law is that just because something is in a certain way, that is not an argument for it to remain that way. E.g., just because ...
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Is there a non singularist analysis of causation which says it's an internal relation?
The final distinction we will need, or more accurately, family of distinctions, is between internal and external relations. What makes them members of a single family is that a relation is internal if ...
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What's wrong with this reconstruction of Nagarjuna?
I was trying to add clarity to my concept of "rebirth" on the Buddhist stack exchange. Nagarjuna's karika, 1.3 (Batchelor) reads:
The essence of things does not exist in conditions and so on. If ...
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What are the premises of Hume's argument that reason alone cannot be a motive to the will, but rather is the “slave of the passions”?
I don't understand the premises of Hume's argument against moral rationalism if someone could explain it to me please.
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Hume on infinity
I know Hume argued against dividing finite space into infinitely many regions, but I can't seem to find anything regarding his thoughts on infinity itself. From his Enquiry you sort of get that he ...
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Is science based on David Hume's "A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence"?
"A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. … no
testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony
be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more ...
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Hume Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding "Algebra, Geometry, and Arithmetic" from "senses and experience"?
Here are two quotes in Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. They seem to contradict one another, and I want to know how/where Hume or his adherents reconcile them. I have not yet finished ...
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How would Hume reply to Kant saying there are synthetic a priori propositions?
In my intro to philosophy class, our teacher presented us with "Kant's revolutionary thesis":
There are synthetic a priori propositions. They must be [necessarily are] true without appealing to ...
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Hume on Induction vs Education
Hume thinks that mental ideas are built upon repeated observations and habituation, namely by induction. As far as I know, the principal alternative to this view is given by Descartes, postulating ...
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Understanding Kant vs. Hume for a non-philosopher
I am trying to self-study a bit of philosophy. I am an applied mathematician by trade, and am therefore drawn to Kant's work on the limits of human knowledge, in particular his exchange with Hume. I ...
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Some questions about the cosmological argument given by Samuel Clarke
The exercise I am doing is as follows:
The following are my questions:
Why the exercise says that Samuel Clarke's argument "allow for the possibility of causal chains with no beginning"?
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