Caitlin ODonnell Intro to Philosophy Prof.

Izraelevski 4/23/2014

David Hume

David Hume was one of the greatest minds of the Scottish Enlightenment and is said to be the most important philosopher to ever write in English. His selfdescription in his five-page autobiography holds to be quite honest, a man of mild Dqispositions, of Command of Temper, of an open, social, and cheerful Humor, capable of Attachment, but little susceptible of Enmity, and of great Moderation in all my passions. His good friend, Adam Smith upholds Hume's portrait of himself in the obituary written in honor of his friend: Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his life-time, and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will admit. Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and was raised by his widowed mother in a strict Presbyterian household. His father died a year after he was born leaving a very small income to him and his family. Hume dropped out of the University of Edinburgh at the age of 15 without a degree with a plan of devoting his life to literature and philosophy. After a brief period of time Hume began to lose faith in his childhood ideals and never again entertained any belief in religion. Humes family tried to persuade him to do something more practical with his life; taking the advice he enrolled in law school and studied there from 17261729. He hated it and it made him miserable, he later had a break down and lost interest in everything for a period of time. Later on he moved to London to have a more social life, after a few months there he then moved to France where he felt life better suited him and living conditions were less expensive. He settled near Rene Descartes old college (La Feche). While there the Jesuits allowed him

full access to their library, his skepticism, questioning mind and discomfort in front of any authority that didnt have clear evidence to support it stood out to all. He was described as two full of himselfhis spirit more lively than solid, his imagination more luminous than profound, his heart too dissipated with material objects and spiritual self-idolatry to pierce into the sacred recesses of divine truths. Hume was seen as a man having no allegiance but its own experiences interpreted in an unforgiving rational light. He finished his first two books of his extremely powerful and disturbing Treatise of Human Nature. Later he returned to England hoping to have his books published but ran into much opposition from publishers. He did not want to have to cut any parts out of his book but no publishers would take it unless most of his offensive parts were cut down in his words I am at presently castrating my work, that is, cutting out its noble partsendeavoring it shall give as little offense as possible. He removed the most offensive passages but did not destroy them. His books were published in January of 1739, and he received 50 pounds and twelve copies as his total payment. At the age of 27 he had written one of the major works of modern philosophy. In his books Hume makes very compelling arguments against materialism, the possibility of a spiritual, supernatural reality, and personal immortality this was in the revised version. In the uncensored version of the Treatise he ultimately reduces reason to the slave of passions. He also alters the conventional picture of the nature of science by denying cause and effect as they

are generally known. This led to his challenge of established religious beliefs, moral judgments, reason and rationalism, earlier forms of empiricism, and the certainty of science. He also denied the existence of a fixed self, the possibility of personal immorality, and the possibility of miracles. The focus of the Treatise was to challenge established philosophical ideas, in favor of ideas stemming from his own personal experience. This book illustrates his distrust of anything he did not experience himself. For David Hume all meaningful ideas must be traced back to sense experience. Beliefs that cannot be reduced to experience are meaningless utterances. The core of David Humes belief system is skepticism. He lived his life only believing what he saw not what he heard. Cynical by definition, Hume lived a fact-oriented life. He devoted his time, career and life into discrediting other, less proven ideas such as the idea of God. He did so in a bold, irreverent manner that lost him many social opportunities. His challenges against religion gained him especially strong ire from the church. This however did not affect his pursuit for the proven truth. This particularly highlighted David Humes philosophical argument that anything vague or abstract wasnt worth the speculation or argument because it could always be protested by more speculation. He was only interested in facts that were relevant to ordinary people. He sums up this opinion with this quote; All of this creative power of the mind amounts to no more then the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials of afforded us by the senses and experience.

Another defining factor of David Humes philosophy is his opinion on morality. Related to his passion for experience, he believed that all morality is based not in reason but in emotion. The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason. Hume defined moral philosophy as the signs of human nature. In his works Hume distinguishes two manors in which moral philosophy can be approached. The first looks at humans as functional creatures of society, the second seeks to form understanding and cultivate our manors. Morality is subjective; it isnt a code but a constantly changing idea that is specific to the situation. Every person has there own form of morality, every situation demands its own code. Morality is defined by feelings rather than by law; it has to be helpful and useful. David Hume is the original hedonist, he believes that morality must serve happiness, it is defined by the pleasure you derive from the action. He believes that all actions must serve your emotions. David Humes belief system can be easily compared to Dante Alighieris Divine Comedy. Dante uses his writing to challenge the belief systems that the church is founded on. Through allegory and benign contrapasso, Dante was able to backhand the churchs background and practices by creating a story that takes everything in the bible to the utmost extremes. Dante believed that there was nothing but rumor supporting the bibles stories and that bothered him. Challenging the churches beliefs is something Dante and Hume had in common. They were both unsatisfied in the ways in which history and life were being conveyed. They took matters into their own hands, and slandered the church both directly and indirectly.

David Hume challenged life and the way people led it. He was not satisfied with the simple whisper down the lane transfer of information and history. He was an experiential believer. Unable to let his opinions be formed and defined by others, Hume sought truth in fact, observation and real life experience. He was discouraged, ridiculed and scoffed at for this, but he stayed true to his belief system making him one of the greatest philosophical leaders in history.