Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects (1739–40) 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. [1]
Hume was born on 26 April 1711, as David Home, in a tenement on the north side of Edinburgh's Lawnmarket.He was the second of two sons born to Catherine Home (née Falconer), daughter of Sir David Falconer of Newton, Midlothian and his wife Mary Falconer (née Norvell), [14] and Joseph Home of Chirnside in the County of Berwick, an advocate of Ninewells.
Central to Hume's position in metaethics is the is-ought distinction. It states that is-statements, which concern facts about the natural world, do not imply ought-statements, which are moral or evaluative claims about what should be done or what has value. In philosophy of mind, Hume is well known for his development of the bundle theory of ...
In the first section of the Enquiry, Hume provides a rough introduction to philosophy as a whole. For Hume, philosophy can be split into two general parts: natural philosophy and the philosophy of human nature (or, as he calls it, "moral philosophy"). The latter investigates both actions and thoughts.
An Abstract of a Book lately Published, full title An Abstract of a Book lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is farther Illustrated and Explained [1] is a summary of the main doctrines of David Hume's work A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in 1740. There has been ...
Hume's law or Hume's guillotine [1] is the thesis that an ethical or judgmental conclusion cannot be inferred from purely descriptive factual statements. [ 2 ] A similar view is defended by G. E. Moore 's open-question argument , intended to refute any identification of moral properties with natural properties , which is asserted by ethical ...
Hence, the second major distinction between natural and artificial virtues is that the former type are universal whereas the latter can vary from society to society. Hume then proceeds to delineate the nature of these virtues in detail. The following quote highlights Hume's description of an "artificial" virtue—that of fidelity:
Causes of effects cannot be linked through a priori reasoning, but by positing a "necessary connection" that depends on the "uniformity of nature". Hume situates his introduction to the problem of induction in A Treatise of Human Nature within his larger discussion on the nature of causes and effects (Book I, Part III, Section VI). He writes ...