David Hume
David Hume was born on May 7, 1711 in Edinburgh, Scotland, into a middle class
family. His father died while he was young and left him with wage of 50 pounds
a year. When he was twelve years old he went to Edinburgh University but
dropped out three years later without receiving a degree. Hume had a plan to be
a “literary hero” instead of practicing law like he was supposed to do, so he
spent the next three years of his life reading Greek and Roman classics. In
1729 he already had a plan for his first literary work. In 1734 he moved to
France where he was able to live more comfortably with his 50 pounds a year and
could study and read more than ever before.
In 1739, A Treatise of Human Nature was published after Hume returned to
England with expectations of fame. Hume was very disappointed when the public
generally ignored his writing. Hume turned to writing political essays which
were more successful, and applied to be an ethics professor at Edinburgh
University. Although easily qualified for the position, he was denied the job
because of his supposed Atheism.
After this, he turned around and rewrote A Treatise of Human Nature in order to
clarify some of his views that offended people. His revision was titled An
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. In 1751 Hume published An Enquiry
Concerning the Principles of Morals. This writing was not an instant success,
and after serving briefly in the military, he began to write Dialogues
Concerning Natural Religion, and The History of England, which was published in
six volumes from 1754 to 1762. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion was not
published until three years after his death in 1779. The History of England
provided him with the literary fame he always wanted, rather than his extensive
philosophical works which were pretty much ignored by the public because
everyone thought he was Atheist and didn’t want to “buy into” his ideas.
From 1763 to 1767, Hume was Secretary of the British Ambassador to France, Earl
of Hertford. In 1767 he returned to Scotland and finally had no financial
worries. Hume was now receiving around 1,000 pounds a year from his writings.
In 1775 he became ill, and died peacefully on August 25 of 1776.
David Hume looked at the world in logical terms only. He was a realist who,
through philosophy, always had to distinguish between the impressions of human
experience and the ideas which are changing representations of life
experiences. Hume was also a skeptic, who did not accept anything that
presented itself as knowledge until it was proven to be so. Hume believed that
people act based on customs and “tradition” instead of reason. He believed that
a relationship will follow its own definition as casual, sexual, romantic,
friendly, unhealthy and so on based on single events and occurrences that
happened during the last encounter of the people in the relationship. And that
each event was singular and not directly linked with the last, that’s just how
we perceived the encounters to be because we were acting and perceiving the
relationship as a custom or tradition. Not just the relationship but our
actions, emotions, and outlooks were all “supposed” to follow in a certain
manner, and so they follow this manner because it is what we expect (as
tradition.) This is probably not very clearly explained by me because I had
trouble reading it myself, interpreting it for myself, and writing down what I
interpreted (or thought I interpreted) from my research.
Like I mentioned earlier, Hume was suspected to be an Atheist. Even though Hume
never denied God’s existence, he felt it was wrong to believe in miracles and
give God credit to the experience of a “miracle.” Whenever Hume would hear of a
miracle he would test it against rules of evidence and logic and found people’s
belief of miracle’s to be just plain absurd. This supports his belief that
people do not act upon reason at all, and can be very irrational when something
shocking happens. Hume was also an extreme skeptic. Some even think of Hume’s
skepticism as all negativity but Hume objected to this view. Hume simply did
not trust any theory that was not based solely on human experience.
Perhaps what Hume is most known for is his opinion that people have no ideas at
all in the mind that are based on something we did not perceive. He thought that
all human knowledge is limited to what we take in with our senses and how we
perceive that information. He has that clean-slate philosophy we talked about
in class where a person isn’t born with any knowledge, ideas, or impressions in
their brains from birth. This is what’s called empiricism.
I don’t think I’m really qualified to agree or disagree with Hume’s empiricist
philosophy because I don’t know the arguments from both sides of the coin. I
know that I can agree with what Hume is saying because he makes it believable,
and I think that is one thing a philosopher has to do to get his views to be
accepted. But on the other hand, I’m sure I could listen to someone who opposed
his views and I could agree with them too. I find myself doing that in class
often. I hear one thing and agree with it until I hear the other side of the
story and I change my opinion somewhat. It seems like there is always an
intersection between two philosophies that I agree with; a part of one type and
a part of its direct opposite. I think it’s completely believable that all of
our knowledge comes from just what we experience in our lives through each of
our senses. I know I can say that in my life, as far as I can see, this is
true. Then again I don’t know of what these scientists have been discovering
about newborn babies already having pre-conceived ideas and impressions
imprinted in their minds. Like what you were telling us about the twins who
never met before having interest in the same type of women. Genetics might be able
to imprint information and a pre-conceived pathway for our actions, likes, and
dislikes. So to sum up my opinion of Hume’s philosophy, I’d have to say I’m a
little sketchy. I don’t agree with him one hundred percent and I don’t disagree
with him one hundred percent. Basically because I know there are things out
there I don’t know about that I’m sure could persuade me more either way.