A Treatise Of Human Nature - Hume deconstructed - part 22

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2 years ago
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This video references:
BOOK 1 - PART III. OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY.
- SECT. XII. OF THE PROBABILITY OF CAUSES.

I am deconstructing the groundbreaking book from 1739–40 by Scottish philosopher David Hume ("A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects"), considered by many to be Hume's most important work and one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy.

The Treatise is a classic statement of philosophical empiricism, scepticism, and naturalism. In the introduction Hume presents the idea of placing all science and philosophy on a novel foundation: namely, an empirical investigation into human nature.
Impressed by Isaac Newton's achievements in the physical sciences, Hume sought to introduce the same experimental method of reasoning into the study of human psychology, with the aim of discovering the "extent and force of human understanding". Against the philosophical rationalists, Hume argues that the passions, rather than reason, cause human behaviour.

He introduces the famous problem of induction, arguing that inductive reasoning and our beliefs regarding cause and effect cannot be justified by reason; instead, our faith in induction and causation is caused by mental habit and custom. Hume defends a sentimentalist account of morality, arguing that ethics is based on sentiment and the passions rather than reason, and famously declaring that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave to the passions". Hume also offers a sceptical theory of personal identity and a compatibilist account of free will.

Contemporary philosophers have written of Hume that "no man has influenced the history of philosophy to a deeper or more disturbing degree", and that Hume's Treatise is "the founding document of cognitive science" and the "most important philosophical work written in English" (Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Treatise_of_Human_Nature)

Public domain versions:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4705/pg4705-images.html
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/4705
https://web.archive.org/web/20060820100015/http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/hume/david/h92t/

The Librivox audiobook used in the video (my thanks goes to the narrator):
https://librivox.org/group/482?primary_key=482&search_category=group&search_page=1&search_form=get_results

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