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 were the reactions to Hume's problem of induction from scientists practicing in the field?
I'm well aware of all the discussion in the field of philosophy of science spurred by Hume's formulation of the problem of induction:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/
My question ...
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Why does Kant refer to Hume's Enquiry as "otherwise uninstructive" in the Critique of Practical Reason?
The Critique of Practical Reason,5:14, seems to damn Hume with faint praise, acknowledging his service for initiating a critique of pure reason but being otherwise uninstructive. Was it in the ...
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Did Hume argue against partial support of a statement?
From what I have read, Hume argued that induction cannot be justified. But did he also argue that probabilistic justification isn’t a thing? For example, most of us usually have a notion of a ...
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Hume's Guillotine
I struggle to understand how logic doesn't validate the deduction of a moral judgement that's not present in the first premise, even if we add a second premise?
I might not be profound upon the matter,...
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Can the Humean argument against miracles also apply to divine providence?
Hume famously said,
That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the
testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more
miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to ...
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Ayer's criticism on Hume's definition of causation
He thus laid the way open for the view, which we adopt, that every assertion of a particular causal connexion involves the assertion of a causal law, and that every general proposition of the form ‘C ...
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Why wasn't Ayer satisfied with Hume's definition of causation?
He thus laid the way open for the view, which we adopt, that every assertion of a particular causal connexion involves the assertion of a causal law, and that every general proposition of the form ‘C ...
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If laws are just descriptions of reality, is it a miracle that things are regular?
From what I gather, scientific laws according to Humeans are merely descriptions of the regularities that occur in nature. Anti Humeans think laws have some sort of prescriptive/causal power which ...
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How do empiricists explain the existence of perceptual illusions?
How do empiricists like Hume explain the existence of perceptual illusions? If we only know about the world through sense impressions, how can we know that an object is not as it seems? For example, ...
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Can you apply Hume's fork to agnosticism?
Can you apply Hume's fork to agnosticism, as an argument for atheism?
e,g,
It's not contained in the premise of existence, else we would all be theists. But then you cannot inductively argue for God, ...
user70563
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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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