Essay on David Hume’s Treatment of Mind

In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion we are introduced to three characters that serve the purpose to debate God and his nature, more specifically, what can mankind infer about God and his nature. The three characters; Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes all engage in a debate concerning this question and they all serve the purpose of supporting their views on the subject. It is the “argument from design” put forth by Cleanthes that is the focal point of the discussion, and it is Demea and Philo who attempt to discredit it.

Berkeley's attempt to popularize his pro-mind conception of the external world, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, serves to undermine Locke's distinctions between primary and secondary qualities of the external world. In his publication, Berkeley uses dialogue between Hylas and Philnous, which consists of a series of arguments, to determine the most sound theory. Ground rules of the debate consists of: whoever of the two's position avoids skepticism about knowledge of physical objects wins and that if one position can be shown to entail that we cannot know anything about physical objects, consequently that position should be dismissed as absurd (Kelly, 2013). Throughout the arguments, Berkeley weakens Locke's theory of Limited Representationalism by counteracting Locke's with the possibility that instead of “matter” that comprises physical objects in the external world, these objects are simply ideas. Drawing back on Berkeley's catchy motto, “to be is to be perceived”, he proposes three arguments that support his idealist view that the motto encapsulates. The three pieces of support also importantly shed skepticism upon Lockes primary and secondary distinctions involving “matter”. The three statements of support include: The argument that physical

John Locke and David Hume, both great empiricist philosophers who radically changed the way people view ideas and how they come about. Although similar in their beliefs, the two have some quite key differences in the way they view empiricism. Locke believed in causality, and used the example of the mental observation of thinking to raise your arm, and then your arm raising, whereas Hume believed that causality is not something that can be known, as a direct experience of cause, cannot be sensed. Locke believed that all knowledge is derived from our senses, which produce impressions on the mind which turn to ideas, whereas Hume's believed that all knowledge is derived from experiences,

Hume argues that we cannot prove that there is a real world outside our experience, much less that our experience is an accurate representation of that world. He says we need to get outside our experience to see whether it does fairly represent the world, however, its near impossible to do that.

As humans, where does our knowledge come from? In Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes outlines his proof for the existence of God. However, David Hume offers a rebuttal in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding that questions not only Descartes’ proof but also his notion of how humans acquire knowledge. In what follows, I will examine Descartes’ proof of God’s existence, then argue that Hume would disagree with it by maintaining that humans can conceive of God through mental processes. Furthermore, I will show how in responding to Descartes' claim that God is the source of our knowledge, Hume asserts that we are instead limited to knowledge from experience.

David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion provide conflicting arguments about the nature of the universe, what humans can know about it, and how their knowledge can affect their religious beliefs. The most compelling situation relates to philosophical skepticism and religion; the empiricist character, Cleanthes, strongly defends his position that skepticism is beneficial to religious belief. Under fire from an agnostic skeptic and a rationalist, the empiricist view on skepticism and religion is strongest in it’s defense. This debate is a fundamental part of the study of philosophy: readers must choose their basic understanding of the universe and it’s creator, upon which all other assumptions about the universe will be made.

ABSTRACT: Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) may be read in the way Cleanthes (and Philo as well) reads Nature, as analogous to human artifice and contrivance. The Dialogues and Nature then are both texts, with an intelligent author or Author, and analogies may be started from these five facts of Hume's text: the independence of Hume's characters; the non-straightforwardness of the characters' discourse; the way the characters interact and live; the entanglements of Pamphilus as an internal author; and the ways in which a reader is also involved in making a dialogue. These and other analogies should reflect upon the Author of Nature as they do upon Hume's

     Hume began his first examination if the mind by classifying its contents as Perceptions. “Here therefore [he divided] all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or species.” (27) First, Impressions represented an image of something that portrayed an immediate relationship. Secondly, there were thoughts and ideas, which

David Hume was a British empiricist, meaning he believed all knowledge comes through the senses. He argued against the existence of innate ideas, stating that humans have knowledge only of things which they directly experience. These claims have a major impact on his argument against the existence of miracles, and in this essay I will explain and critically evaluate this argument.

Hume's idea on that we derive our ideas through our experiences is very knowledgeable in my opinion. Everyone has different experiences throughout their lives, not everyone's is the same, so we must get our ideas through our experiences. If a little child puts his hand on the hot stove top, hi is in pain from the heat. He will learn from that experience that stoves are hot and not to touch them. Descartes believed that everyone's thoughts and ideas were equal, unlike Hume. How could Descartes idea on equal thoughts be true when not everyone may even have a stove in their house so each little child may not be able to experience the same things?

Comparison between the Modern World and Hume The modern world was a time of growth compared to the medieval worldviews where science was now seen as dominant to religion, the theory of empiricism, and science is based on empirical observation. The modern worldviews had a great impact on the types of knowledge that were known which was very significant to a philosopher known as David Hume because he was the man who brought into consideration these two types of knowledge; the “Relation of Ideas” and “Matters of Fact”. In his discussion of “Relation of Ideas,” Hume uses the modern idea of empiricism to explain how this was relevant. A few examples to support the “Relation of Ideas” would be the concepts of geometry, algebra, and arithmetic.

In each of their separate works, both Rene Descartes and David Hume seek to challenge the basis of what we know as human knowledge. Each of these men seek to discover what exactly it is that makes up the foundations of our ideas and capacity to know, and then figure out why this is necessarily the case. While they each take different approaches to attaining this knowledge, both men end up discussing their ideas on God and religion through their process of delving into human knowledge. In their respective works on the basis of human knowledge, this discussion of belief or nonbelief in God led also to discussion of differing forms of skepticism and doubt in relation to knowledge. Both Descartes and Hume, in their separate writings, discuss forms of doubt and skepticism that share both similarities and differences.

Hume is a philosopher who believes in the Copy Principle. That all ideas derive from vivid

In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume states, “there is not, in any single, particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can suggest the idea of power or necessary connexion” (Hume, 1993: 41). Hume establishes in section II that all ideas originate from impressions that employ the senses (11). Therefore, in order for there to be an idea of power or “necessary connexion,” there must be impressions of this connection present in single instances of cause and effect; if there are no such impressions, then there cannot be an idea of “necessary connexion” (52). To illustrate his statement, Hume examines four situations:

On the other hand, many critics claim that the soul does not exist since it is beyond our knowledge; therefore we cannot demonstrate such existence. Hume a philosopher during the Enlightenment affirms this claim under the branch of empiricism, which states that true knowledge, arises from our five senses: touch, smell, sight, taste, and hearing. Therefore, to determine if something exists at least one or all of the senses have to be applied since the material aspects of something demonstrates its existence. Moreover, the reasoning behind empiricism is an addition to Hume’s theory of sense perception. The theory is composed of two elements, which are impressions and ideas. Impressions are immediate sensations or perceptions such as touch or