Epistemology tells us how we come to acquire knowledge and what type of limits there are on our knowledge. Berkeley’s epistemological argument is that the physical and mental world are one-in-the-same. He denies the existence of an external world and believes that the world is only a collection of ideas in our heads. We only know things to be real as we experience them and we only experience our ideas. This leads Berkeley to the conclusion that for something to be real, that means that it is the object of some type of experience. Without epistemology, people would have no reason to believe in their thoughts and actions because there would be no difference between truth and error. We need epistemology to accept reality. Hume was an empiricist and a skeptic who believes in mainly the same ideals as Berkeley does, minus Berkeley’s belief in God, and looks more closely at the relations between experience and cause effect. Hume’s epistemological argument is that casual …show more content…
However, reviewing Berkeley’s ideals on the matter, Hume seems to have more of an epistemological standpoint. Hume believes that everything that we have knowledge of is because of past experience. Everything that we know up to this point is because we have observed and learned from the past. Although everything is also the way it is because of naturalism and causation, every cause and effect that has taken place in history has been interfered with by humans and their knowledge. Berkeley believes that the world is as we perceive it to be, as does Hume. For people to believe the world to be a certain way must come from a certain ideal that we have in mind to be true. In other words, we have an idea of what the world should look like now and what it may look like in the future based off of what the past has looked like and what it is
Hume argues that perception can be divided into two types: impressions and ideas. He states that impressions are our first-hand perception, using all of our senses and emotions to experience them (Hume 2012, 8). For example, an impression of a sensation would be experiencing pain and an impression of reflection would be experiencing anger. Hume states that an idea is thinking about an impression. You cannot use your senses to experience the sensation or emotion, you are just simply reflecting on your experience (Hume 2007, 13). For example, thinking about the pain you felt when you stubbed your toe or thinking about how angry you felt when your football team lost. Hume argues that our thought is limited. He argues that when we imagine things such as an orange sea, we are simply joining two consistent ideas together. Hume argues that ‘all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones’ (Hume 2007, 13). This is called the Copy Principle.
Contrary to many critiques Hume does believe that there is a God, however he does not believe that God is all greatness like society commonly assumes and excepts. Hume argues that because one sees an effect that doesn't mean that we can automatically know or assume its cause. This argument can be used to explain the creation of the world. We know that the universe is here but we don't know if God make it or if there was a scientific reason for the creation of the world. Perhaps the most obvious example of Hume's argument is.
All of these arguments effectively convey Hume’s beliefs that passion plays the dominant role in motivating action, and that reason is merely a “slave of the passions.” Hume describes how reason cannot hold control over passion’s motivational influence nor can it resist it. He illustrates the idea that one cannot use the power of reason to criticize or praise passions.
From the distinction of perceptions, Hume created his ‘microscope’ in order to trace all ideas back to impressions. He did this to search for the limits. If an idea could not be traced back to its impression, it was too abstruse. Hume separated the objects of human reason into two categories. First, the relation of ideas, which represented all that is ‘a priori’. Secondly, he created the category of matters of fact. Matters of fact made up the ‘a posteriori’ piece of the spectrum of reason. Matters of fact are contingent, meaning they could be otherwise.
Hume’s first step in part two of the Inquiry is to draw a line between impressions and ideas, with impressions being the experience of sensory perception, and ideas being recollections of prior impressions, albeit with less vivacity. Immediately this excludes innate ideas from Hume’s model of the mind, and, while th...
Hume draws this distinction in recognizing further our own subjective and objective world. In this, through our own personal experience we associate certain facts with moral judgments and values. For example, there may be the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow. However, we place a judgment whether we dislike or like the sun rising tomorrow. Hume has merely recognized the distinction between the fact (sun) and values (likes/dislikes) of the sun. Hume’s link between facts and values was a push to further understand moral philosophy and our understanding of it.
Hume’s Future Patterns Hume coincides the uniformity of nature by using the matters of fact and relation of ideas to illustrate how one cannot project into the future patterns we have observed in the past. Hume believes that “all truths either express matters of fact or relation of ideas”. These facts and relations of ideas are the self-evident truths that are perceived by humans as common sense; ideas and facts that one would never question or doubt due to previous experiences from it. These ideas are perceived in our minds through the images and impressions that we are exposed to. We, as humans, practice these impressions and ideas so frequently that over time, they become unquestioned thoughts and actions of our everyday lives.
In Hume’s view, the judges allow for reasonable critiques of objects. Hume also pointed out that taste is not merely an opinion but has some physical qualities which can be proved. So taste is not a sentiment, but a determination. What was inconsistent in the triad of commonly held beliefs was that all taste is equal and so Hume replaced the faulty assumption with the true judges who can guide society’s sentiments.
Epistemology helped me investigate the procedure I went through for crafting the essays. I referred to books, online articles, journal and other publications to understand and justify the concepts and information. It helped me distinguish between what is false, what is true across diverse contexts, and to decide the boundaries of knowledge based on how that knowledge is acquired. I also evaluated the truthfulness of my beliefs and personal opinion. I am actuated by understanding the sources of knowledge and also the quality of the resulting knowledge – knowing its dimensions and limitations.
Hume uses senses, like Descartes, to find the truth in life. By using the senses he states that all contents of the mind come from experience. This leads to the mind having an unbound potential since all the contents are lead by experiences. The mind is made up two parts impressions and ideas. Impressions are the immediate data of the experience. For example, when someone drops a book on the desk and you hear a loud sound. The sight of the book dropping and hitting the desk is registered by an individual’s senses- sight, sound, feeling. Hume believes there are two types of impressions, original and secondary impressions. Original impressions are based on the senses,
...tion of what he really thinks. Just as we believe the sun will come up, and set down every single day we are apart of this earth, our belief of that theory cannot be certain; faith in the same outcomes has to be present in ones soul. Almost every aspect of Hume's ideas is composed of complex thoughts that are formed from simple ideas and impressions seen every single day “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.” (Hume)
middle of paper ... ... m convictions and evidence that cannot be justified by argument. In a simple and assertive way of putting it, Hume showed us that common sense and science are matters of faith. The faith which Hume so greatly defends, we have no way of avoiding or resisting.
David Hume, following this line of thinking, begins by distinguishing the contents of human experience (which is ultimately reducible to perceptions) into: a) impressions and b) ideas.
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Much of the debate in epistemology centers on four areas: the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts as truth, belief, and justification, various problems of skepticism, the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and the criteria for knowledge and justification. Epistemology addresses such questions as "What makes justified beliefs justified?", "What does it mean to say that we know something?" and fundamentally "How do we know that we know?"