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theory knowlegde of David Hume
Compare and contrast David Hume and Immanuel Kant
theory knowlegde of David Hume
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During the 17th century there were 2 great philosophers who achieved great fame from their philosophical ideas. The two great philosophers during the 17th century are Scot David Hume and Immanuel Kant. David Hume was a British empiricists while Kant’s goal was to bridge the gap between rationalism and Empiricism. Kant was also influenced by Hume’s ideas of empiricism and he wanted add more ideas to it. In this paper I will be comparing and contrasting David Hume and Immanuel Kant’s philosophical ideas. I will do so by talking about the history of Kant and Hume, and looking at the differences between their ideas and their similarities. This will show how Kant’s idea were from the teachings of David Hume. David Hume was third of the Holy …show more content…
In his fiftieth year he became a well-respected professor. Neighbors also set their clocks to when took his afternoon walks. He was trained in the rationalistic metaphysics of Christian Von Wolff, and undistinguished disciple of Leibniz. When Kant read Hume’s Enquiry, he found out that his ideas were being argued against by Hume. Kant adopted Hume’s idea of analytic or synthetic distinction as his tool for analysis. Kant wanted to respond to Hume’s critiques, he wanted to bridge the gap of between Rationalism and Empiricism. Kant had many similarities to Hume’s ideas because Kant agreed with many of Hume’s ideas. Kant agreed with Hume’s idea that all analytic propositions are a priori and thought that posteriori propositions are synthetic, however he disagreed with Hume’s tautological claim that all posterior is synthetic propositions and that all analytic are priori propositions. Kant believed that by showing the existence of such truths will help him refute Hume’s philosophy, common sense and science (Palmer, 193). Kant begins dividing the minds into 3 faculties: intuition, understanding, and reason. Kant wanted to demonstrate time and space were synthetic foundations of the faulty of perception. Intuition is basically the internal structures of space and time. In the idea of understanding, it allows us to …show more content…
David Hume thinks that mortality cannot be produced by reason because the ideas and beliefs will not make act. Since mortality cannot be produced by reason then there are lack of belief and desire the need for action. Hume tries to explain how there is no way to predict true or false in mortality. Hume thinks that the feelings of people relative to the action, that is the only way that moral judgment possible. However for Kant he thinks that goodwill is the only source for mortality, it is rational and is the duty of the people. Kant also thinks that human is a rational being that has a will and that determines how the person acts according to their principles. The philosopher’s idea of mortality is a major difference between the two because they give off their reasons behind the philosophy of Mortality unlike Kant who had many similarities with other philosophical ideas by Hume. Some of the similarities that Hume and Kant had in common were the ideas that Kant used to help Kant argue against Hume. Many of Kant’s ideas were from Hume’s such as the a priori and the posteriori. Both David Hume and Immanuel Kant were also empiricist in the 17th
Regardless of the disagreement between both schools of philosophy that Rene Descartes and David Hume founded, Descartes’s rationalism and Hume’s empiricism set the tone for skepticism regarding knowledge. Rene Descartes rationalism served to form a solid foundation for true knowledge. Although Descartes reaches an illogical conclusion, his rationalism was meant to solve life’s problem by trusting and using the mind. David Hume’s empiricism serves to be the true blueprint on how humans experience the mind. Hume’s empiricism shows that the world only observes the world through their own sense and that there are no a priori truths. For that reason it became clearer that David Hume’s empiricism explains and demonstrates that it is the better way
Immanuel Kant Versus John Stuart Mill Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill; two opposing philosophers of their time. Even though they were living in different countries, their works have been against each other. In his book, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that there is nothing better than wanting goodwill by itself. He emphasizes the importance of goodwill over and over again and tries to show how effective moral philosophy can be if goodwill is used as the key element. Therefore, for Kant, the sole foundation of philosophy rests on goodwill.
Hume based his position in ethics off of what some would describe his naturalistic, or empirical theory of the mind and is known for asserting four major principles. (1)He
Immanuel Kant was an eighteenth century philosopher whose ideas redefined philosophical views of morality and justice, and provided a base for modern philosophers to argue these ideas. In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, he argues against Hume’s idea of utilitarianism. Kant also explores the idea of freedom, free action, moral action, and how to determine if our actions are moral by use of the categorical imperative.
Obvious -the word that perhaps succinctly defines the way Kant saw the truths of the world around him. Not so obvious are the arguments that lie within his writings. As he emphasizes the importance, yet confusing nature of reason in his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, he proves his own point by his reasoning processes. However, in this work he systematically develops his argument for a universal good- the good will, in which inclination, duty, and reason play crucial roles. In this essay I will explain Kant's reasoning behind his statement that the only true good, without qualification, is the good will, and consequentially determine whether his idea of good varies from the Platonic ideal of goodness.
Kant found many problems within Hume’s account. Through his endeavors to prove that metaphysics is possible, and his analyzing of causality, Kant solved the problems he saw within Hume’s account. Specifically, in the Prolegomena, Kant stated that Hume “justly maintains that we cannot comprehend by reason the possibility of causality.”(57) Kant also attacked Hume’s ideas by describing Hume’s treatment of the concept of causality to be “a bastard of the imagination, impregnated by experience.”(5) Kant succeeded in re- establishing the objectivity of causality, a task that Hume had rejected as impossible.
Understanding how the mind works has been a major goal throughout philosophy, and an important piece of this deals with how humans come to experience the world. Many philosophers have attempted to investigate this issue, and Hume successfully proposed a framework by which human understanding could be understood. This writing, however, spurred Kant’s philosophical mind, awaking him from his “dogmatic slumber” and leading him to develop his own framework to define thought. As Kant strongly disagreed with Hume’s stance that “it was entirely impossible for reason to think a priori,” he set to correct Hume’s misguided view of custom in regards to objective and subjective reality.¹ The outside world, as defined by Kant, is referred to as nature, and “nature considered materialiter is the totality of all objects of experience” (Kant, 36). Human interaction with nature leads to judgments of experience, and these are empirical by definition (p. 38). Empirical judgments are not limited to judgments of experience, however. Judgments of perception and judgments of experience constitute all empirical judgments, and there are significant differences between the two (p. 38).
In conclusion of this paper, from the arguments stated above about Humes’ and Descartes philosophical positions, Hume has a stronger position on the existence of the external world.
... Hume proposes attributes a sense of moral responsibility lost in Hume’s interpretation for the doctrine of liberty and necessities, for humans are responsible only for their choices.
Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) Critique of Pure Reason is held universally as a watershed regarding epistemology and metaphysics. There have been anticipations regarding the notion of the analytic especially in Hume. The specific terms analytic and synthetic were first introduced by Kant at the beginning of his Critique of Pure Reason book. The mistake that metaphysicians made was viewing mathematical judgments as being “analytic”. Kant came up with a description for analytic judgments as one that is merely elucidatory, that is, what is implicit is transformed into explicit. Kant’s examples utilize the judgments of subjects or rather predicates, for instance the square has four sides. The predicates content is always already accounted for in
Hume's writing posed an interesting starting off point for Kant's theories. As said before, Kant attributes Hume's writing with waking him from his "dogmatic slumber." He recognizes both Hume's intelligence and the validity of his statements. However, he does n...
John Locke, Berkeley and Hume are all empiricist philosophers that believe in different things. They have things in common such as the three anchor points; The only source of genuine knowledge is sense experience, reason is an unreliable and inadequate route to knowledge unless it is grounded in the solid bedrock of sense experience and there is no evidence of innate ideas within the mind that are known from experience. The relationship between our thoughts and the world around us consisted of concepts which were developed from these philosophers. I have argued that Locke, Berkeley and Hume are three empiricists that have different believes.
To what degree is a rational agent allowed to pursue his own goals or to choose one action over another? Both Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill answer the question of what makes a person free. Two different conceptions of individual freedom and autonomy are present by them and for this reason these philosopher differ on why it is that freedom and self-governance should be valued. In Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals Kant puts forward a normative conception of freedom and autonomy where by one has the capacity to deliberate and give himself laws. It is based on this claim that he makes his argument that autonomy should be valued because it is the sole principle of our moral law. In On Liberty, Mill propounded that freedom was doing as one pleases, and unlike Kant promoted a personal account of autonomy wherein an individual is encouraged to decide for one’s self one what ever course of action they desired- often regardless of a particular moral. The good consequence of progress was the core reason that Mill felt that one should value this type of autonomy.
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher during the Enlightenment, a time when dramatic changes were taking place in philosophy, the sciences, and politics. He was born on April 22, 1724 in Konigsberg, Prussia, a town that he would never leave. His father was a saddle maker, and his mother was known for her character and natural intelligence. Kant’s family lived modestly, and was active in the Pietism branch of the Lutheran Church. Kant’s pastor made it possible for him to receive an education, by admitting him to the Pietism School at the age of eight. Here Kant studied Latin and theology until he was sixteen. (3)
Hume held the belief that all the contents of the human mind were derived through experience only. He divided the mind’s perceptions into two groups, impressions and ideas. He declared that “the difference betwixt these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind” (Hume, pg. 10). Impressions are those perceptions which are the most strong, “which enter with most force and violence” (Hume, pg. 10), while ideas are their “less forcible and lively” counterpart. Impressions are directly experienced, they result from inward and outward sentiments. Ideas, conversely, are copying mechanisms which reproduce sense data. They are formulated based upon the previously perceived impressions “By ideas, I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning” (Hume, pg. 10).