display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
12 ideas
| 2206 | Reasons for belief must eventually terminate in experience, or they are without foundation [Hume] |
| Full Idea: If I ask why you believe some fact, you must tell me a reason, which will be some other fact, connected with it. But this process must terminate in a fact which is present to your memory or senses; or you must allow that the belief is without foundation. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], V.I.37) | |
| A reaction: A classic quotation of empirical foundationalism. The rival view would be that the process does not terminate at all, but nevertheless builds up a persuasive picture which is foundational. |
| 2235 | There is no certain supreme principle, or infallible rule of inference [Hume] |
| Full Idea: There is no original supreme principle that is self-evident and convincing; nor, if there were, could we advance a step beyond it, but by those very faculties of which sceptics are supposed to be already diffident. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.I.116) | |
| A reaction: This I take to be the chief exponent of empirical foundationalism attacking rational foundationalism. The problem of 'advancing beyond' basic beliefs is also a problem for Hume's position. |
| 10328 | We think testimony matches reality because of experience, not some a priori connection [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The reason why we place any credit in witnesses and historians, is not derived from any connexion, which we perceive a priori, between testimony and reality, but because we are accustomed to find a conformity between them. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], X.i.89) | |
| A reaction: Well he would say that, wouldn't he? If there is no connection in testimony, presumably there can be no a priori connection with private experience, but there is a danger of never getting started, and ending in anti-realism. |
| 2230 | Good testimony needs education, integrity, motive and agreement [Hume, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Reliable testimony needs a good number of educated people, all of undoubted integrity, who have a lot to lose if they are caught lying, reporting very public events. | |
| From: report of David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], X.II.92) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: A nice checklist for flying saucer sightings etc: education, integrity, lying risky, very public. If any of those fail, it comes down to likelihood (apply Bayes?) and character assessment. |
| 12417 | Mathematicians only accept their own proofs when everyone confims them [Hume] |
| Full Idea: There is no Mathematician so expert as to place entire confidence in any truth upon his discovery of it. ..Every time he runs over his proofs his confidence encreases, ..and is rais'd to perfection by the applause of the learned world. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], IV.1.4) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Quoted by Kitcher, and a nice example of the social nature of 'warrants', even in mathematics. It was illustrated well in the 1990s by the story of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem by Andrew Wiles. |
| 2238 | Reason can never show that experiences are connected to external objects [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Reason can never find any convincing argument from experience to prove that perceptions are connected with any external objects. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.I.121) |
| 2242 | Mitigated scepticism draws attention to the limitations of human reason, and encourages modesty [Hume] |
| Full Idea: A mitigated scepticism … can make dogmatical reasoners become sensible of the strange infirmities of human understanding, and inspire them with more modesty and reserve. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.III.129) |
| 2243 | Mitigated scepticism sensibly confines our enquiries to the narrow capacity of human understanding [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Mitigated scepticism is an advantage to mankind, as it limits our enquiries to such subjects as are best adapted to the narrow capacity of human understanding. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.III.130) |
| 5548 | Hume became a total sceptic, because he believed that reason was a deception [Hume, by Kant] |
| Full Idea: David Hume gave way entirely to scepticism, since he believed himself to have discovered in what is generally held to be reason a deception of our faculty of cognition. | |
| From: report of David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739]) by Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason B128 | |
| A reaction: Unfair to Hume, who was very opposed to global scepticism (see Ideas 2240 and 2241), and voted only for 'mitigated scepticism' (see Idea 2242). On the other hand, there is no greater opposition in philosophy than Kant and Hume on 'pure reason'. |
| 2236 | Examples of illusion only show that sense experience needs correction by reason [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Trite sceptical examples, such as the oar bent in water, or double images when the eye is pressed, are only sufficient to prove that senses alone are not dependable, but we must correct their evidence with reason. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.I.117) |
| 2240 | It is a very extravagant aim of the sceptics to destroy reason and argument by means of reason and argument [Hume] |
| Full Idea: It may seem a very extravagant attempt of the sceptics to destroy reason by argument and ratiocination; yet is this the grand scope of all their enquiries and disputes. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.II.124) |
| 2241 | The main objection to scepticism is that no good can come of it [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The chief and most confounding objection to excessive scepticism is that no durable good can ever result from it. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.II.128) |