DAVID HUME AND IRRATIONALISTIC EPILOGUE OF EMPIRISM.

Age of Enlightenment

The 18th century in the history of Western Europe is called the Age of Enlightenment. In English philosophy, the ideas of this era were most clearly expressed in the works of J. Locke, J. Toland and others, in France - in the works of F. Voltaire, J.-J. Rousseau, D. Diderot, P. Holbach, in Germany - in the works of G. Lessing, I. Herder, young Kant and G. Fichte.

At the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries, the capitalist mode of production arose in the advanced countries of Western Europe. The disintegration of feudal relations and the emergence of capitalist ones changes the entire spiritual life of society. Regilia is losing its dominant influence on the development of science and philosophy. A new worldview is emerging that meets the interests of the development of natural science. I. Newton formulates the basic laws of classical mechanics and discovers the law of universal gravitation. W. Harvey makes the discovery of blood circulation and explores its role. Outstanding philosophers R. Descartes and G. Leibniz make a significant contribution to the development of mechanics, physics, and mathematics. Philosophers and natural scientists see their main task in increasing man’s power over nature and in improving man himself.

First of all, it should be noted that the Age of Enlightenment is a period of decomposition of feudal relations and intensive development of capitalism, profound changes in the economic, socio-political and spiritual life of the peoples of Western Europe. The needs of the capitalist mode of production stimulated the development of science, technology, culture and education. Changes in social relations and public consciousness served as a prerequisite for the emancipation of minds, the liberation of human thought from feudal-religious ideology, and the formation of a new worldview.

Fruitless scholastic pseudoscience, which was based on church authority and speculative generalizations, gradually gave way to a new science, based primarily on practice. The rapid development of natural science, especially the mechanical and mathematical sciences, had a strong influence on the development of philosophy. Philosophy has taken one of the first places with the task of creating and justifying a method of scientific knowledge.

A distinctive feature of the philosophy of the Enlightenment in comparison with traditional scholasticism can be called innovation . Philosophers, with all the passion of their minds and souls, sought to revise and test the truth and strength of inherited knowledge.

SCHOLASTICISM(from Latin scholastica, schole - learned conversation, school) - medieval Latin theological philosophy; represents a united Christian worldview and the common language of science and education - Latin.

Search for rationally justified and provable truths of philosophy, comparable to the truths of science , is another feature of the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The difficulty, however, was that philosophical truths, as was later discovered, cannot be of an axiomatic nature and cannot be proven by methods accepted in mathematics. Subsequently, this hobby passed, but the desire orient philosophy towards the exact sciences remained dominant throughout modern times. Even in the 19th and especially in the 20th century, the opinion began to spread that the classical philosophy of the Enlightenment exaggerated the importance of the scientific, rational, logical principles in human life and, accordingly, in philosophical thinking. and indeed, for the most part, the philosophy of the 18th century was rationalistic. Here the word “rationalism” is used in a broad sense, uniting both “empiricism,” which elevates all knowledge to experience, sensory knowledge, and “rationalism” in a narrow sense, which seeks the foundations of both experience and extra-experimental knowledge in rational principles. Philosophers of the 18th century, at the same time, were interested not only in rational knowledge, but also in knowledge through the senses - enlighteners - supporters of empiricism (for example, Locke, Hume) were especially attentive to this.

RATIONALISM(lat. rationalis - reasonable) - In epistemology, rationalism is understood in a broad and narrow sense.

Widely – opposes irrationalism. Here rationalism - a doctrine according to which cognition and consciousness can also be represented as a system. In consciousness, stable, reproducible elements and connections are words and norms of language and logic. In cognition, rationalism is revealed through the norms of rationality. Rationalism is most clearly represented in science.

In a narrow sense of rationalism opposes empiricism and sensationalism. Here rationalism states that in our consciousness there is knowledge that cannot be derived, deduced, from empirical data. Moreover, in order to be able to navigate the world, it is necessary to have some pre-knowledge, which is universal, universal, necessary.

Rationalists in the narrow sense of the word include Descartes(theory of innate ideas) and Kant(a priori forms of knowledge).

EMPIRICISM(from the Greek empeiria - experience) - a direction in the theory of knowledge, considers sensory experience to be the main source of knowledge. In the history of philosophy, empiricism has always been closely associated with sensationalism. In European philosophy of modern times, empiricism developed into one of the main concepts of the theory of knowledge, focused on the practice of scientific research of the external world. The founder and greatest champion of empiricism was F. Bacon. Various elements of empiricism then developed Locke, many enlighteners of the 17th-18th centuries, especially Condillac. Empiricism is often contrasted with rationalism (in the narrow sense), which emphasizes the predominant role of the mind in the origin and functioning of knowledge.

SENSATIONALISM(from Lat. sensus - perception, feeling, sensation) - one of the main directions in understanding the origin and essence knowledge, the reliability of which is determined by the sphere of feelings. Sensualism is an essential component of empiricism.

As an integral part of empiricism, the principles of sensationalism were developed Gassendi, Hobbes and Locke, taking as a basis the traditional formula “ there is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the feeling" On the other hand, in the belief system Berkeley and Yuma sensationalism was interpreted as a phenomenon of only internal experience, which does not provide grounds for concluding about the properties of external things. This position in the Marxist tradition is called subjective idealism.

IRRATIONALSZM – the antithesis of rationalism. In epistemology - the doctrine of the unknowability of the irrational world using logic, conceptual thinking, science. Irrationalism must be distinguished from agnosticism. Irrationalists suggest something like this: set of educational tools: ecstasy(neoplatonists) , apophaticism(Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, M. Eckhart, etc.) , revelation(Christianity) , insight, nirvana(Buddhists, A. Schopenhauer) , mystical intuition, love(Christianity, existentialism) , empathy(humanistic psychology).

Rationalism in a broad sense is opposed to irrationalism. It must be emphasized that David Hume, developing his concept, came to denial of the ontological status of the principle of causality , Hume contrasted the problematic skeptical mind with instinct and the element of illogicality associated with passions and feelings. Even philosophical reason itself, the need for research of which was recognized as a paramount task, at certain moments was presented by Hume as something like an instinct. As a result, Hume has the last word lo for instinct, i.e. phenomenon irrational (!) . This is why Bertrand Russell, in his History of Western Philosophy, argues that Hume's philosophy represents the collapse of eighteenth-century rationalism. Bertrand Russell. History of Western philosophy and its connection with political and social conditions from antiquity to the present day: In three books. 3rd edition, stereotypical. Moscow, Academic Project, 2000. p. 616.

The philosophy of the early Enlightenment still preserved traditions skepticism . The French thinker Pierre Bayle convinced that religious dogmas cannot be rationally substantiated, and in philosophy and science it is unacceptable to claim absolutely true, undoubted knowledge. In the middle of the 18th century. philosophical skepticism will turn into agnosticism (D. Hume, I. Kant). Doubts remain a companion of knowledge. But now they are not recognized as an insurmountable obstacle to achieving true knowledge. All knowledge is limited, incomplete, and therefore incomplete, but the process of cognition is limitless, the enlighteners prove. It becomes clear that there is always something that remains beyond our understanding.

Introduction

David Hume (1711-1776) - Scottish philosopher, representative of empiricism and agnosticism, one of the largest figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, decrying the refusal of continuity in theories and concepts when scientists, "claiming to reveal to the world something new in the field philosophy and sciences, by condemning all the systems proposed by their predecessors, add value to their own,” sought to overcome the traditionally sharp (in the spirit of rationalism) opposition between experience and reason, to move away from extremes in philosophical interpretations of man.

Believing that “all sciences have to do with human nature to a greater or lesser extent,” Hume attempted to apply the scientific experimental method proper to “human nature.” Analyzing arguments given by the scientist, it should be noted that Hume’s educational mission, according to his plan, was to open the way for all other sciences with his research: “It is impossible to say what changes and improvements we could produce V these sciences, if we were perfectly acquainted with the scope and power of human knowledge, and also could explain nature as used by us ideas, So and operations produced by us in our reasoning"In this regard, Hume comes to the development of a philosophical concept of man, the fundamental basis of which was to be the theory of knowledge. When considering the nature of perceptions (perceptions) of the human mind, for consistency and harmony in reasoning, Hume identifies two main types of such: impressions and ideas, - which becomes a kind of basis for further theoretical work. It should be recognized that D. Hume created his original concept of knowledge, which had a great influence on the entire process of development of philosophical thought.

In his writings, D. Hume formulated the basic principles agnosticism(teachings in epistemology, denying the possibility of reliable knowledge of the essence material systems, laws of nature and society). Hume posed the problem of the objectivity of cause-and-effect relationships, pointing out its difficulty as unprovability. Indeed, the effect is not contained “within” the cause, either physically or logically. It cannot be derived from her and is unlike her. It should be noted that here, in essence, an important question is raised about the status of categories or universal concepts - are they deducible from experience? Hume thinks not.

Hume raised empiricism to the level of, as they say, pillars of Hercules, having exhausted all possibilities for its development. He abandoned the ontological premises that occupied an important place in Hobbes, the noticeable influence of rationalism in Locke, the religious interests that absorbed Berkeley's thoughts, and many of the residual principles of the metaphysical tradition.

David Hume was born in Edinburgh into the family of a poor Scottish nobleman-landowner in 1711. Even in his youth, he became addicted to the study of philosophy, and this passion was so deep that he resolutely opposed his parents’ desire to make him a lawyer (like his father). The future scientist studied at the University of Edinburgh.

Already in 1729, at the age of eighteen, Hume, possessing a powerful intuition, which, by his own admission, opened up to him “a new scene of thought,” conceived a new “science of human nature.”

Along with the "new field of thought" the idea arose " Treatise on Human Nature "(1734-1737) - the first work of Hume; after numerous improvements, corrections and additions, the treatise became masterpiece his creative heritage. However, Hume failed to enter the academic environment due to his demonstrably atheistic and skeptical views. But in other areas of activity, Hume was successful. In 1745 he was tutor-companion of the Marquis of Anendal. In 1746, having become the secretary of General Saint-Clair, Hume participated in a diplomatic mission to Vienna and Turin. From 1763 to 1766, as secretary of the English ambassador in Paris, he became closely acquainted with D'Alembert, Helvetius, Diderot and other figures of the French Enlightenment.

In 1766, Hume, returning to England, invited Rousseau and offered him help and protection, but soon the sick Rousseau accused Hume of organizing a conspiracy to destroy him. This incident caused a lot of gossip and forced Hume to publish his own arguments and considerations on this matter. Since 1767, Hume served as assistant secretary of state. Having retired with a handsome pension in 1769, he settled in his homeland, Edinburgh, where he spent the last years of his life in peace, devoting himself exclusively to his favorite subjects.

Although the Treatise remained virtually unknown to Hume's contemporaries, the originality of the “new field of thought” is obvious.

Hume, David (1711-1776) - Scottish philosopher, historian, economist and writer. Born in Edinburgh on May 7, 1711. His father, Joseph Hume, was a lawyer and belonged to the ancient house of Hume; The Ninewells estate, adjacent to the village of Chernside near Berwick-upon-Tweed, has belonged to the family since the early 16th century.

Hume's mother Catherine, “a woman of rare merit” (all quotations in the biographical part of the article are given, unless specifically stated, from Hume’s autobiographical work, The Life of David Hume, Esquire, Written by Himself, 1777), was the daughter of Sir David Falconer, head of the panel of judges. Although the family was more or less well off, David, as the youngest son, inherited less than £50 a year; Despite this, he was determined to defend independence, choosing the path of improving his “literary talent.”

A good goal can impart value only to those means that are sufficient and actually lead to the goal.

After the death of her husband, Katherine “dedicated herself entirely to the upbringing and education of her children” - John, Katherine and David. Religion (Scottish Presbyterianism) occupied a large place in home education, and David later recalled that he believed in God when he was little.

However, the Ninewell Humes, being a family of educated people with a legal orientation, had in their house books devoted not only to religion, but also to secular sciences. The boys entered the University of Edinburgh in 1723. Several university professors were followers of Newton and members of the so-called. the Ranken Club, where they discussed the principles of new science and philosophy; they also corresponded with J. Berkeley. In 1726, Hume, at the insistence of his family, who considered him called to lawyering, left the university. However, he continued his education in secret - "I felt a deep aversion to any other activity except the study of philosophy and general reading" - which laid the foundation for his rapid development as a philosopher.

Excessive diligence led Hume to a nervous breakdown in 1729. In 1734, he decided to “try his luck in another, more practical field” - as a clerk in the office of a certain Bristol merchant. However, nothing came of this, and Hume went to France, living in 1734-1737 in Reims and La Flèche (where the Jesuit college was located, where Descartes and Mersenne were educated). There he wrote A Treatise of Human Nature, the first two volumes of which were published in London in 1739, and the third in 1740. Hume’s work remained virtually unnoticed - the world was not yet ready to accept the ideas of this “Newton of moral philosophy."

His work, An Abstract of a Book Lately Published: Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, etc., Wherein the Chief Argument of That Book Is Farther Illustrated and Explained, 1740, also did not arouse interest. Disappointed, but not losing hope, Hume returned to Ninewells and released two parts of his Essays, Moral and Political, 1741-1742, which were met with moderate interest. However, the Treatise's reputation as heretical and even atheistic prevented his election as professor of ethics at the University of Edinburgh in 1744-1745. In 1745 (the year of the failed rebellion), Hume served as a pupil of the feeble-minded Marquis of Annandale. In 1746, as secretary, he accompanied General James St. Clair (his distant relative) on a farcical raid on the shores of France, and then, in 1748-1749, as the general's aide-de-camp on a secret military mission to the courts of Vienna and Turin. Through these trips he secured his independence, becoming "the owner of about a thousand pounds."

In 1748, Hume began signing his works with his own name. Soon after this, his reputation began to grow rapidly. Hume reworks Treatise: Book I into Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding, later An Inquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748), which included the essay “On Miracles”; book II - in the Study of Affects (Of the Passions), included a little later in the Four Dissertations (Four Dissertations, 1757); Book III was rewritten as Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, 1751. Other publications include Moral and Political Essays (Three Essays, Moral and Political, 1748); Political Conversations (Political Discourses, 1752) and History of England (History of England, in 6 vols., 1754-1762). In 1753 Hume began publishing Essays and Treatises, a collection of his works not devoted to historical issues, with the exception of the Treatise; in 1762 the same fate befell works on history. His name began to attract attention.

“Within a year two or three replies appeared from ecclesiastics, sometimes of very high rank, and Dr. Warburton’s abuse showed me that my writings were beginning to be appreciated in good society.” The young Edward Gibbon called him “the great David Hume,” the young James Boswell called him “England’s greatest writer.” Montesquieu was the first thinker famous in Europe to recognize his genius; after Montesquieu's death, Abbe Leblanc called Hume “the only one in Europe” who could replace the great Frenchman. Already in 1751, Hume's literary fame was recognized in Edinburgh. In 1752 the Law Society elected him Keeper of the Lawyers' Library (now the National Library of Scotland). There were also new disappointments - failure in elections to the University of Glasgow and an attempt at excommunication from the Church of Scotland.

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The English philosopher, historian and economist David Hume (1711 - 1776) seemed to sum up the evolution of British philosophy from empiricism gravitating towards materialism to Berkeley's subjective idealism. He became the progenitor of most of the philosophical teachings of the next two centuries. The main work of D. Hume “Treatise of Human Nature” (1739 - 1740). For a number of years he was in the diplomatic service. In Paris, he found a favorable reception from French materialists in 1763 - 1766.

Hume as a philosopher was influenced by Berkeley's ideas. However, unlike Berkeley, a militant champion of idealism and religion, Hume is a skeptic. The Edinburgh thinker seeks to avoid the extremes of Berkeley's philosophy and open conflict with the conclusions of natural science.

Like Berkeley, Hume proceeds from the fact that the source of knowledge is in the sensations or impressions of the subject. However, Hume considered Berkeley's view that the source of sensations was an omnipotent being or deity unacceptable. At the same time, he referred to the fact that no human experience can prove the existence of a deity. Meanwhile, for Hume, the idea of ​​materialists, according to whom sensations are the result of the interaction of man and the objective world, is also unacceptable. He argues that the human mind is inaccessible to anything except images and perceptions. Hume believed that a person is not able to establish any relationship between the image and the object that gave birth to it.

As for the causal connection of phenomena, it is, in the opinion, that even if it exists, it is unknowable. He believed that the source of knowledge about the order of things is not theoretical research, but faith. According to Hume, the results of the efforts of philosophers demonstrate only the blindness and weakness of the human mind. The underestimation of the importance of scientific knowledge and the exaggeration of the role of common sense on the part of the Edinburgh thinker is a peculiar reaction to the excessive claims of reason and science in the era of enlightenment, when it is then discovered that they cannot fulfill their promises.

Hume's skeptical philosophy makes a concession to agnosticism, which rejects knowledge of the world or doubts that a person is capable of having knowledge about the world.

The historical significance of D. Hume's philosophy lies in the fact that skepticism forced philosophers who lived after him to continue understanding the theory and psychology of knowledge, as well as direct efforts to study ethical problems.

David Hume - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "David Hume" 2015, 2017-2018.

Hume, 1711-1776) - English. philosopher. Developing the ideas of empirical psychology, the foundations of which were laid by J. Locke, Yuri opposed the recognition of the existence of the soul as a substantial carrier of consciousness: only impressions and their pale copies (ideas) exist as units of consciousness. Both classes of phenomena of consciousness are simple and complex. Complex phenomena are formed based on the summation of simple ones. The work of consciousness, according to Yu., is subject to certain general laws that act as immutably as in nature (the flow of thoughts, for example, occurs not through an arbitrary and random combination of thoughts, but according to associative connections acquired in past experience).

Yu identified associations by similarity (contrast), by contiguity in space and time, and by causality. Having extended the principle of association to explain all cognitive processes, Yu played a significant role in the formation of associationism and the development of the “natural science” paradigm in psychology. (E. E. Sokolova.)

YM David

The great English psychologist and philosopher David Hume was born in 1711 in the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh. His father was a poor nobleman who practiced law. Both Yuma’s father and mother wanted him to follow in his parents’ footsteps and also become a lawyer, but David realized early on that he was absolutely not interested in this type of activity. Already as a teenager, he informed his parents, directly telling them that he felt a great aversion to any activity other than literature, philosophy and psychology. But this required getting an education, which cost a lot of money, which Hume’s father did not have. Despite this, David nevertheless began to attend the University of Edinburgh, where he voraciously read works on psychology and philosophy. But soon he still had to go into commerce to earn a living. To do this, Hume went to Bristol, where he tried himself as a businessman. As a businessman, David was a complete fiasco. By this time his father had already died. David decided to go to France to continue his education there. Mother did not object to this. And in 1734, David Hume sailed to France, where he stayed for three years, most of which he lived in the city of La Flèche (Descartes once studied in this city). At first, Hume decided to devote his life to literature, but during the time he lived in France, he wrote not just any novel or story, but his first major work, which he called “A Treatise on Human Nature” and consisted of three books. David published it in England, in London; it was published in 1738-1740. The first book of this treatise was devoted to the development of the theory of knowledge, the second to the psychology of human affects, and the third to the problems of moral theory. This treatise contains the almost fully matured famous theory of Hume. It was immediately felt that this work was written by an original and talented author, although, of course, Hume was influenced by the works of Locke, Newton, Berkeley, Cicero, Bayle, Bacon, Montaigne, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and other scientists. Hume's ethics is not a secondary plan of his teaching, but the second, and main, part of it. In it, the study of “human nature” reaches its apogee. Hume devoted most of his life to the development of moral psychology. Hume believed that human nature is unchangeable in its essence, and all human actions are subject to strict determinism. He agrees with Hutcheson and Shaftesbury that ethics is a matter of feeling and intuition, and not at all of reflection. “The rules of morality,” writes Hume, “are not the conclusions of our reason. .. The value of our actions does not lie in their agreement with reason, just as their reprehensibility does not lie in their contradiction to the latter.” The moment of irrationality that is present in these attitudes is explained by Hume as follows: “Where the affects are awakened, there is no room for free imagination. The human mind, being limited by its nature, cannot manifest its faculties at once simultaneously, and the more the activity of one of them predominates, the less opportunity remains for it to manifest the others.” Taking a unique approach to Isaac Newton's doctrine of gravity, Hume interprets “sympathy” as a kind of attraction between people. From Hobbes he learned a complete denial of any supernatural morality, even if it had, according to some, divine origin. But one of the main points of Hume’s teaching is the numerous facts he identified and described about the human psyche, its emotional content, i.e. "reflections". The second volume of the Treatise on Human Nature is a study of the affects of desire and disgust, joy and sadness, anger and benevolence, humiliation and pride, despair and hope, etc. and their associative interactions. Hume is confident that ethics must be transformed primarily into the psychology of affects, or at least rely on it, in order to become a scientific discipline. Based on his theory, we can say that both virtue and vice are not something objective. All moral assessments are neither false nor true, they are simply a given, just like the views, motives and actions of people. Hume sees the main way of thinking in associations through sensory images. He identified three types of associative connections: by similarity, by contiguity in space and time, and by cause-and-effect dependence. Within these types, impressions, impressions and ideas are associated, ideas with each other and with states of predisposition to continue experiences that arose earlier. It must be said that readers did not understand and did not accept this work. Hume was probably ahead of his time, and society was not yet ready to accept his theory. Hume himself spoke about this phenomenon as follows: “Hardly anyone’s literary debut was less successful than my Treatise on Human Nature.” He came out of print stillborn, without even the honor of arousing murmurs among the fanatics. But, differing by nature in my cheerful and ardent temperament, I very soon recovered from this blow...” Hume’s first treatise was the main work of his life; It was written in a language simple enough for the average person to understand, but its overall structure was not so simple. In addition, for some reason rumors spread that Hume was an atheist. This circumstance later hampered the scientist more than once throughout his life and served as an obstacle to obtaining a teaching position at the university, although he made great efforts to achieve this in his hometown of Edinburgh and Glasgow. In the early 1740s, Hume made attempts to popularize his theory by writing an “Abridged Exposition...”. However, this work was not successful among readers. In those years, Hume established connections with important representatives of Scottish spiritual culture. He became friends with Adam Smith and Hutcheson. In 1741 - 1742 Hume publishes his new work, called Moral and Political Essays. In this book, he examines various socio-political issues. This book was written in a lively, vivid language and was a success with the public - after its publication, Hume became widely known. During his life, Hume wrote about 50 essays, which were then republished many times. Among them are the famous essays “On the Immortality of the Soul”, “Epicurean”, “On Suicide”, “Stoic”, “Skeptic”, “Platonist”. In the mid-40s. XVIII century Hume again began to experience financial problems, as a result of which he first became the companion of a certain mentally ill Marquis of Anandal, and then the secretary of General St. Clair, with whom Hume had to participate in a military campaign in Canada, and then be part of military missions in Turin and Vienna. In Italy, Hume rewrote the first book of his Treatise of Human Nature into an Inquiry Concerning Human Knowledge. This work was published in England in 1748, but due to a whim of fate, it was again not successful among readers. The shortened version of the third book of the “Treatise...”, published under the title “A Study on the Principles of Morality,” also did not live up to expectations. However, Hume himself considered it the best of everything he wrote in his life. Hume returns to his native Scotland. In 1752, the Law Society chose him as its librarian. This position did not bring Hume practically any income, but it gave him the opportunity to use an extensive library. At this time, he wrote his famous work, “The History of England,” the first volume of which caused a storm of indignation among the British. But the following volumes were received more favorably by the public. A total of 6 volumes were published. The work was a success on the mainland and was republished in France. After this, Hume wrote: “...I became not only a wealthy, but also a rich man, and returned to my homeland, Scotland, with the firm intention of never leaving it again. ..” But these cloudless plans of Hume soon changed thanks to unexpected events. In 1763, the war between France and England over the colonies ended, and after that Hume was invited to take the post of secretary of the English embassy in France. And for two years he was in France in the diplomatic service. In Paris, unlike in Britain (where for many years Hume was unfairly unpopular), he was surrounded by general veneration and admiration. He even thought of staying there forever, but Adam Smith dissuaded him from this idea. Hume actively corresponded with Montesquieu and Helvetius, was friends with D'Alembert, and corresponded with Voltaire. He was on friendly terms with Holbach and Rousseau. French educators highly valued his work “Natural History of Religion,” which was published in 1757. This work was especially actively popularized on the mainland by the French educational historian Charles de Brosse. In 1766 Hume returned to Britain. For two years he held the post of Assistant Secretary of State. In 1769, Hume retired and finally returned to his hometown. He begins to realize his old dream - he gathers around him talented people in various fields of art and science. Hume becomes secretary of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society and is actively involved in educational activities. In the early 1770s. Hume returned many times to work on his last major work, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. He did not want to publish this work during his lifetime, because he feared persecution from the church. But in 1775, Hume showed signs of a serious illness, and he decided to arrange for the posthumous publication of this work. David Hume died in August 1776, when he was only 65 years old.

Biographical information. David Hume (1711 - 1776) - English historian, publicist, economist, philosopher. Born into a family of poor Scottish nobleman in Edinburgh, he graduated from the University of Edinburgh. Already at the age of 18, he conceived a “new science of human nature,” later outlined in his main philosophical work, “Treatise on Human Nature.” But the publication of this work went unnoticed. Only “Essays Moral and Political” brought fame to Hume. From 1746 he was engaged in diplomatic work, from 1763 to 1766 he lived in Paris, where he became friends with a number of French educators (Diderot, Helvetius, etc.). In 1769 he retired and settled in his homeland, where he was engaged only in science.

Main works. “Treatise on Human Nature” (1739 - 1740), “Moral and Political Experiments (Essays)” (1741), “History of England: In 8 volumes.” (1753 - 1762).

Philosophical views. Ontology. Recognizing (unlike Berkeley) the existence of the external world, Hume argued that we know nothing about this world, and in principle cannot know. Hume is the founder of modern European skepticism 6 And agnosticism 7 .

Epistemology. Problems of epistemology occupy a central place in his teaching. Noting the successes of the experimental method, which allowed Newton to create a new physics, Hume argued that now, using the same method, it is necessary to create a new science of human nature, and this task is especially important because only by knowing human nature can we:

come to dominate it;

understand how the process of cognition of the external world proceeds and how valid our knowledge about the world is;

build a new system of sciences about this world.

Unlike Locke and Berkeley, who called all the contents of the human mind ideas, Hume calls it perceptions and initially divides them into “impressions” (“sensations”) and “ideas.” There are only two significant differences between them: in degree and in order:

Impressions can be simple (red color, salty taste, etc.) and complex (the impression of the apple as a whole). Ideas can also be simple or complex; but if simple ideas are pale copies of impressions (sensations), then complex ideas can be like a copy of a complex impression. So it is the result of a combination of simple ideas in the mind.

The birth of complex ideas is also associated with the presence memory, which allows you to reproduce impressions and ideas that took place in the past, and imagination, allowing you to create new combinations of familiar ideas. To check the persuasiveness (truth) of any idea, it is necessary to indicate the impression corresponding to it. This is not difficult for simple ideas and for complex ones, which are a reflection of complex impressions. But complex ideas can still be the result of the activity of consciousness. To verify their truth, it is necessary to understand how they appear.

There is a certain connection between the various perceptions existing in our consciousness, a certain "attraction". Thanks to this connection we have "habit" constant perception of certain stable complexes of sensations; Various perceptions are relatively stably fixed in our memory. A stable connection also takes place between two ideas; it is expressed in principle of association formulated by Hume. The transition from one idea to another is carried out on three grounds:

similarity;

contiguity in time and space;

causal relationship.

The effect of such an “attraction” of ideas is obvious to anyone, but its reasons are unknown and must be attributed “to the original qualities of human nature.”

Hume – nominalist Like Berkeley, he denies the existence of general, abstract ideas and impressions, since each idea is only a weak image of an impression, it is always concrete and has a private character.

Hume explains the emergence of general ideas by the emergence of certain similar ideas that are fixed in our minds. This similarity allows these ideas to be given the same name.

Between ideas in our minds, there can be 2 types of relationships, which we express in judgments (sentences), affirming or denying something:

attitude logical consequence when some ideas are completely derived from others (for example, theorems from axioms) and this adherence is based on the logical law of non-contradiction;

conclusions about the "facts"”, which we make on the basis of the perceptions we have (for example, we see the upper part of the Sun in the east and conclude: “The sun is rising”).

However, when we think about something that we do not currently perceive, we can equally easily imagine contradictory facts. Such conclusions of fact are based on the relationship cause and effect.

Hume considers the assertion that this relationship really exists between objects of the external world (i.e., outside our consciousness) to be erroneous, because what is considered a consequence:

not contained in what is considered to be the cause;

not similar but what is considered to be the cause;

is not logically deducible from what is believed to be the cause.

According to Hume, the cause-and-effect relationship has an exclusively psychological basis.

Anthropology. Human nature is unchangeable and the same for all people. Since cause-and-effect relationships operate in the sphere of the psyche, the entire mental life of an individual is strictly determined and there is no free will. Following Berkeley regarding the criticism of the concept of “substance,” Hume (contrary to Berkeley) denies the existence of the soul as a substrate, a bearer of mental experiences. The human personality is just “a bundle or bundle... of different perceptions, successive to each other.”

Socio-political views. Hume denied both the medieval doctrine of the origin of power “from God” and the theory of the “contractual” origin of the state, popular in his time. He believed that the state arose on the basis of the family and as a result of the growth of the latter. Royal power originates from the institution of military leaders, and the degree of legitimacy of power in the eyes of people is the result of “habit” to it and depends on the time of existence of this power (and its acceptability for subjects).

The fate of the teaching. Hume's philosophical ideas, and especially his skepticism and agnosticism, played a significant role in the further development of European subjective idealism.

1 “Teleo” means “goal” in ancient Greek. Theology- a philosophical doctrine that affirms the purposeful structure of the world, in which everything that happens in the world is interpreted as corresponding to some natural or divine purposes.

2Deism is a movement of philosophy in which God is recognized as the creator of the world, but having created the world and put certain laws into it, God no longer interferes in the affairs of the world: the world exists according to its own laws.

3This theory first appeared in the teachings of Democritus; at a time close to Locke, it was developed by Galileo and Newton.

4Objective idealism- this is a movement in philosophy in which a certain ideal essence that exists objectively is recognized as the beginning of being, i.e. outside and independent of human consciousness (God, Absolute, Idea, World Mind, etc.)

Subjective idealism is a movement in philosophy in which human consciousness, the human “I”, is recognized as the beginning of existence.

5Sensationalism(from the Latin “sensus” - feeling) - a direction in philosophy in which feelings (sensations) are recognized as the main source of knowledge, and they are also considered the criterion of truth.

6Skepticism- this is a philosophical direction where doubt turns out to be a universal philosophical principle, i.e. The idea of ​​the unreliability of all knowledge is consistently pursued.

7Agnosticism – a movement in philosophy in which the world is recognized as fundamentally unknowable.