26 May 2016

Hume questions 1

I'm teaching a Hume seminar this Summer, hoping to both get to know Hume better and to help a small number of advanced BA students learn about his philosophy. I'll use this space to post questions that the first Enquiry raises (as well as the corresponding discussions in book I of the Treatise) as well as blog my way through some of the issues he explores there.

Re section 1, Of the different species of philosophy. Some questions: 
01 A reasonable being versus an active being: what is the distinction supposed to consist in?
02 Is philosophy that is clear to the ordinary person to be preferred to philosophies that aren't?
03 When Hume says "man," does he mean what we mean when we say "human"?
04 What makes a philosophy racist or sexist? How could one tell if it was either?

Re section 2, Of the origin of ideas. Some questions:
01 What does vividness in a mental operation show?
02 What sense impression corresponds to "minus"? "If"? "Could have been"? (If we say that imagination supplies that, how do we account for the truth value of the resulting proposition--especially in counterfactual cases ("The Rangers could have beaten the Penguins; then they'd be playing the Lightning in Game 7 tonight")?)

More from time to time.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

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Brian Kobylarz

Unknown said...

http://kylesphilblog.blogspot.com/2016/05/phil-4040-week-1.html

Gonna update sometime this evening.

Unknown said...

http://jeremymashphilosophy.blogspot.com/

Lindsay Bradford said...

humeshumans.blogspot.com

Hume first discusses a reasonable being as being a type of philosopher to esteem what they consider to be the highest morale, and then coerce others into the acceptance of that ideal. At least that is the way I interpreted it.
The second type of philosopher is more interested in examining the particular nature of the human condition, all biases and self preference aside. This kind of philosopher wants the cold truth, albeit if there is none.

Philosophy that is clear to the ordinary person I would consider to be more practical. While there are some things that simply are left best said in more complex specific terms, there are also lots of ways that philosophy can be simplified so that it is more clearly understood by the ordinary person. One of the perils of our society is that most people are not able to comprehend difficult philosophy, but they may still ponder and look for the same answers to their questions as philosophers.

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

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