David Hume is a well-known Scottish philosopher who represented empirical and agnostic trends during the Enlightenment. He was born on April 26, 1711 in Scotland (Edinburgh). My father was a lawyer and owned a small estate. David received a good education at a local university, worked in diplomatic missions, and wrote many philosophical treatises.
Main work
A treatise on human nature is today considered the main work of Hume. It consists of three sections (books) - “On cognition”, “On affects”, “On morality”. The book was written during the period when Hume lived in France (1734-1737). In 1739, the first two volumes were published, the last book saw the world a year later, in 1740. At that time, Hume was still very young, he was not even thirty years old, besides, he was not known in scientific circles, and all the existing schools should have considered the conclusions that he made in the Treatise on Human Nature to be unacceptable. Therefore, David prepared arguments in advance in defense of his position and began to expect violent attacks by the scientific community of that time. But it all ended unpredictably - no one noticed his work.
The author of A Treatise on Human Nature then said that he went out of print “stillborn.” In his book, Hume proposed to systematize (or, as he put it, anatomize) human nature and draw conclusions based on the data that are justified by experience.
His philosophy
Philosophers of philosophy say that David Hume’s ideas are radical skepticism, although the ideas of naturalism still play an important role in his teaching.
The development and establishment of Hume's philosophical thought was greatly influenced by the work of empiricists J. Berkeley and J. Locke, as well as the ideas of P. Bayle, I. Newton, S. Clark, F. Hutcheson and J. Butler. In A Treatise on Human Nature, Hume writes that human cognition is not something innate, but depends solely on experience. Therefore, a person is unable to determine the source of his experience and go beyond it. Experience is always limited by the past and consists of perceptions that can be divided into ideas and impressions.
Human science
The "Treatise on Human Nature" is based on philosophical thoughts about man. And since other sciences of that time relied on philosophy, for them this concept is fundamental. In the book, David Hume writes that all sciences are somehow related to man and his nature. Even mathematics depends on the sciences of man, because it is the subject of human knowledge.
The doctrine of Hume man is interesting in its structure. “A treatise on human nature” begins from a cognitive section. If the basis of the science of man is experience and observation, then first you need to turn to a detailed study of cognition. Try to explain what experience and knowledge are, gradually moving on to affects and only then to moral aspects.
If we assume that the theory of knowledge is the basis of the concept of human nature, then thinking about morality is its purpose and end result.
Human signs
In The Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume describes the main features of human nature:
- Man is a rational being who finds food in science.
- Man is not only intelligent, but also a social being.
- In addition, a person is an active being. Due to this tendency, and also under the influence of various kinds of needs, he must do something and do something.
Summing up under these signs, Hume says that nature has provided people with a mixed lifestyle that suits them best. Also, nature warns a person that he is not very keen on any one inclination, otherwise he will lose the ability to engage in other activities and entertainment. For example, if you read only scientific literature with complex terminology, then the individual will cease to enjoy reading other printed publications over time. They would seem unbearably stupid to him.
Retelling the author
To understand the main ideas of the author, you need to refer to the abbreviated "Treatise on Human Nature." It begins with a preface, where the philosopher writes that he would like to make understanding of his conjectures easier for readers. He also shares his unfulfilled hopes. The philosopher believed that his work would be peculiar and new, so he simply could not remain without attention. But apparently, humanity still needed to grow up to his thoughts.
Hume begins his treatise on human nature with a bias in history. He writes that the bulk of the philosophers of antiquity looked at the nature of man through the prism of the refinement of sensuality. They focused on the morality and grandeur of the soul, leaving aside the depth of thought and judgment. They did not develop chains of reasoning and did not turn individual truths into systematic science. But it’s worthwhile to find out whether the science of man can have a high degree of accuracy.
Hume despises any hypotheses if they cannot be confirmed in practice. Human nature should be investigated only on the basis of practical experience. The sole purpose of logic should be to explain the principles and actions of the human ability to reason and cognize.
About cognition
In The Treatise on Human Nature, D. Hume sets aside a whole book to study the process of cognition. To put it very briefly, cognition is a real experience that gives a person real practical knowledge. However, here the philosopher offers his understanding of experience. He believes that experience can only describe that which belongs to consciousness. Simply put, experience does not provide any information about the outside world, but only helps to master the perception of human consciousness. D. Hume in his Treatise on Human Nature repeatedly notes that it is impossible to study the causes that give rise to perception. Thus, Hume excluded everything related to the outside world from experience and made it a part of perceptions.
Hume was sure that cognition exists only through perception. In turn, he related to this concept everything that the mind can imagine, feel the senses, or manifest itself in thought and reflection. Perceptions can come in two forms - ideas or impressions.
The philosopher refers to impressions as those perceptions that crash into consciousness most of all. To them he relates affects, emotions and outlines of physical objects. Ideas are weak perceptions, as they appear when a person begins to think about something. All ideas come from impressions, and a person is not able to think over what he did not see, did not feel and did not know before.
Further in The Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume tries to analyze the principle of combining human thoughts and ideas. He gave this process the name "principle of association." If there was nothing that united ideas, they could never be embodied in something big and general. Association is a process in which one idea causes another.
Causal relationships
In the summary of Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, one also needs to consider the problem of causality, which the philosopher assigns a central role to. If scientific knowledge aims to understand the world and everything that exists in it, then this can only be explained by examining the cause-effect relationships. That is, you need to know the reasons due to which things exist. Aristotle, in his Doctrine of Four Reasons, fixed the conditions necessary for objects to exist. One of the foundations of the emergence of a scientific worldview was the belief in the universality of the relationship between causes and effects. It was believed that thanks to this connection, a person can go beyond his memory and feelings.
But the philosopher did not think so. In The Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume writes that in order to study the nature of the obvious relationship, you first need to understand how a person goes on to understand the causes and actions. Every thing that exists in the physical world, on its own, cannot manifest either the reasons that it was created, or the consequences that it will bring.
Human experience makes it possible to understand how one phenomenon precedes another, but does not mean whether they give rise to each other or not. In a single object, it is impossible to determine the cause and effect. Their connection is not subject to perception, therefore it is impossible to prove theoretically. Thus, causality is a subjective constant. That is, in Hume's treatise on human nature, causation is nothing more than an idea of objects that in practice turn out to be connected at the same time and in one place. If the connection is repeated many times, then its perception is fixed by the habit on which all human judgments are based. And causality is nothing more than the belief that this state of affairs will continue to be preserved in nature.
Desire for social
David Hume's “Treatise on Human Nature” does not exclude the influence of social relationships on humans. The philosopher believes that in human nature itself lies the desire for social, interpersonal relationships, and loneliness seems to people something painful and unbearable. Hume writes that a person is not able to live without society.
He refutes the theory of creating a “contractual” state and all the teachings about the natural human condition in the pre-social period of life. Hume ignores the ideas of Hobbes and Locke about his natural state without a twinge of conscience, saying that elements of a social state are organically inherent in people. First of all, the desire to create a family.
The philosopher writes that the transition to the political structure of society was connected precisely with the need to create a family. This inborn need should be considered as the basic principle of the formation of society. The emergence of public relations is greatly influenced by kinship, parental relations between people.
State Appearance
D. Hume and his Treatise on Human Nature provide an open answer to the question of how the state came about. First, people had to defend themselves or attack in aggressive clashes with other communities. Secondly, strong and orderly social ties proved to be more profitable than solitary existence.
According to Hume, social development is as follows. First, family-social relations are laid down, where there are certain moral standards and rules of behavior, but there are no bodies that force them to perform certain duties. At the second stage, a public state appears, which arises due to an increase in livelihoods and territories. Wealth and possessions cause conflicts with stronger neighbors who want to increase their resources. This, in turn, shows how important military leaders are.
The government emerges precisely from the formation of military leaders and acquires the features of a monarchy. Hume is sure that the government is an instrument of social justice, the main body of order and social discipline. Only it can guarantee the inviolability of property and the fulfillment by a person of the obligation imposed on him.
According to Hume, a constitutional monarchy is a better form of government. He is sure that if an absolute monarchy is formed, then this will certainly lead to tyranny and impoverishment of the nation. Under the republic, society will constantly be in an unstable state and will not have confidence in the future. The best form of political government is a combination of hereditary royal power with representatives of the bourgeoisie and the nobility.
Work value
So what is a Treatise on Human Nature? These are reflections on knowledge that can be refuted, skeptical assumptions that a person is not able to reveal the laws of the universe and the basis on which ideas of philosophy were formed in the future.
David Hume was able to show that knowledge gained from experience cannot be universally valid. It is true only within the framework of past experience and no one guarantees that future experience will confirm it. All knowledge is possible, but it is difficult to consider it to be 100% reliable. Its necessity and objectivity is determined only by habit and the belief that future experience will not change.
It is regrettable to admit it, but nature keeps a person at a respectful distance from its secrets and makes it possible to know only the superficial qualities of objects, and not the principles on which their actions depend. The author is very skeptical about the fact that a person is able to fully understand the world around him.
Nevertheless, the philosophy of D. Hume had a great influence on the further development of philosophical thought. Immanuel Kant took seriously the statement that a person receives knowledge from his experience and empirical methods of cognition cannot guarantee their reliability, objectivity and necessity.
The skepticism of Hume found a response in the work of Auguste Comte, who believed that the main task of science is to describe phenomena, rather than explain them. Simply put, to know the truth, you must have reasonable doubt and a bit of skepticism. Do not take any statement at face value, but check and double-check it under different conditions of human experience. Only in this way it will be possible to understand how this world works, although such a method of cognition will take years, if not an eternity.