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Hume, David |
Also found in: Legal, Encyclopedia | 0.06 sec. |
Hume, David (1711–1776)Scottish philosopher whose Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) is a central text of British empiricism (the theory that experience is the only source of knowledge). Examining meticulously our modes of thinking, he concluded that they are more habitual than rational. Consequently, he not only rejected the possibility of knowlege that goes beyond the bounds of experience (speculative metaphysics), but also arrived at generally sceptical positions about reason, causation, necessity, identity, and the self. Hume's law in moral philosophy states that it is never possible to deduce evaluative conclusions from factual premises; this has come to be known as the ‘is/ought problem’.
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The days when Humeans and Homoousians mostly stayed out of one another's hair are gone, it seems, forever. Kantians deny externalism, while Humeans affirm it. |
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