My philosopher "David Hume"

David Hume

       

         David Hume (1711 - 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, economist and historian of the Age of Enlightenment. He was an important figure in the Scottish Enlightenment and, along with John Locke and Bishop George Berkeley, one of the three main figureheads of the influential British Empiricism movement.       

         He was a fierce opponent of the Rationalism of Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza, as well as an atheist and a skeptic. He has come to be considered as one of the most important British philosophers of all time, and he was a huge influence on later philosophers, from Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer to the Logical Positivists and Analytic Philosophers of the 20th Century, as well as on intellectuals in other fields.       

           Hume was born on 26 April 1711 in a tenement on the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father was Joseph Home,  and the aristocrat Katherine Lady Falconer. He changed his name to Hume in 1734 because the English had difficulty pronouncing "Home" in the Scottish manner.                          He was well read, even as a child, and had a good grounding in Greek and Latin. He attended the University of Edinburgh at the unusually early age of twelve, although he had little respect for the professors there and soon threw over a prospective career in law in favour of philosophy and general learning. At the tender age of eighteen, he made a great "philosophical discovery"   that led him to devote the next ten years of his life to a concentrated period of study, reading and writing, almost to the verge of a nervous breakdown          

             After the publication of his "Essays Moral and Political" in 1744, Hume was refused a post at the University of Edinburgh after local ministers petitioned the town council not to appoint Hume due to his Atheism. For about a year he tutored the unstable Marquise of Annandale and became involved with the Canongate Theatre in Edinburgh, where he associated with some of the Scottish Enlightenment luminaries of the time.         

              Most of Hume’s philosophical work dates from his earlier years, in particular stemming from a mysterious intellectual revelationhe appears to have experienced at the age of just eighteen. He spent most of the next ten years frantically trying to capture these thoughts on paper, resulting in "A Treatise of Human Nature" which he completed in 1737 at the age of just 26. This book, which he subtitled "An Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects", is now consider to be Hume's most important work and one of the most important books in the whole of Western philosophy, despite its poor initial reception.

         He refined the "Treatise" in the later "Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding" , along with a companion volume "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals" (1751), although these publication proved hardly more successful than the original "Treatise" on which they were based.           

           In his "A Treatise of Human Nature", Hume definitively articulated the so-called “is-ought problem”, which has since become so important in Meta-Ethics, noting that claims are often made about what ought to be on the basis of statements about what is. However, Hume pointed out, there are significant differences between descriptive statements and prescriptive or normative statements, and it is not at all obvious how we can get from making descriptive statements to prescriptive. In line with his ingrained Skepticism, he advised extreme caution against making such inferences, and this complete severing of "is" from "ought" is sometimes referred to as “Hume's Guillotine”. 

       In regards to John Locke, Hume's philosophy does not explicitly have God as its foundation. This is evident in the chapter of perspective of whether or not innocent luxury is beneficial, not taking God into account.       
 

      This difference between Locke and Hume relates to their views on reason and empirical observation. Both philosophers were empiricists, arguing that we arrive at knowledge through sensation. Yet Locke also believes in a law of reason and that certain things can be understood through the exercise of reason. Hume, however, is generally considered anti-rational. He argues that reason consists simply in the prescription of actions based on our passions which are in turn derived from our morals. Thus, reason can prescribe how we should act, what means we should employ, but it cannot prescribe the ends we pursue through those actions. This is fundamentally different from Locke, whose theory of society and government is grounded in the objective laws of nature and God. 

      Again, this fundamental difference is reflected in Of Refinement in the Arts. Whereas Locke argues for a law of reason that prescribes the correct actions of a society and government, Hume argues that the best laws cannot be arrived at except through reason that has been refined by exercise. In other words, knowledge of the art of government does not come from an objective, external law of nature or reason, or from God, but from subjective human experience. Thus, for Locke, the best government is derived from the law of reason and has as its purpose the protection of everyone's natural right to life, liberty, and property. Liberty, to Locke, is a natural right that government exists to protect. For Hume, a government that protects liberty is established from a society that is properly cultivated and refined, so that the people have acquired wealth and therefore has the power and the incentive to protect themselves from tyranny through good laws. Liberty and laws that protect it, to Hume, are secured by motivated people, not established by God or by the law of reason.

       Another difference can be perceived in their views of education. Locke argues that the point of education is to allow one to understand the laws of nature or of society, and therefore to exercise liberty under those laws; Hume sees education as a major influence in allowing one to pursue those things that bring pleasure and enjoyment.      

         Hume's philosophy of the pursuit of pleasure and enjoyment, as the major theme in Of Refinement in the Arts, bears some similarities to Locke's philosophy, but also some important differences. Both philosophies are individualistic but are derived from fundamentally different bases. Locke argues that individuals, by nature, have a right to life, liberty, and property, the protection of which is the purpose of government. Hume argues that individuals should pursue innocent luxury, not as a God-given right, but as something that is beneficial both to individuals and to society Refinement in the Arts, in which Hume argues for the value, both to society and the individual, of proper pursuit of luxury and refinement. His theory is not clearly tied to any belief in a deity, but neither does it reject deity..

A day with my friends

My Friends

My Friends

      They are my friends, they are also my second family, we are friends but it seems genuine sisters to look at each other.

  

       They are also with me in fun, madness and learning, i learned how to value things. So i'm happy because i have a friend like them.

       So if you have a friend with you at all, do not neglect them because they do not have the opportunity to talk to you or to tell you about your problems.

Thank you for reading.

ALL ABOUT ME

   

        Hi there! I'm Rochelle Anne Fernandez Atienza you can call me Rochelle or Chelle, I'm 17 years old. My birthday is January 18, 2000. My birthplace is in Binan Hospital. I live in Platero Binan City of Laguna. 

        I finished my elementary in Platero Elementary School(PLES), and went on high school in Saint Michael's College of Laguna(SMCL) but only two years, and i moved to public school in Jacobo Z Gonzales Memorial National High School( JZGMNH) when i was grade 9 because of financial problem, just a year ago and i moved after then grade 9 at Marie Margarette School is a private school. 

  And now i'm in Grade 11 in the STI Sta.Rosa and the strand i took was ABM (Accountancy, Business and Management) because i wanted to be an accountant someday to get back to those who helped me to reach my dream.