Jaymie Ticknor Intro Philosophy 1050 Sect 003 21 February 2014 Lecture 10 David Hume main figure of the Scottish Enlightenment along with Adam Smith and James Boswell empiricist and atheist Timeline Descartes knowledge can be achieved through rational reflection Locke knowledge can only be derived from experience Hume it is belief guided by custom that lies at the heart of our claims to knowledge Contents of Mind into Two Phenomena Impressions all the more lively perceptions when we hear or see or feel or love or hate or desire Ideas faint copies of our impressions such as thoughts reflections and imaginings Theses are less forcible and lively Demonstrative Statements one whose truth or falsity is self evident logically true false Probable Statements concerned with matters of empirical fact it requires empirical evidence for it to be know as true or false Claims that if a statement is neither of these then we cannot know it to be true or false it is a meaningless statement Inductive Inferences our ability to infer things from past evidence custom habit is the great guide of life and tells that it is probable Cause and Effect why something happens what happens Causality The future will resemble the past it is all a matter of custom or habit A following B correlation induction is the process of drawing inferences from past experiences of cause and effect sequences to present or future events effect cannot be validly deduced from its cause inference from cause and effect is based on past experiences of constant conjunction and these past experiences accustom or habituate us Problem of Induction an effect cannot be validly deduced from its cause habituate or accustom us to believe that one event is the cause of another which we believe to be the effect of the prior event induction cannot be logically justified and is the glory of science and scandal of philosophy Overview Empiricist senses and experiences no innate ideas Divides the contents of the mind into Impressions all the more lively perceptions when we hear see feel love hate desire or will calls sensations passions or emotions Ideas faint copies of our impressions such as thoughts reflections and imaginings less forcible and lively Demonstrative Statements one whose truth or falsity is self evident logically true false opposite is inconceivable Probable Statements concerned with matters of empirical fact requires empirical evidence for it to be known as true or false Inductive Inferences our ability to infer things from past evidence custom habit is the great guide of life and tells that it is probable