David Hume

David Hume

Introduction:

He was born in April 26th 1711; he was a Scottish philosopher, economist and historian. He is one of the most important figures of the history of western philosophy and he the Scottish enlightenment. Although in the recent years interest in Hume's works has centered on his philosophical writing it was as a historian that he gained his initial fame and his history of Great Britain was the standard work on English history for sixty or seventy years.

Life:

David home later Hume the son of Joseph home (advocate) and Katherine lady falconer. He changed his name to Hume in 1734 because the English had difficulty in pronouncing home in the Scottish manner. He was sent to the Edinburgh at the age of 12. Where 14 is the normal age. At first he wanted to go into law but he was much more interested in philosophy which is path he followed.

At the age of 18 in 1729 he made a philosophical discovery which inspired him to give up everything else in life but the study of philosophy. He does not say what this was but most philosophers like to believe that this was his theory of causality, which goes for saying "After this, therefore, because of this". In this theory what Hume tried to explain that what we do is not exactly caused by what happened to us in the past. Everything that we do is a reaction to something, but is done according our free will, and what we do is based on our own morals and principles. We have created ideas in our mind, ideas about actions and thoughts that are supposed to be linked together, when this is not entirely the case.

Ideas and Impression:

Hume followed the concept of dualistic thinking. He divided understanding in to two main parts which are ideas and impressions. Impressions are actually how you see things from your own perspective as an individual, not their reality, but how u feel about an object or experience. An idea is what you gain