In this article we will talk about David Hume, one of the greatest philosophers in human history, philosophy is a discipline that, since ancient times, has tried to solve the mysteries that surround our lives, our world and the reasons for our existence.
Before learning about the sciences, humanity answered some questions in very different ways. First the myths emerged, the ideas about creation, and then, with the birth of philosophy, began to give more or less objective reasoning to all these issues.
- This first philosophy sought a reason for our existence and the nature of the world.
- The passage of time and progress led philosophy to different branches and.
- Subsequently.
- To diversify into different disciplines.
- So philosophy predess psychology.
- For this reason.
- Philosophers are those who.
- Since ancient times.
- Have studied how human beings perceive reality.
One of the great philosophers who contributed to this survey was David Hume, this author highlighted the importance of learning, habits and lack of primordial knowledge innate, of course, this position was very influential in the philosophy of the moment and, a century later, when psychology was already more consolidated and differentiated, it also influenced it.
To understand Hume’s philosophy it is important to highlight his background, so in the Renaissance there are two overlapping philosophical currents related to knowledge, one of which is rationalism, a theory that human beings are born with certain truths considered universal, from which he interprets reality.
At the opposite end, there is another current: empiricism. Empiricism has argued that we learn only from experience, because we do not have knowledge considered innate. In this stream, one of the highest representatives was undoubtedly David Hume. Throughout this article, we will discover the keys to your thinking, your life and your work.
He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1711. He came from a wealthy family; his father was a lawyer, though he died when Hume was still a child. For this reason, he was also expected to study law, following in his father’s footsteps. David Hume studied at Edinburgh College, with Isaac Newton’s disciples as teachers.
He then went to the University of Edinburgh to study the law according to his family’s wishes, however, he dropped out of school because he did not like the subject and moved to Bristol to try to make his way into the trade. suffering from an existential crisis, he expressed the following sentiment: “an insurmountable aversion to anything but philosophy studies and knowing in general. “
Years later he moved to France, where he resided between 1735 and 1737, first in Reims and later in present-day Sarthe, formerly called The Arrow, where he wrote the Treaty of Human Nature, a work he published on his return to London and in which he already shows the heart of his later philosophy. However, the publication was a failure, prompting his return to Scotland.
During his time in Edinburgh he published the first part of his book Moral and Political Essays in 1742, with which he achieved considerable success, contrary to what happened with his first work. He later held various positions: he tutored the Marquis of Annandale, secretary to General St. Clear and librarian of the Edinburgh Bar Association.
“The beauty of things exists in the mind of those who contemplate them. “David Hume?
In 1763 he began working at the Paris Embassy with the help of Lord Hertford, is it in this city where he establishes a relationship with D?Alembert, Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, their stay in the French capital lasted until 1769, when he decided to return permanently to Edinburgh to devote himself to writing until his death in 1776.
To know david Hume’s thinking, you have to know his work and try to define the empirical theory he has always defended. Empiricism is based on a number of principles:
Human beings are not born with patterns of thought and prior knowledge that tell us how we should interpret reality, for the empirical current everything we know about reality is the result of lived experiences.
Experiences can be internal or external, i. e. they can come from the reflection and knowledge of our inner life or, on the contrary, from the sensations and perceptions of the world. For the empirists, there is nothing before the experience; we learn from all over the sensitive world. The spirit is like a chalkboard, a white paper in which the acquired knowledge will be gradually recorded.
These ideas, very present in Hume, follow in the footsteps of other empirical authors, such as John Locke, but differ within the limits of experience, although Locke believed he could access knowledge of realities beyond the sensitive, Hume said that, given the very nature of the experience, knowledge would be reduced to our perceptions.
According to Hume, there are two types of knowledge: on the one hand, impressions, that is, thoughts that arise as a result of the experiences we experience through the senses; on the other hand, we find ideas, which are abstract and ambiguous because they do not arise from physical sensations.
It all comes from perception; Impressions would be an immediate knowledge as a result of perception, so ideas would be derived from impressions and therefore more complex. Hume also talks about the concept of imagination, which is capable of modifying ideas.
David Hume distinguishes between probable statements derived from a fact, which may or may not occur, in a specific space and time. For example, say, “One of these days, the sun may not come up. “Every day, the sun rises, and we know it because it is a knowledge acquired by habit, perception and conviction. On the other hand, it speaks of the statements that, by their logical structure, can be demonstrated without problem, for example: 4 4 – 8.
Both types of affirmations build our habits, which will define our way of life even if they are not exactly what reality establishes. These fundamental principles are reflected in his main works: Treaty of Human Nature, Essays on Morality and Politics and Research on Human Understanding. .
In short, David Hume is one of the most important authors of the current known as empiricism. An author whose contribution to philosophy has been fundamental to understanding and improving this current. Knowledge theory is one of the branches of philosophy most related to psychology, so it’s no surprise that an author like Hume has had a big influence on psychology.
For David Hume and current psychology, we were not born with thoughts and emotions; are acquired and developed from the experiences that each person has. It therefore rejects all kinds of inactivity and reinforces the idea of human learning. Without a doubt, an author who invites us to reflect on our perceptions and our way of understanding the world.