Notes on <An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding > by David Hume

2020-05-14 0 views

Sect. I. Of the different Species of Philosophy

There are two types of philosophy concerning the science of human nature. One considers man chiefly as born for action, this philosophy treats the subject in an easy and obvious manner and is best fitted to please the imagination and engage the affections. The other type of philosophy is abstruse philosophy, which considers man in the light of a reasonable rather than active being, and endeavors to form his understanding more than cultivate his manners. Hume proposes to have a composition of the two philosophy to overcome the drawback of each species of philosophy. As he said in the book:

Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.

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Notes on <A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge> by George Berkeley

2020-05-03 0 views

Introduction

Berkeley starts the book inquiring about the cause of Doubts and Difficulties, and proposes that it starts with the wrong use of our Faculties. He wants to discover the principles which introduced all the Doubtfulness and Uncertainty, to inquiry first principles of human knowledge. He examines the opinion that Mind has a power of framing Abstract Ideas or Notions of Things. Mind has the ability to separate out single abstract idea from all ideas mixed in the same Object. However, my imagination will not conceive the abstract idea without particulars. Here Berkeley refutes Locke’s opinion that the ability of getting abstract general ideas is tied to Language, and all Words must correspond to certain ideas, so the Words about general ideas corresponds to abstract general ideas, this is the classical conceptualist position. Berkeley’s position is a nominalist one, which says we don’t have a corresponding abstract general ideas for the general Words, whenever we think of general ideas, like Motion or Extension, we think of some particular motion with particular extension. The proposition involving general ideas just means it does not matter what particular Extension we think about, the proposition always hold true. Berkeley provides further arguments for the nominalist position by observing how Ideas become general. He is not denying there are general Ideas, but only that there are abstract general Ideas. An idea becomes general by representing all different ideas of the same sort. And for example Line becomes General, by being made a Sign of an abstract or general Line, and the name Line is also made General by being a Sign. And as the idea of general Line owes its generality to its being the Sign of an abstract or general Line, so the name Line must be thought to derive its Generality from the same Cause, namely the various particular Lines which it denotes.

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Notes on <An Essay Concerning Human Understanding> by John Locke

2020-05-02 0 views

Background

John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is sometimes considered to be the beginning of philosophical enlightenment. Similar to Descartes’ Meditation on First Philosophy, the major theme of the book is to search for the foundation of knowledge, that is, how is knowledge possible, how do we know what we know is true. However, Locke refutes that there is rationalist innate knowledge, but proposed that all knowledge starts from experience, he describes the mind at birth as a blank slate(tabula rasa) filled later through experience. This is the common belief for empiricism in modern philosophy.

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