Download or read book Existential Rationalism written by Marcel Eschauzier and published by Xrlmedia. This book was released on 2024-07-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ideas can change the world but rarely do. Some call for pause. What if Western thought is warped by an illusion so compelling that it affects almost every aspect of our understanding, including modern science? Scientists look for objective knowledge. But suppose the distinction between the subjective mind and the objective reality does not exist. Fathoming this is called nondual awareness, and it is so counterintuitive that it remains rare. Nonetheless, reason demands a nondual world, as Existential Rationalism explains. This has far-reaching consequences. For example, science relies heavily on replicable experiments. But without an objective reality, what makes empirical data scientific? To answer this question, Eschauzier goes back nearly three centuries when David Hume made his case for empiricism, challenging the validity of pure reason to obtain scientific knowledge. Rationalism never recovered from Hume's challenge. Eschauzier argues that nondual awareness is the missing insight to reinstate reason as the supreme scientific principle: Without an objective reality, reason justifies empirical science. Thus revitalized, the principles of rational thought can still provide groundbreaking clarity today. From understanding the dualistic disposition in psychology to debunking the quantum computer mythology, Existential Rationalism is a trailblazing synthesis of Western rationalism and Eastern nondualism. "I am a firm believer that great things happen when different practices and schools of thought converge to create something new. Arts and hard sciences are often pitted against each other as contradictory and opposite ends of our spectrum of knowledge. This book is a wonderful example of how philosophy and science can be integrated to deepen our understanding of both. [...] Kudos to the author for this inspiring contribution to the world!"-Amazon customer

Download or read book Hume s Epistemology and Metaphysics written by Georges Dicker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-04 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding are amongst the most widely-studies texts on philosophy. Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction presents in a clear, concise and accessible manner the key themes of these texts. Georges Dicker clarifies Hume's views on meaning, knowledge, causality, and sense perception step by step and provides us with a sharp picture of how philosophical thinking has been influenced by Hume. Accessible to anyone coming to Hume for the first time, Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics is an indispensible guide to Hume's philosophical thinking.

Download or read book A Treatise of Human Nature written by David Hume and published by Aegitas. This book was released on 2016-01-18 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Treatise of Human Nature is a book by Scottish philosopher David Hume, first published (in parts) from the end of 1738 to 1740. The full title of the Treatise is A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. It contains the following sections: Book 1: "Of the Understanding" – An investigation into human cognition. Important statements of Skepticism. Book 2: "Of the Passions" – A treatment of emotions and free will. Book 3: "Of Morals" – A treatment of moral ideas, justice, obligations, benevolence. Hume's introduction presents the idea of placing all science and philosophy on a novel foundation: namely, an empirical investigation into human psychology. He begins by acknowledging "that common prejudice against metaphysical reasonings [i.e., any complicated and difficult argumentation]", a prejudice formed in reaction to "the present imperfect condition of the sciences" (including the endless scholarly disputes and the inordinate influence of "eloquence" over reason). But since the truth "must lie very deep and abstruse" where "the greatest geniuses" have not found it, careful reasoning is still needed. All sciences, Hume continues, ultimately depend on "the science of man": knowledge of "the extent and force of human understanding,... the nature of the ideas we employ, and... the operations we perform in our reasonings" is needed to make real intellectual progress. So Hume hopes "to explain the principles of human nature", thereby "propos[ing] a compleat system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new, and the only one upon which they can stand with any security." But an a priori psychology would be hopeless: the science of man must be pursued by the experimental methods of the natural sciences. This means we must rest content with well-confirmed empirical generalizations, forever ignorant of "the ultimate original qualities of human nature". And in the absence of controlled experiments, we are left to "glean up our experiments in this science from a cautious observation of human life, and take them as they appear in the common course of the world, by men's behaviour in company, in affairs, and in their pleasures."

Download or read book Reading Hume on Human Understanding Essays on the First Enquiry written by Peter Millican and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2002-03-14 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading Hume on Human Understanding is a companion to the study of one of the great works of Western philosophy. David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) has long been recognized as one of the best 'classics' for introducing students to the subject; these essays, most of them specially written for this volume, show how much more than this it is. The aims of the volume are: to provide a general overview of the Enquiry, especially for those approaching it for the first time; to set it in the context of Hume's philosophical work as a whole and establish its importance in that context: to elucidate, analyse, and assess the philosophy of the Enquiry, and clarify its interpretation; and to discuss recent developments in Hume scholarship that are relevant to the Enquiry. The eminent contributors to this volume cover a broad range of topics: meaning, induction, scepticism, belief, personal identity, causation, freedom, miracles, probability, and religious belief. These topics remain at the centre of philosophical debate today, and Hume's treatment of them in the Enquiry continues to demand attention and attract controversy.

Download or read book A Treatise of Human Nature written by David Hume and published by VM eBooks. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 685 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nothing is more usual and more natural for those, who pretend to discover any thing new to the world in philosophy and the sciences, than to insinuate the praises of their own systems, by decrying all those, which have been advanced before them. And indeed were they content with lamenting that ignorance, which we still lie under in the most important questions, that can come before the tribunal of human reason, there are few, who have an acquaintance with the sciences, that would not readily agree with them. ’Tis easy for one of judgment and learning, to perceive the weak foundation even of those systems, which have obtained the greatest credit, and have carried their pretensions highest to accurate and profound reasoning. Principles taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduced from them, want of coherence in the parts, and of evidence in the whole, these are every where to be met with in the systems of the most eminent philosophers, and seem to have drawn disgrace upon philosophy itself. Nor is there requir’d such profound knowledge to discover the present imperfect condition of the sciences, but even the [ xviii ]rabble without doors may judge from the noise and clamour, which they hear, that all goes not well within. There is nothing which is not the subject of debate, and in which men of learning are not of contrary opinions. The most trivial question escapes not our controversy, and in the most momentous we are not able to give any certain decision. Disputes are multiplied, as if every thing was uncertain; and these disputes are managed with the greatest warmth, as if every thing was certain. Amidst all this bustle ’tis not reason, which carries the prize, but eloquence; and no man needs ever despair of gaining proselytes to the most extravagant hypothesis, who has art enough to represent it in any favourable colours. The victory is not gained by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians of the army.

Download or read book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding written by David Hume and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of philosophy's most widely read books and the best introduction to Hume's other works, this 1748 treatise offers an accessible account of the author's provocative notions about the limitations of the mind. Topics include the logical coexistence of free will and determinism and the deficiencies of religious doctrine.

Download or read book Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants 1742 1775 written by and published by Genealogical Publishing Com. This book was released on 2009-06 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second volume in the series has abstracts of all of the grants from 1742 to 1775, a period that saw the formation and settlement of Frederick, Fairfax, Culpeper, Loudoun, Fauquier, and Dunmore (changed in 1778 to Shenandoah) counties in Virginia, and Hampshire and Berkeley counties now in West Virginia. Altogether, in more than 4,000 abstracts, about 7,500 early Virginia residents are cited, all of them listed in the index.

Download or read book Philosophical Works written by David Hume and published by . This book was released on 2016-12-22 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of radical philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism.Hume's empiricist approach to philosophy places him with John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Hobbes as a British Empiricist. Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Against philosophical rationalists, Hume held that passion rather than reason governs human behaviour and argued against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge is ultimately founded solely in Experience; Hume thus held that genuine knowledge must either be directly traceable to objects perceived in experience, or result from abstract reasoning about relations between ideas which are derived from experience, calling the rest "nothing but sophistry and illusion", a dichotomy later given the name Hume's fork. In what is sometimes referred to as Hume's problem of induction, he argued that inductive reasoning, and belief in causality, cannot, ultimately, be justified rationally; our trust in causality and induction instead results from custom and mental habit, and are attributable to only the experience of "constant conjunction" rather than logic: for we can never, in experience, perceive that one event causes another, but only that the two are always conjoined, and to draw any inductive causal inferences from past experience first requires the presupposition that the future will be like the past, a presupposition which cannot be grounded in prior experience without already being presupposed. Hume's anti-teleological opposition to the argument for God's existence from design is generally regarded as the most intellectually significant such attempt to rebut the Teleological Argument prior to Darwin.

Download or read book David Hume and Contemporary Philosophy written by Ilya Kasavin and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Hume bridges a gap between classical and non-classical philosophy. Two major approaches in 20th century systematic philosophy – naturalism and relativism – have both basically been inspired by Hume and create the most controversy nowadays. The dethroning of the knowing agent and the spiritual substance from their privileged place opens way to “the death of God” (F. Nietzsche) or “the death of the Author” (R. Barthes). Hume’s criticism of causality corresponds to the indeterminism of the quantum mechanics (B. Russell). K. Popper’s falsificationism would hardly be possible without Hume’s account of induction. L. Wittgenstein’s considerations on rule following reveal similarities with Hume’s idea of habit (S. Kripke) as well as with P. Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus”. D. Bloor likes “to think of Hume as Edinburgh’s great sociologist of knowledge”. The present collection is not a mere contribution to the history of philosophy, though it covers many problems of contemporary Humean scholarship and contains articles written by leading researchers in the field (B. Straud, R. Harre, J. Bricke, etc.). Its aim, rather, is to demonstrate the “vivacity” of Hume for contemporary philosophy. The authors’ considerations range from the subtlest questions of the development of his thought and its impact on the contemporary, to the most recent and controversial topics in epistemology, philosophy of science, political theory and ethics.

Download or read book Hume s Enquiry written by David Hume and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-08 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hume’s Enquiry: Expanded and Explained includes the entire classical text of David Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding in bold font, a running commentary blended seamlessly into the text in regular font, and analytic summaries of each section. The commentary is like a professor on hand to guide the reader through every line of the daunting prose and every move in the intricate argumentation. The unique design helps students learn how to read and engage with one of modern philosophy’s most important and exciting classics. Key Features: Includes the entire original text. Provides helpful summaries of each paragraph. Offers commentary on every line of text. Removes the gap between commentary and text.

Download or read book A Faithful Guide to Philosophy written by Peter S. Williams and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-02-14 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Faithful Guide to Philosophy is the only British Christian introduction to philosophy, a book that will be used as a course textbook and by church study groups and individual readers alike. It covers a broad range of subjects of central importance to the Christian worldview, and will be prized by many.

Download or read book Hume s Epistemological Evolution written by Hsueh M. Qu and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Here is a central issue in Hume scholarship: what is the relationship between Hume's early Treatise of Human Nature and his later Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding? Is the Enquiry a mere simplified restatement of the contents of the Treatise, or do the two substantially differ? Here is another critical issue in Hume scholarship: what is the relationship between Hume's scepticism and his naturalism? How can we reconcile Hume's extreme brand of scepticism with his positive ambitions of providing an account of human nature? Hume's Epistemological Evolution argues that these two issues are intimately related. In particular, this book argues that Hume's Enquiry indeed differs from the Treatise, precisely because he changes his response to scepticism between the two works. Because the Treatise has as its primary focus the psychological naturalistic project, its treatment of epistemological issues arises unsystematically from the psychological investigation. Consequently, Hume finds himself forced into an unsatisfactory response to scepticism founded on the Title Principle (THN 1.4.7.11). However, this response is deeply problematic, as Hume himself seems to recognise. In contrast to the Treatise, the Enquiry emphasises the epistemological aspects of Hume's project, and offers a radically different and more sophisticated epistemology. This framework addresses the weaknesses of the earlier one, and also constitutes a 'compleat answer' to two of his most prominent critics, Thomas Reid and James Beattie. Hume's epistemology thus undergoes an evolution between these two works"--

Download or read book The Great Guide written by Julian Baggini and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Invaluable wisdom on living a good life from one of the Enlightenment's greatest philosophers David Hume (1711–1776) is perhaps best known for his ideas about cause and effect and his criticisms of religion, but he is rarely thought of as a philosopher with practical wisdom to offer. Yet Hume's philosophy is grounded in an honest assessment of nature—human nature in particular. The Great Guide is an engaging and eye-opening account of how Hume's thought should serve as the basis for a complete approach to life. In this enthralling book, Julian Baggini masterfully interweaves biography with intellectual history and philosophy to give us a complete vision of Hume's guide to life. He follows Hume on his life's journey, literally walking in the great philosopher's footsteps as Baggini takes readers to the places that inspired Hume the most, from his family estate near the Scottish border to Paris, where, as an older man, he was warmly embraced by French society. Baggini shows how Hume put his philosophy into practice in a life that blended reason and passion, study and leisure, and relaxation and enjoyment. The Great Guide includes 145 Humean maxims for living well, on topics ranging from the meaning of success and the value of travel to friendship, facing death, identity, and the importance of leisure. This book shows how life is far richer with Hume as your guide.

Download or read book Every Thing Must Go written by James Ladyman and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-07-05 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every Thing Must Go argues that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it really is, and not on philosophers' a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science. In addition to showing how recent metaphysics has drifted away from connection with all other serious scholarly inquiry as a result of not heeding this restriction, they demonstrate how to build a metaphysics compatible with current fundamental physics ('ontic structural realism'), which, when combined with their metaphysics of the special sciences ('rainforest realism'), can be used to unify physics with the other sciences without reducing these sciences to physics itself. Taking science metaphysically seriously, Ladyman and Ross argue, means that metaphysicians must abandon the picture of the world as composed of self-subsistent individual objects, and the paradigm of causation as the collision of such objects. Every Thing Must Go also assesses the role of information theory and complex systems theory in attempts to explain the relationship between the special sciences and physics, treading a middle road between the grand synthesis of thermodynamics and information, and eliminativism about information. The consequences of the author's metaphysical theory for central issues in the philosophy of science are explored, including the implications for the realism vs. empiricism debate, the role of causation in scientific explanations, the nature of causation and laws, the status of abstract and virtual objects, and the objective reality of natural kinds.

Download or read book Hume s Epistemology and Metaphysics written by Georges Dicker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-04 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding are amongst the most widely-studies texts on philosophy. Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction presents in a clear, concise and accessible manner the key themes of these texts. Georges Dicker clarifies Hume's views on meaning, knowledge, causality, and sense perception step by step and provides us with a sharp picture of how philosophical thinking has been influenced by Hume. Accessible to anyone coming to Hume for the first time, Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics is an indispensible guide to Hume's philosophical thinking.

Download or read book The Infidel and the Professor written by Dennis C. Rasmussen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dearest friends -- The cheerful skeptic (1711-1749) -- Encountering Hume (1723-1749) -- A budding friendship (1750-1754) -- The historian and the Kirk (1754-1759) -- Theorizing the moral sentiments (1759) -- Fêted in France (1759-1766) -- Quarrel with a wild philosopher (1766-1767) -- Mortally sick at sea (1767-1775) -- Inquiring into the Wealth of Nations (1776) -- Dialoguing about natural religion (1776) -- A philosopher's death (1776) -- Ten times more abuse (1776-1777) -- Smith's final years in Edinburgh (1777-1790) -- Hume's My Own Life and Smith's Letter from Adam Smith, LL. D. to William Strahan, Esq

Download or read book Dynamics in Action written by Alicia Juarrero and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2002-01-25 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the difference between a wink and a blink? The answer is important not only to philosophers of mind, for significant moral and legal consequences rest on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary behavior. However, "action theory"—the branch of philosophy that has traditionally articulated the boundaries between action and non-action, and between voluntary and involuntary behavior—has been unable to account for the difference. Alicia Juarrero argues that a mistaken, 350-year-old model of cause and explanation—one that takes all causes to be of the push-pull, efficient cause sort, and all explanation to be prooflike—underlies contemporary theories of action. Juarrero then proposes a new framework for conceptualizing causes based on complex adaptive systems. Thinking of causes as dynamical constraints makes bottom-up and top-down causal relations, including those involving intentional causes, suddenly tractable. A different logic for explaining actions—as historical narrative, not inference—follows if one adopts this novel approach to long-standing questions of action and responsibility.