“(When we run over libraries … if we take in our hand any volume) ... let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” (Enquiry, 132/165)

With these words, Hume expresses the Enlightenment ideal of freedom of thought and its independence from any external authority or dogma. Later, in 1784, Kant summed up this ideal in his famous statement Sapere Aude! [dare to know] “Have the courage to use your own understanding! “ Yet, Hume’s intention to boost the growth of knowledge, and especially of the sciences, cannot be considered a definite, decisive success. His analysis of the cognitive processes of the human mind led him to the sceptical conclusion that they cannot be rationally justified and that our knowledge therefore has no rational basis. This devastating finding, though, does not have the paralysing effect that one might expect. Thanks to the power of Nature, life, including learning about the world, goes on undisturbed, even though skepticism cannot be refuted by argument. This tension between the sceptical and the natural capacities constituting the human condition is the most fundamental problem of Hume’s epistemology. Can Hume at all defend the scientific status empirical science or should we see it as the outcome of some peculiarities of the human mind? If the latter, then what is the scientific status of our view of the human mind? Put under Hume’s examination, it might not pass as genuine empirical science either

Registration required:

No

Free:

Yes