If Descartes is the father of modern philosophy, Hume is the person who gave shape to the contemporary philosophical world. First by querying Descartes' theorie...
According to Hume, many nonhuman animals (or beings whom he sometimes calls 'sensible creatures') are analogous to human beings in respects of the body and the mind. We are able to sympathise with an animal in similar ways we sympathise with another human being.
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Sympathy/Empathy
‘Sympathy’ (or what is now often called ‘empathy’) is in Hume’s view a complex mechanism of the human mind which relies on the combined operation of three more fundamental principles: the ‘copy principle’, principle of ‘association of ideas’, and the principle of more vivid perceptions ‘enlivening’ less vivid associated perceptions.
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What Can we Know?
According to Hume, all the objects of human inquiry and knowledge can be divided into two kinds (and only two kinds). They are 'relations of idea' on the one hand, which are discoverable by reason independent of real existence in the universe, and 'matters of fact' on the other, which are discoverable by experience.
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Association of Ideas
What Hume calls the ‘association of ideas’ is a fundamental operating ‘principle’ (i.e. mechanism) of the human mind. The principle operates by resemblance, by contiguity, and by causes and effect.
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47:35
Impressions and Ideas
Hume divides all 'perceptions' (i.e. experiences) into 'impressions' and 'ideas'. This theory device gives him a more finely grained account of the operations of the mind than either Locke or Descartes have. Impressions are original 'perceptions of the human mind' which are vivid, forceful, strong or lively. Ideas are the 'faint images' of the original impressions.
Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Please contact for permissions.
If Descartes is the father of modern philosophy, Hume is the person who gave shape to the contemporary philosophical world. First by querying Descartes' theories about knowledge, and then developing his own modest account of knowledge, and later his theories of ethics and aesthetics.
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