Hume and Kant: Causality, Skepticism, and the Categorical Imperative
Hume on Causality
Hume defines causes as the event or phenomenon involved in the production of another. The cause, then, precedes the effect.
If only the validity of what gives us the experience is accepted, it only shows that in the causal link, we call a phenomenon that precedes another.
For example, if a stone hits a glass and breaks it, what we see are the two facts, one after another. So, the cause is but a temporal succession observed many times. We get used to it, and we create the habit of
Read MoreDavid Hume’s Philosophy: Empiricism and Human Understanding
Hume’s ‘A Treatise of Human Nature’
David Hume, often called the Newtonian of moral science, aimed to apply the experimental method of reasoning to moral subjects. His major work, “A Treatise of Human Nature,” explores this concept. Hume believed that all sciences relate to human nature to some extent. Thus, the role of this new science is to examine the extent of human understanding and explain the nature of the ideas we use. The most important instrument of analysis in this book is the laws of
Read MoreEpistemology: Understanding Knowledge and Its Origins
Epistemology
Epistemology is concerned with defining knowledge and related concepts, sources, criteria, types of knowledge possible, the degree to which each is true, and the exact relationship between the knower and the object known.
What is the act of knowing? What is the essence of knowledge? What is the relationship between cognitive men and things around you?
- The simplest operation tells us that to know is to obtain information about an object. To know is to get a point or a story about something.
Thomas Aquinas: Philosophy of Knowledge, Humanity, and Society
Knowledge
The knowledge of Thomistic theory is built on its substantial human conception. Faced with Augustine of Hippo, who believes that he knows the soul using the body as a tool for knowledge, Thomas Aquinas (TA) offers a measure of the substance that is man: the composite of body and soul. Therefore, following Aristotle, TA considered that knowledge begins with the information the senses provide us with, the feeling, which is always concrete and particular. He claimed there is nothing in the
Read MoreAristotle’s Metaphysics: Understanding Substance and Essence
Metaphysics: Understanding Substance
Aristotle’s *Metaphysics*
Aristotle’s Metaphysics is a collection of treatises or “courses,” likely developed over the last two periods of his thought. He called it “first philosophy.” The name “metaphysics” is due to Andronicus of Rhodes. All these treatises are about metaphysics, or first philosophy. Since then, it has been understood as “that which is beyond the physical,” that is, the reality that is demonstrable experimentally.
“All men by nature desire to
Read MorePlato’s Cave: Unveiling the Realm of Ideas and Knowledge
Plato’s Cave: A Philosophical Inquiry
Unveiling the Shadows
Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave depicts two men confined within a cave. Their only reality is the shadows projected on the cave wall, which they mistake for actual beings. When one man escapes, he discovers a world of perfect forms, realizing the shadows were mere copies. This allegory illustrates Plato’s theory of the origin of things.
The Realm of Ideas
Plato posits a suprasensible world, the World of Ideas, where perfect forms reside.
Read More