/lit/ - Literature

>>15563013
Hand over that title and no one gets hurt

What's /lit/ census of Hume?
I think he's the most down to earth and realistic philosopher if we consider his empiricist epistemology and system of morals based on sentiment . We should also consider that without him, there's no Kant or German Idealism.

Kant claims in Prolegomena that our understanding of space(time) is a priori apodictic, which provides the foundation of geometry as an a priori apodictic field, which further goes on to provide a rational basis for physics.

Turns out the nature of space-time has/had to be discovered. Oops. Space is a posteriori.
This means Kant failed to establish anything metaphysical beyond the skepticism that Hume already laid out, of which Kant thought he was providing a refutation.

In short: Read Hume kids, his observations and work is still enlightening and relevant. Unlike Kant, whose legacy is that of a historical character.

>he thinks he isn’t ruled by fee fees

>>11130118
Look, if you had one shot
one opportunity
to destroy objective ethics forever
in one moment
would you capture it?
or just let it slip?

>>10670422
>when you essentially break philosophy at the age of 23 and raise epistemological issues and paradoxes that philosophers still can't resolve centuries later

Stop seeing every shade of blue

>>7331260
>should

This should be posted in /phi/ if we had one. So I'll post here, because I know that many /lit/ users are interested in this subject.
(Forgive my bad english, I'm not a native speaker)

I am right now reading David Hume's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Section VIII, where he treats of Liberty and Necessity.

I took a study on the subject (I admit that I am not a genius in philosophy), but the more I discover, the more I see how ridiculous these discussions about freedom are. First, this discussion of free will, necessity and causality have been already answered by all the Scholastics, but now the discussion has reached a totally infantile level, even among major universities.

Hume begins by stating that everything in nature follows the doctrine of necessity of cause, and therefore, morality and human actions also follows the same path.

This is obvious: cause and effect are present in all spheres of reality, because "everything created has a cause, and the first cause is God."

The problem I see with these discussions on determinism and free will is that they do not understand that there can be freedom with determinism. In fact, if everything that exists is determined by something, it means that true human freedom is not the absence of determination, but the ability to choose what determines you, this is what we Christians call free will.

But the Enlightenment, including modern "philosophers" confuse physical determination with higher determinations, because for them there is only the measurable physical world, so they think that what determines man is only the physical world. This is an abysmal mess, but that's exactly what "experts" in the largest universities in the world are discussing, even the answer being so simple and obvious and are already answered many years ago.

Let's take an example: a sheet of paper, an animal and a human being; all are necessarily determined by external elements, be more directly or indirectly. Let's use the example of rain. The rain determines the dissolution of paper and the humidity in the animal and human hair.

So, it's not "be determined by nothing" which makes us free, but our ability to choose what determines us, and makes us seek the highest determinations, the highest of them as the first cause is God Himself .

Unfortunately (fortunately, actually), the highest determinations are those that require more effort, so those who always seek to satisfy their most vile and low carnal needs will always be slaves.

ITT we make fun of Hume for removing final causes / reflexology from reality and concluding that you cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.

Me: David, what's wrong with your car, it only has three wheels.

David: I don't see the problem.

Me: What? A car ought to have four wheels (at least this car ought, as it is clearly designed as a standard four-wheeled vehicle) as the final end of a car is transportation, which end is frustrated if one of its wheels are missing.

David: haha, no my friend, surely you are not saying that one can derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.

(I slap David on the head)

David: you ought not to have done that!

Me: only because the final end of humanity is happiness and the pain you are experiencing is frustrating the attainment of that end, David.

What's essentially the difference between Stirner's philosophy and Hume's? Isn't this whole thing about "Spooks" just the Is/Ought problem stretched out into a polemic? And the idea of Ego; isn't it the same thing as reason being the slave of the passions?

>>6106190

>thomism

>>6102163

>Causality is a logical principle
>mfw

>mfw I realised that inductive reasoning is impossible.

FUCK RATIONALISM
FUCK DAYCART
FUCK SPINOZA
EMPIRICISM > YOUR MOM

>>3671827

Well for me it was easiest to understand in relation to Hume. As far as I could tell from Enquiry of Human Understanding, Hume explains that we view reality through a lens of cause and effect. But we never actually witness cause and effect itself, it really is a concept in our minds. He says there's no actual "necessary connection" that we observe.
We observe moments in time, and assume that they are connected. Thus one might say cause and effect is simply one perspective of reality, and could potentially be a false one at that. Maybe time doesn't really exist and the universe doesnt work that way. Hume ultimately argues that there is no objective definition to anything, the universe is simply every individual's perception of it. We collectively build a more unified perception when we communicate with eachother, and agree on how to define things through our experiences.

i.e. there's no such thing as an "apple", only qualities we each individually define to be an apple.


Kant claims that reason is the necessary connection. Whereas Hume would argue that reason is just our presupposed interpretation on reality, Kant points out that experience is by definition the causal interpretation of events. We can only intelligibly understand, only "experience" through cause and effect. Thus for experience to actually exist, reason must exist as well.

But how do we know that experience exists? Because of all the things we can't be certain of, the one thing we do know is that we experience. Even if our experience is a lie, there is some agent being acted upon (explained by Descartes). i.e. even if we're just brains in a vat with a matrix like experience, that brain is still an agent being acted upon, and still experiencing.
Thus even if neither our experiences nor reason do not accurately portray reality, we know experience exists, and thus so does reason.

What does /lit/ think of this gentleman?

>>3404014
You might be confusing cause and effect.

That only means that men always want to get their dick rubbed in exchange for the perks.

>causality

>>1250429
Oh hai there