PHILOSOPHY - David Hume

Summary

David Hume, an 18th-century philosopher, believed that feelings influence us more than reason, challenging the Age of Reason's emphasis on rationality. Hume's work suggests that our convictions and decisions are driven by emotions, advocating for the education of passions and the role of public intellectuals in shaping beliefs. He was skeptical of personal identity and religious belief's rationality, promoting religious tolerance. Hume's philosophy emphasizes the utility of beliefs and the importance of feelings in ethics, advocating for an education system that nurtures benevolence and good manners.

Takeaways

• 🧠 David Hume believed that feelings have a greater influence on human nature than reason, challenging the self-image of humans as rational beings.
• 📚 Hume, born in Edinburgh in 1711, faced initial struggles in his career, trying law and academia before becoming a public intellectual.
• 📖 His first book, 'A Treatise of Human Nature', was not well received, but he persevered and later found success with more accessible works.
• 💡 Hume's philosophy emphasizes that reason is the 'slave of passion', suggesting that our passions drive our convictions more than rational analysis.
• 🤔 In the Age of Reason, Hume stood out by arguing that humans are more animalistic in nature, often reasoning from their feelings rather than to them.
• 🏫 Hume advocated for the education of the passions, believing that people should learn to be more benevolent and patient through an education system that focuses on feelings.
• 📘 Public intellectuals, according to Hume, play a crucial role in exciting passion-based attachment to ideas, as they must appeal to emotions to succeed.
• 🤝 Hume's approach to changing beliefs involved adjusting sentiments through sympathy and good examples, rather than relying solely on facts and logic.
• 🙏 On religion, Hume was skeptical of the rationality of believing in God and was a defender of religious toleration, viewing religious belief as an emotional matter.
• 🤷‍♂️ As a skeptic, Hume questioned the concept of 'personal identity', suggesting that there is no 'Core Self' and that our identity is made up of fleeting perceptions.
• 🛑 Despite his skepticism, Hume encouraged the maintenance of common-sense beliefs for practicality, arguing that beliefs are justified by their utility rather than provable truth.
• 💖 In ethics, Hume argued that being good is about emotional training and good habits of feeling, advocating for qualities like wit, good manners, and sympathy.

Q & A

Who is David Hume and why is he considered a significant philosophical voice?

David Hume was an 18th-century writer known for his philosophical insights, particularly his observation that human nature is more influenced by feelings than by reason. His ideas challenge the traditional view of human rationality and suggest that understanding our emotional motivations can lead to a calmer and happier life.

What was David Hume's early life like, and what influenced his career path?

Hume was born in Edinburgh in 1711 to a well-established but not wealthy family. As the second son, he was expected to find a job. He initially tried law but found it unsuitable. He was also considered for academic posts but did not secure them. This led him to become a public intellectual, selling books to the general public.

How did Hume's first book, 'A Treatise of Human Nature', fare upon its release?

Hume's first book received a dismal reception. He described it as 'dead-born from the press,' failing to excite any significant discussion or interest.

How did Hume adapt his writing style to reach a wider audience?

After the poor reception of his first book, Hume realized the need to express his ideas in a more accessible and popular manner. He trained himself to write in a way that eventually found an audience, leading to best-selling history books and essay collections.

What is the central observation of Hume's philosophy regarding human nature?

Hume's philosophy is built on the observation that feelings are more influential in human life than rationality. He believed that our passions drive our convictions and actions more than logical reasoning.

How did Hume view the role of reason in relation to our passions?

Hume insisted that 'reason is the slave of passion,' meaning that our feelings and emotional responses are the primary drivers of our decisions and beliefs, with reason playing a secondary role in supporting these emotional inclinations.

What was Hume's stance on the education of the passions?

Hume believed in the education of the passions, advocating for people to learn to be more benevolent, patient, and at ease with themselves. He emphasized the need for an education system that addresses feelings rather than just reason.

Why did Hume believe in the importance of public intellectuals?

Hume saw public intellectuals as essential because they could excite a passion-based attachment to ideas, wisdom, and insight. Unlike university professors, they had to connect with the public through well-written, engaging, and charming works to be successful.

How did Hume approach the topic of religion and religious belief?

Hume did not believe that religious belief was a product of reason. He considered the idea of a vindictive god to be a cruel superstition and was a defender of religious toleration, arguing that people's religious beliefs are driven by emotions and should be respected as such.

What was Hume's view on personal identity and the concept of a 'Core Self'?

Hume was skeptical of the concept of personal identity, arguing that there is no 'Core Self.' He believed that when we introspect, we only find perceptions and feelings, suggesting that our sense of self is fluid and not as fixed as reason might suggest.

How did Hume approach ethics and the idea of being good?

Hume argued that morality is not about having moral ideas but about being trained in the art of decency through emotions. He believed that being good involves developing good habits of feeling and that qualities like wit, good manners, and sympathy make people pleasant to be around, regardless of rational intentions.

Outlines

00:00

📚 The Life and Philosophy of David Hume

David Hume, an 18th-century philosopher, is recognized for his insight into human nature, emphasizing the role of feelings over reason. Born in Edinburgh to a well-established but not wealthy family, Hume faced challenges in finding a suitable profession. He initially tried law but found it unappealing and sought academic positions without success. This led him to become a public intellectual, selling books to the general public. Despite an initially unsuccessful publication, 'A Treatise of Human Nature', Hume persevered and refined his writing style, eventually achieving success with his later works. His philosophy centers on the idea that feelings are more influential in our lives than rationality, challenging the Age of Reason's emphasis on rationality. Hume believed that our convictions and decisions are driven more by our emotional lives than by logical analysis, advocating for the education of the passions to foster benevolence and patience.

05:01

🕊️ Hume's Views on Religion and Ethics

Hume's skepticism extended to religious beliefs, which he considered not the product of reason but of feelings. He viewed the idea of a punitive deity as cruel and advocated for religious toleration, suggesting that people should be respected in their beliefs as emotional beings rather than as rational entities prone to error. Hume also questioned the concept of 'personal identity', arguing that there is no 'Core Self' and that our sense of self is composed of fleeting perceptions. Despite his skepticism, Hume encouraged the maintenance of common-sense beliefs for practicality. He criticized Descartes' approach to discarding non-rational beliefs and instead proposed that beliefs are justified by their utility. Hume's ethical views focused on the development of good habits of feeling through the cultivation of wit, good manners, and sympathy, rather than through rational planning. He believed that a good life involves influencing one's character positively and that traditional philosophy had limited utility in this endeavor.

10:05

🍽️ Hume's Life and Legacy

Hume's personal life was deeply embedded in the world of humans, far from the seclusion of monasteries or ivory towers. He was known as 'Le Bon David' in France, appreciated for his humanity, kindness, and wit, making him a sought-after dinner companion. His interests included roast chicken, discussions on love and career, and playing Backgammon. Hume passed away in Edinburgh in 1776, leaving behind a legacy of philosophical thought that valued common sense and the everyday wisdom of ordinary people. His approach to philosophy was personal, seeking to understand and influence character for the better, and he believed that philosophy should learn from common sense rather than being detached from it.

Keywords

💡David Hume

David Hume was an 18th-century Scottish philosopher known for his influential work in empiricism and skepticism. He is central to the video's theme as it discusses his ideas on human nature, emotions, and reason. The script mentions his belief that feelings have a greater influence on human behavior than reason, which is a key point in understanding his philosophical contributions.

💡Human Nature

Human nature refers to the characteristics and tendencies that are typically attributed to humans as a species. In the context of the video, Hume's exploration of human nature is pivotal, as he argues that feelings are more influential than reason, challenging the prevailing notion of the Age of Reason that prioritized rationality.

💡Reason

Reason is the capacity for logical thinking, understanding, and inference. The video emphasizes Hume's assertion that while reason is important, it is often subservient to our feelings. This idea is exemplified when he states that 'reason is the slave of passion,' suggesting that our emotions drive our actions more than our rational analysis.

💡Emotions

Emotions are the strong feelings that individuals experience and are often seen as driving forces behind actions and decisions. The script highlights how Hume believed that emotions play a more significant role in our lives than rational thought, shaping our convictions and behaviors.

💡Public Intellectual

A public intellectual is someone who engages with the public on intellectual matters, often through writing and speaking. In the video, Hume's journey to becoming a public intellectual is detailed, showing how he aimed to make complex ideas accessible to a broader audience, which is a key aspect of his philosophical outreach.

💡Religious Toleration

Religious toleration is the acceptance and respect for differing religious beliefs. Hume's views on religion, as discussed in the script, emphasize the importance of not using reason to argue for or against religious beliefs but rather recognizing the emotional and passionate aspects that underpin such convictions.

💡Skepticism

Skepticism in philosophy is the method of questioning beliefs and doubting common sense ideas. Hume is described as a skeptic in the video, particularly in his doubting of the concept of 'personal identity' and challenging the rationality of religious beliefs.

💡Personal Identity

Personal identity refers to the sense of self or individuality that one possesses. Hume's skepticism extends to this concept, as he argues that there is no 'Core Self,' and our identity is made up of fleeting perceptions rather than a fixed and enduring essence.

💡Ethics

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that deals with moral principles. Hume's interest in ethics, as mentioned in the script, is tied to his belief that morality is not about moral ideas but about feeling and the cultivation of good habits through emotions.

💡Education of the Passions

The education of the passions refers to the idea of cultivating and refining our emotions to improve our character. Hume believed in the importance of this concept, as he thought that education should address feelings rather than just reason, to foster benevolence, patience, and other positive qualities.

💡Common Sense

Common sense is the basic level of practical knowledge or judgment that enables people to evaluate situations and make decisions. Hume is portrayed in the video as valuing common sense and advocating for it over strict adherence to rationality, suggesting that most beliefs are justified by their utility in everyday life.

Highlights

David Hume emphasized that human nature is more influenced by feelings than by reason, challenging the self-image of rationality.

Hume believed that acknowledging the dominance of emotions over reason could lead to a calmer and happier society.

Despite his early struggles, Hume became a successful public intellectual, finding an audience with his more accessible and popular writing.

Hume's philosophy centers on the idea that feelings, rather than rationality, are the key to living a good life.

He argued that reason is the 'slave of passion,' meaning that our decisions are driven more by emotions than by logical analysis.

Hume critiqued the Age of Reason, asserting that humans are just another kind of animal, often reasoning from feelings rather than to them.

Hume didn't believe all feelings were equal; he advocated for the education of emotions to foster benevolence, patience, and self-acceptance.

He saw the role of public intellectuals as crucial in inspiring emotional attachment to ideas, rather than relying solely on reason.

Hume's approach to changing beliefs involved adjusting sentiments through sympathy, encouragement, and the art of persuasion.

In matters of religion, Hume believed that faith is rooted in emotion, not reason, making rational debates about religious belief ineffective.

Hume was a skeptic, doubting common sense ideas such as the concept of a 'core self' or enduring personal identity.

He argued that most of our beliefs are justified by their utility, not their provable truth, offering a counterpoint to Descartes' emphasis on rationality.

Hume believed that morality is about cultivating good emotional habits, not just having moral ideas.

He highlighted the importance of qualities like wit, good manners, and sympathy, which are rooted in emotion rather than rational planning.

Hume lived a life embedded in society, enjoying social interactions and practical wisdom, rather than seclusion or purely intellectual pursuits.

Transcripts

The 18th century writer, David Hume, is one of the world's great philosophical voices

because he hit upon a key fact about human nature-

that we are more influenced by our feelings than by reason.

This is, at one level, possibly a great insult to our self image,

but Hume thought that if we could learn to deal well with this surprising fact,

we could be both individually and collectively a great deal calmer and happier than if we denied it.

Hume was born in Edinburgh in 1711, to a family that was long established but far from rich.

He was the second son and it was clear early on that he would need to find a job eventually,

but nothing seemed to suit him.

He tried law, the vocation of his father and his older brother,

but soon decided that it was: "a laborious profession, requiring the drudgery of a whole life."

He was considered for academic posts at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow,

but he didn't land either job.

So, he set out to become a public intellectual, someone who would make his money selling books to the general public.

It was pretty hard-going.

His first book, 'A Treatise of Human Nature', for which he had the highest hopes, met with a dismal reception.

"Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise", he wrote.

"It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as to even excite a murmur along the zealots."

But Hume kept at it, realising that the blame largely lay with the way that he had expressed his ideas.

And doggedly training himself to write in a more accessible and popular manner,

eventually, he did find an audience.

his later works: popular history books and collections of elegant essays were best-sellers of the day.

As he would say, not without some pride:

"The money given me by booksellers much exceeded anything formerly known in England;

I was to become not only independent but opulent."

Humes philosophy is built around a single powerful observation:

that the key thing we need to get right in life is feeling rather than rationality.

It sounds like an odd conclusion.

Normally we assume that what we need to do is train our minds to be as rational as possible,

to be devoted to evidence and logical reasoning and committed to preventing our feelings from getting in the way.

But Hume insisted that whatever we may aim for - reason is the slave of passion.

We are more motivated by our feelings than by any of the comparatively feeble results of analysis and logic.

Few of our leading convictions had driven by rational investigations of the facts.

We decide whether someone is admirable, what to do with our spare time,

what constitutes a successful career, or who to love on the basis of feeling above anything else.

Reason helps a little, but the decisive factors are bound up with our emotional lives,

with our passions, as Hume calls them.

Hume lived in a time known as the Age of Reason,

when many claimed that the glory of human beings consists in their rationality,

but for Hume a human is just another kind of animal.

Hume was deeply attentive to the curious way that we very often reason from not to our convictions.

We find an idea nice or threatening and on that basis alone declare it true or false.

Reason only comes in later to support the original attitude.

What Hume didn't believe however was that all feelings are acceptable and equal.

that's why he firmly believed in the education of the passions.

People have to learn to be more benevolent, more patient, more at ease with themselves

and less afraid of others.

But to be taught these things they need an education system that addresses feelings rather than reason.

This is why Hume so deeply believed in the role and significance of public intellectuals.

These were people who (unlike university professors that Hume grew to dislike immensely)

had to excite a passion-based attachment to ideas, wisdom and insight.

Only if they succeeded would they have the money to eat.

It was for this reason that they had to write well, use colorful examples

and have recoursed wit and charm.

Hume's insight is that if you want to change people's beliefs

reasoning with them like a normal philosophy professor won't be the most effective strategy.

He's pointing out that we have to try to

adjust sentiments by sympathy, re-assurance, good example, encouragement and what he called "art".

And only later, for a few determined souls, should we ever try to make a case on the basis of facts and logic.

A key place where Hume made use of the idea of the priority of feeling over reason was in connection with

religion

Hume didn't think it was rational to believe in god.

That is - he didn't think there were compelling logical arguments in favor of the existence of a deity.

He himself seems to have floated between mild agnosticism (there might be a god, I'm not sure)

and mild theism (there is a god, but it doesn't make much difference to me that there is).

However the idea of a vindictive god, someone ready to punish people in an afterlife for not believing in him in this one,

this he considered a cruel superstition.

Hume's central point is that religious belief isn't the product of reason.

So arguing for or against it on the basis of facts doesn't touch the core issue.

To try to persuade someone to believe or not believe with well-honed arguments

seemed particularly daft to Hume.

This is why he was a foremost defender of the concept of religious toleration.

We shouldn't treat those who disagree with us over religion as rational people who've made an error

of reasoning and so need to be put right,

but rather as passionate emotion-driven creatures

who should be left in peace so long as they do likewise with us.

Trying to have a rational argument over religion was for Hume the height of folly and arrogance.

Hume was what is technically known as a skeptic

someone committed to doubting a lot of the common sense ideas of the day.

One of the things he doubted was the concept of what is technically called "personal identity".

The idea that we have that we can understand ourselves and have

a more or less graspable and enduring identity that runs through life.

Hume pointed out that there is no such thing as a

" Core Self "

"When I enter most intimately into what I call "myself","

he famously explained,

"I always stumble on some particular perception or other,

of heat or cold,

light or shade,

love or hatred,

pain or pleasure.

I never can catch "myself" at any time without a perception

and can never observe anything but the perception.

Hume concluded that we aren't really the neat definable people reason tells us that we are

and that we seem to be when we look at ourselves in the mirror

or casually use that grand and rather misleading word

" I ".

Yet, despite being skeptical of temper

Hume was very happy for us to hold onto most of our common-sense beliefs

because they are what help us make our way in the world

Trying to be rational about everything is a special kind of madness.

Hume was making a slight dig at Descartes.

The French philosopher had died 60 years before Hume was born.

But his intellectual influence was still very much alive.

He had argued that we should throw out every fruit of the mind that wasn't perfectly rational.

But Hume proposed that hardly anything we do is ever truly rational

And yet he ventured that most beliefs are justified simply because they work

They're useful to us. They help us to get on with what we want to do.

A test of a belief isn't its provable truth but its utility

Hume was offering a corrective

which we sometimes badly need

to our fascination with prestigious but not actually very important logical conundrums

In opposition to academic niceties

he was a skeptical philosopher who stood for common sense

Championing the everyday and the wisdom of the unlearned and the ordinary.

Hume took a great interest in the traditional philosophical topic of Ethics

A conundrum of how humans can be good.

He argued that morality isn't about having moral ideas

It's about having been trained from an early age in the art of decency

through the emotions

Being good means getting into good habits of feeling.

Hume was a great advocate of qualities like wit, good manners and sympathy

because these are the things make people nice to be around

outside of any rational plan to be good.

He was hugely struck by the fact that a person

and here again, he was thinking of Descartes

could be ostensibly rational and yet, not that nice.

Because being able to follow complex argument

or deduce trends from data

doesn't make you sensitive to the sufferings of others

or skilled at keeping your temper.

These qualities are

the work of our feelings

So, if we want people to behave well,

what we need to do is to rethink education

We have to influence the development of feeling

We have to encourage benevolence, gentleness, pity and shame

through the seduction of the passionate sides of our nature,

without delivering dry, logical lectures.

Hume's philosophy always emerged as an attempt to answer a personal question.

What is a good life?

He wanted to know how his own character and that of those around him

could be influenced for the best.

And oddly, for a philosopher,

he didn't feel the traditional practice of Philosophy could really help.

Though he was scholarly,

he was in large part, a man of the world.

For some years, he was an adviser to the British ambassador in Paris

who welcomed his shrewd wisdom.

He was much liked by those around him,

known by the French as 'Le Bon David',

a humane, kind and witty conversationalist,

much in demand as a dinner companion.

he insisted.

That's the way Hume lived.

Not in the intellectual seclusion of a monastery or ivory tower,

But deeply embedded in the company of other humans,

dining.

He especially liked roast chicken, chatting about love and career and playing Backgammon.

Hume died in Edinburgh in August 1776,

at home,

in his house in St. Andrew's Square

His doctor wrote about the last hours to Adam Smith,

for many years,

Hume's best friend.

Hume remains a rather outstanding thing.

A philosopher, alive to how much Philosophy can has to learn from common-sense.