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Tag Archives: David Hume
Sapere aude!
Over at TPM, Craig Nelson, has written a paen to the enlightenment, To cry “Sapere aude!” once again, finishing with a lament on how scientifically illiterate our culture is.
There is, however, a dark side to this history, and it has nothing to do with Foucault. The entire Enlightenment revolution in thinking centred around one key [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy, topical Also tagged classical philosophy, Enlightenment, ethics, irrationalism, Kant, reason, Romanticism, sentimentalism Leave a comment
The Invention of Autonomy
In my quest to define what I mean by moral philosophy I will, again, contrast it with something that it is not: The Invention of Autonomy, J.B. Schneewind’s great historical account of modern moral philosophy culminating in the moral philosophy of Kant. I will do this by way of commenting on some key passages from [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Also tagged Christianity, Enlightenment, ethics, irrationalism, Jane Austen, Kant, Mansfield Park, Romanticism, Rousseau, sentimentalism Leave a comment
Fanny, Edmund and Lovers’ Vows
I have hammering the philosophy heavily of late. This is all supposed to be by way of preparation, getting a clear picture of the object to be negated—Enlightenment sentimental ethics—for the real action of the blog when we dive into Sense and Sensibility and the other Austen novels, and show how these ethical systems [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Also tagged Enlightenment, ethics, experimental philosophy, Jane Austen, Kant, Mansfield Park, moralist, philosophy Leave a comment
Experimental Philosophy: back to Hume?
It was my intention to spend this Sunday writing a positive summary of this blog’s philosophy but watching Joshua Knobe’s discussion with John Horgan on bloggingheads.tv in February 2008, has lead to change of plan and the return of the Punk Philosopher.
The diavlog opens with a short discussion of Joshus’s biography (where we learn that [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Also tagged blogingheads.tv, ethics, experimental philosophy, free will, inflationary universe, Joshua Knobe, philosophy, physicalism, quantum theory Leave a comment
The Post-rational Civilization
In many of my posts now I have been stating that we live in an age of unreason, and that this was an innovation of the Enlightenment. Nearly all of the recent posts reflect this theme but these recent posts have been quite explicit:
The Great Evolution Debate
Appleyard on the Great American Health Debate
The Heart of [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Also tagged conservatism, Enlightenment, ethics, evolution, irrationalism, Kant, progessives, reason, Romanticism Leave a comment
The Heart of Philosophy
The comment thread on Mark Vernon’s fourth instalment of his Plato series has taken a most interesting turn. (My earlier post True Love discussed this article, arguing that it reflects a modern propensity to take a wilfully irrational approach to love and other related concepts.)
Mark has responded to criticism in the comment thread to argue [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy, topical Also tagged Enlightenment, ethics, irrationalism, Jane Austen, Kant, moralist, philosophy, rationalism, Romanticism, Rousseau Leave a comment
Why religion is valuable
In my previous post, The problem with the Enlightenment, I set out my conviction that the Enlightenment had established a false view of the self, that I labelled Romantic, and that this false view had insinuated itself into modern religion as well as its discontents. (See The romantic Austen (IV) for a taster of [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy, commentary Also tagged Christianity, Enlightenment, ethics, Jane Austen, Kant, original sin, philosophy, Romanticism, Rousseau Leave a comment
Republic and the Social Contract
John Holbo has replied to my comment on his blog and my earlier post, where I expressed my admiration for his book while taking issue with the (entirely standard contemporary view) that the book is concerned with politics in the abstract, citing Robin Waterfield’s introduction to the OWC Republic.
As John says, ‘who is to say?’ [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Also tagged Enlightenment, ethics, Kant, philosophy, Plato, Republic, Rousseau, The Social Contract Leave a comment
Why this Matters
Who cares whether Butler, Kant or Hume correctly (or not) divined the number of angels on the heads of our pins? It is all philosophy (I am imagining Feynman’s drawl here). Who cares?
It matters because if we carry around incoherent ideas about our conduct then we will end up in a horrible pickle in big [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Also tagged Enlightenment, ethics, Jane Austen, philosophy, sentimentalism Leave a comment
Back to Butler
It is well known that Hume had Joseph Butler in mind in preparing his Thesis for publication. It is rather a shame (I would say in philosophical terms tragic) that he didn’t get a critique from Butler, prior to publication; it could have saved him considerable heartache (bearing in mind that he did ultimately [...]
The Slave of the Passions
Hume is widely considered to be the most important philosopher ever to write in English and the Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) to be his greatest work. It concludes.
Conclusion of this book
Thus upon the whole I am hopeful, that nothing is wanting to an accurate proof of this system of ethics.
David Hume, A Treatise of [...]
Posted in 1 philosophy Also tagged Jane Austen, moral sense theory, philosophy, Sense and Sensibility, Treatise of Human Nature Leave a comment
A Return to Rationality