Descartes and Hume: A Comparison of Epistemological Theories

Posted on Dec 15, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

Descartes

1. The Application of the Method of Doubt and the “Cogito”

The basis of the method is the first rule, the evidence establishes the methodological doubt: Doubt everything to see if there is something obvious, something that cannot be doubted. If there is anything that meets these characteristics, it will be the first truth from which one can know everything. It is part of the doubt in coming, but the truth is not the end but the “beginning of the road” to know.

  • What is doubt?
  1. Of the senses. It is the most immediate. The senses sometimes deceive us, so as a precaution we doubt all the information from the senses.
  2. The reason. The criterion is the same as that used for the senses. Sometimes thinking has been argued, it has been poorly reasoned. There is no reliable criterion to distinguish good reasoning from a fallacy.
  3. The reality in itself. It is a criterion or “excuse” used: We have no criterion for distinguishing whether reality itself exists. Set the example of the inability to distinguish between sleep and wakefulness during sleep because the characteristics of reality are the same.
  4. Hypothesis of the “evil genius”. He argues that perhaps we were created by a God who has made our nature to deceive ourselves or mistake ever. The question does not come by chance: Someone wants to deliberately deceive.

But Descartes doubts everything, as there is something that cannot deceive. For most who doubts everything, there can be no doubt that doubt is, there is a question. The first truth is the existence of thought, since doubt is a form of reasoning. Thinking is therefore fundamental truth: “I think therefore I am.” The first truth is not thought content (ideas), but the very activity of thinking, which is the self imposed. “Then I am” means that exist as a thought, not as a body or individual (what is known as an individual we know by the senses, and we have doubted them.) Descartes discovers a new way of thinking is the reality that it is sufficient by itself (It remains a riddle the problem of consciousness).

We are a “thing that thinks” This is the first rule, the truth that breaks the methodical doubt it no longer needs to keep wondering. We already have a truth so we can continue to offset the rest of truths from it.

Hume

1. Theory of Knowledge

  • Content of the mind. Hume wants to find a general theory of human knowledge: Hume is an empiricist. There must be limits and there to develop them. It involves studying human nature from empiricism, always the man she meets. Therefore, the knowledge is based on human nature, which is the basis of knowledge. Hume makes the following distinction in the content of the mind:

Impressions: They come directly from the senses, stronger than ideas.

Ideas: These are the memories of impressions, and therefore are weaker.

The impressions are always true, and ideas are true when you can find a print of it coming. Otherwise, this idea is rejected as false.

Can Argue? She may need to logical issues only serve to meet a given field, by analyzing concepts and does not advance in knowledge. Issues or factual nature can be known only through prints.

  • Review of fundamental concepts.

All questions of fact are based on fundamental concepts that Hume summarized in 3.

  1. Concept of Cause: This is the fundamental concept that underlies our knowledge. We only know something that we know its cause. It has three characteristics:
  • Contiguity: We are given next to each other, next: There can be infinite separation between them. “The cause precedes the effect.
  • Constant conjunction: Whenever there is the cause occurs the effect (there is a relationship of necessity). If not, it is not a causal relationship. Is there printing on the causal relationship? NO. There is an impression of the cause (is a fact) and effect (another fact). But there is no impression of the relationship between the two:
Concept: Hume asks about any substance or any extra-mental thing. We have impressions of the qualities or characteristics of the substance, but we never see the “object itself, only its qualities. So we unite natural and mechanical, through a psychological mechanism. It is therefore a psychological habit that makes substances and not qualities we see a construction of mind.

We do not see the object itself, so that the object does not exist. (Similarly there is no God, since there is no impression of him and you can only reach him through causal relationships, but first we had seen that we could not entrust ourselves to them).

  1. “Res cogitans: Is the “thinking self.” According to Hume have varied psychological internal impressions (I’m happy, sad …) But, did you ever have any direct printing of “I thinking?” I never grasp myself I have no impression of the very substance of self, so it does not exist. We do not know what the T, there is a substance that it is, but a series of psychological impressions. Therefore dismisses the “I” is false. However this rejection creates a series of problems.

Problems of knowledge: There are fundamental concepts that underpin the knowledge, so that no human knowledge, no security in it. Hume’s philosophy leads to two trends:

  • Skepticism: Cannot prove their bases, so you cannot prove or defend knowledge. There is a habit, but it is unsubstantiated.
  • Phenomenon: From nature we can only stay loose with phenomena or qualities.