Hume treatise on human nature summary. Yum D

"A TRACT ABOUT HUMAN NATURE" (A Treatise of Human Nature ..., 1739–1740, Russian translation 1966) - a work D. Yuma ; includes 3 books: "On Cognition", "On Affects", "On Morality". In announcing the work, Hume designated its main subjects: Cognition, Affects, Morality, Politics and Taste.

In the introduction to the treatise, Hume explains that his goal is to establish a science that will not be inferior in reliability to any other science available to human knowledge, and will far surpass it in usefulness. This science is the doctrine of human nature, which is the center of all other sciences, “even mathematics, natural philosophy and natural religion to a certain extent depend on the science of man, since they are the subject of knowledge of people, and the latter judge them with the help of their powers and abilities "( Hume D.Soch., T. 1.M., 1996, p. 55). The subjectivity of humanity is not so much a hindrance to true knowledge as a form that determines the content of knowledge.

Dividing all human perceptions into impressions and their weakened copies, which constitutes all the initial material of knowledge, Hume takes the question of the essence, the nature of an object beyond the boundary of the phenomenal world available to us and demonstrates the futility of the mind's attempts to break through with the help of logical means to natural or supernatural objectivity. At the disposal of a person are only the matter of his perceptions and the forms of operating and transforming it. These include memory, imagination, and association of ideas. The principle of association that connects ideas is the quality by which one idea naturally evokes another. Hume calls these qualities: similarity, contiguity in time or space, and cause and action. As for the ability to reason, it is strictly limited by a logical contradiction and therefore the limits of its competence are relatively small and cover only analytical knowledge - arithmetic and algebra; later Hume will add geometry to them. Such a limitation brings the truths of facts, not based on the principle of contradiction, beyond the competence of reason. It is replaced by belief, which evaluates the validity of facts. Faith has habit as its source. In particular, it is habit, based on repeated experiences in the past, that prompts us to believe that the future corresponds to the past.

In the section "On Knowledge and Probability," Hume analyzes the concept of causality. Only causality gives rise to such a connection, thanks to which we derive from the existence or action of any one object the confidence that it was followed or preceded by another existence or action. Causality is the only relationship that takes us beyond the senses in order to inform us about the existence of objects we do not see and not tangible. The idea of \u200b\u200bcausality owes its origin not to an impression, but to relations of contiguity, sequence in time, and necessary connection. Hume shows that the obviousness of the proposition "everything that begins to exist must have a reason for existence" is based on habit.

In the conclusion of Book 1, Hume wrote about the loneliness to which the philosophical system condemns him, assuming that it will arouse the enmity of all metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even theologians. According to Hume, reason, left to itself, undermines itself and does not leave the slightest evidence for any judgment, both in philosophy and in everyday life, which leads to complete skepticism. "So. the choice remains between false reason and the absence of reason at all ”(ibid., p. 313). He is relieved of philosophical skepticism and melancholy by his interest in the problems of morality and politics: “I cannot but show interest in getting acquainted with the principles of moral good and evil, with nature and state power, with the cause of all those affects and inclinations that influence me and dominate me ”(ibid., p. 315). At the center of Hume's philosophy is the elucidation of the axiological nature of the principles of the human spirit: “I am worried about the thought that I approve of one thing and condemn the other, I call one thing beautiful and the other ugly, I judge truth and lies, reason and recklessness, not knowing, what principles do I follow. I am worried about the state of the entire scientific world, which is so regrettably ignorant in all these matters ”(ibid., P. 315).

Book 2 of the treatise ("On Affects") is designed to clarify the influence and power of affects and inclinations in human nature. Hume singles out first of all reflective impressions arising from impressions or ideas of external feelings, as well as from bodily pain and pleasure. Reflexive impressions are subdivided into calm and stormy, direct (desire, disgust, sadness, joy, hope, fear, despair and confidence) and indirect (pride, humiliation, ambition, vanity, love, hatred, envy, compassion, gloating, generosity). Affects are human value reactions. Discussing the question of freedom and necessity as a psychological phenomenon, Hume again turns to the analysis of the ideas of cause and effect. According to Hume, in the mental sphere there is a constant combination of volitional acts with their motives, and the inference about motives emanating from the acts is just as reliable as any reasoning about bodies. Despite the psychological evidence of the feeling of freedom, human behavior is determined by conscious or unconscious motives, and if the observer "were perfectly familiar with all the particulars of our situation and temperament and with the most secret springs of our organization and our mood" (ibid., P. 451 –452), he could accurately predict our actions.

In the third book of his treatise ("On Morality"), Hume proceeds from the premise that moral differences do not flow from reason. Emphasizing that a person uses ideas and affects when distinguishing between vice and virtue, when recognizing any action that deserves blame or praise, Hume demonstrates adherence to the foundations of the Shaftesbury-Hutcheson theory of moral feeling. The book begins with a famous passage, sometimes called Hume's "guillotine". It says: “I noticed that in every ethical theory ... the author for some time reasoned in the usual way, establishes the existence of God, or sets out his observations regarding human affairs; and suddenly, to my surprise, I find that instead of the usual bundle used in sentences, namely to eat or not eat, I do not come across a single sentence in which there should or should not be as a bundle "(ibid., p. . 510-511). It criticizes not only rational theology, but also the deistic way of justifying Hutcheson's standard of good and evil.

Hume does not single out a special section for discussing the problems of the theory of taste (criticism) and practically does not deal with issues of aesthetics of artistic creativity in the Treatise, devoting several essays published later to them.

David Hume is a renowned Scottish philosopher who represented empiricist and agnocyst movements during the Enlightenment. He was born on April 26, 1711 in Scotland (Edinburgh). My father was a lawyer and owned a small estate. David received a good education at a local university, worked in diplomatic missions, wrote many philosophical treatises.

Main work

The Treatise on Human Nature is today considered Hume's main work. It consists of three sections (books) - "On knowledge", "On affects", "On morality." The book was written during the period when Hume was living in France (1734-1737). In 1739, the first two volumes were published, the last book saw the world a year later, in 1740. At that time, Hume was still very young, he was not even thirty years old, moreover, he was not well known in scientific circles, and the conclusions that he made in the book "A Treatise on Human Nature", all existing schools should have been considered unacceptable. Therefore, David prepared in advance arguments in defense of his position and began to expect fierce attacks from the scientific community of that time. But it all ended unpredictably - no one noticed his work.

The author of the "Treatise on Human Nature" then said that he came out of print "stillborn." In his book, Hume proposed to systematize (or, as he put it, anatomize) human nature and draw conclusions based on the data that are justified by experience.

His philosophy

Historians of philosophy say that David Hume's ideas are radical skepticism, although the ideas of naturalism still play an important role in his teaching.

The development and formation of Hume's philosophical thought was greatly influenced by the work of the empiricists J. Berkeley and J. Locke, as well as the ideas of P. Baile, I. Newton, S. Clark, F. Hutcheson and J. Butler. In his Treatise on Human Nature, Hume writes that human cognition is not something innate, but depends solely on experience. Therefore, a person is unable to identify the source of his experience and go beyond it. Experience is always limited to the past and consists of perceptions, which can be roughly divided into ideas and impressions.

Human Science

The "Treatise on Human Nature" is based on philosophical thoughts about man. And since other sciences of that time relied on philosophy, this concept is of fundamental importance for them. In the book, David Hume writes that all sciences are somehow related to man and his nature. Even mathematics depends on the human sciences, because it is the subject of human knowledge.

Hume's doctrine of man is interesting in its structure. "A treatise on human nature" begins with a theoretical and cognitive section. If the science of man is based on experience and observation, then first you need to turn to a detailed study of knowledge. Try to explain, and knowledge, gradually moving to affects and only then to moral aspects.

If we assume that the theory of knowledge is the basis of the concept of human nature, then thinking about morality is its goal and final result.

Human signs

In A Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume describes the main features of human nature:

1. Man is who finds food in science.
2. Man is not only intelligent, but also a social being.
3. Among other things, man is an active being. Due to this tendency, as well as under the influence of various kinds of needs, he must do something and do something.

Summing up these attributes, Hume says that nature has provided people with a mixed lifestyle that suits them best. Also, nature warns a person not to be very keen on any one tendency, otherwise he will lose the ability to engage in other activities and entertainment. For example, if you read only scientific literature, with complex terminology, then the individual will eventually cease to enjoy reading other printed publications. They will seem unbearably stupid to him.

Retelling the author

To understand the main ideas of the author, you need to refer to the abridged presentation of the "Treatise on Human Nature" It begins with a preface, where the philosopher writes that he would like to make understanding his conjectures easier for readers. He also shares his unfulfilled hopes. The philosopher believed that his work would be original and new, so he simply could not be ignored. But apparently, humanity still needed to grow up to his thoughts.

Hume begins his "Treatise on Human Nature" with a historical bias. He writes that the bulk of ancient philosophers looked at human nature through the prism of the refinement of sensuality. They focused on morality and the greatness of the soul, leaving aside the depth of thought and judgment. They did not develop chains of reasoning or turn individual truths into a systematic science. But it is worth finding out whether the science of man can have a high degree of accuracy.

Hume despises any hypothesis if it cannot be confirmed in practice. Human nature should only be investigated through practical experience. The sole purpose of logic should be to explain the principles and operations of the human ability to reason and know.

About cognition

In A Treatise on Human Nature, D. Hume devotes an entire book to the study of the process of cognition. In short, cognition is a real experience that gives a person real practical knowledge. However, here the philosopher offers his understanding of experience. He believes that experience can only describe what belongs to consciousness. Simply put, experience does not provide any information about the external world, but only helps to master the perception of human consciousness. D. Hume in his "Treatise on Human Nature" more than once notes that it is impossible to study the reasons that give rise to perception. Thus, Hume excluded from experience everything that related to the external world, and made it part of perception.

Hume was convinced that knowledge exists only through perception. In turn, he attributed to this concept everything that the mind can imagine, sense the senses, or manifest in thought and reflection. Perceptions can come in two forms - ideas or impressions.

The philosopher calls impressions those perceptions that most of all cut into consciousness. He refers to them affects, emotions and outlines of physical objects. Ideas are weak perceptions, as they appear when a person begins to think about something. All ideas come from impressions, and a person is not able to think about what he did not see, did not feel and did not know before.

Further in "A Treatise on Human Nature" David Hume tries to analyze the principle of combining human thoughts and ideas. He named this process "the principle of association". If there was nothing that would connect ideas, then they could never be embodied in something big and common. An association is a process in which one idea evokes another.

Causal relationships

In the summary of Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, one should also consider the problem of causality, to which the philosopher assigns a central role. If scientific knowledge pursues the goal of understanding the world and everything that exists in it, then this can only be explained by examining cause-and-effect relationships. That is, you need to know the reasons due to which things exist. Even Aristotle in his work "The Doctrine of Four Causes" recorded the conditions necessary for objects to exist. One of the foundations for the emergence of a scientific worldview was the belief in the universality of the connection between causes and effects. It was believed that thanks to this connection, a person can go beyond the limits of his memory and feelings.

But the philosopher did not think so. In A Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume writes that in order to explore the nature of an obvious relationship, you first need to understand how a person comes to understand causes and actions. Every thing that exists in the physical world, by itself, cannot manifest either the reasons that it was created, or the effects that it will bring.

Human experience makes it possible to understand how one phenomenon precedes another, but does not say whether they generate each other or not. In a single object, it is impossible to determine the cause and effect. Their connection is not subject to perception, therefore it cannot be proved theoretically. Thus, causality is a subjective constant. That is, in Hume's treatise on human nature, causality is nothing more than an idea of \u200b\u200bobjects that, in practice, turn out to be interconnected at the same time and in one place. If the connection is repeated many times, then its perception is fixed by the habit on which all human judgments are based. And the causal relationship is nothing more than the belief that this state of affairs will continue in nature.

Striving for social

David Hume's "Treatise on Human Nature" does not exclude the influence of social relationships on a person. The philosopher believes that in human nature itself lies the desire for social, interpersonal relationships, and loneliness seems to people to be something painful and unbearable. Hume writes that man is incapable of living without society.

He refutes the theory of the creation of a "contractual" state and all the teachings about the natural human condition in the pre-social period of life. Hume ignores the ideas of Hobbes and Locke about the natural state without a twinge of conscience, saying that elements of the social state are inherent in people. First of all, the desire to create a family.

The philosopher writes that the transition to the political structure of society was associated precisely with the need to create a family. This innate need should be considered as the basic principle of the formation of society. The emergence of social relations is greatly influenced by family, parental relationships between people.

The emergence of the state

D. Hume and his "Treatise on Human Nature" give an open answer to the question of how the state appeared. First, people had a need to defend or attack in the face of aggressive clashes with other communities. Second, strong and orderly social bonds have proven to be more beneficial than solitary existence.

According to Hume, social development occurs as follows. First, family and social relations are laid, where there are certain norms of morality and rules of behavior, but there are no bodies forcing one or another to perform certain duties. At the second stage, a public-state state appears, which arises from an increase in livelihoods and territories. Wealth and possessions cause conflicts with stronger neighbors who want to increase their resources. This, in turn, shows how important military leaders are.

The government emerges precisely from the formation of military leaders and acquires the features of a monarchy. Hume is convinced that government is an instrument of social justice, the main organ of order and social discipline. Only it can guarantee the inviolability of property and the fulfillment by a person of the obligation imposed on him.

According to Hume, the best form of government is a constitutional monarchy. He is sure that if an absolute monarchy is formed, it will certainly lead to tyranny and impoverishment of the nation. Under the republic, society will be constantly in an unstable state and will not have confidence in the future. The best form of political government is to combine hereditary royalty with representatives of the bourgeoisie and nobility.

Work value

So what is a Treatise on Human Nature? These are reflections on knowledge that can be refuted, skeptical assumptions that a person is not able to reveal the laws of the universe and the basis on which the ideas of philosophy were formed in the future.

David Hume was able to show that knowledge gained from experience cannot be universally valid. It is true only within the framework of previous experience, and no one guarantees that future experience will confirm it. Any knowledge is possible, but it is difficult to consider it 100% reliable. Its necessity and objectivity is determined only by habit and the belief that future experience will not change.

No matter how sad it is to admit it, nature keeps a person at a respectful distance from its secrets and makes it possible to learn only the superficial qualities of objects, and not the principles on which their actions depend. The author is very skeptical that a person is able to fully cognize the world around him.

And yet the philosophy of D. Hume had a great influence on the further development of philosophical thought. Immanuel Kant took seriously the statement that a person obtains knowledge from his experience and empirical methods of cognition cannot guarantee their reliability, objectivity and necessity.

Hume's skepticism found a response in the works of Auguste Comte, who believed that the main task of science is to describe phenomena, and not to explain them. Simply put, in order to know the truth, one must have reasonable doubt and a little skepticism. Do not take any statement at face value, but test and double-check it in different conditions of human experience. This is the only way to understand how this world works, although this method of cognition will take years, if not an eternity.

David Hume is a renowned Scottish philosopher who represented empiricist and agnocyst movements during the Enlightenment. He was born on April 26, 1711 in Scotland (Edinburgh). My father was a lawyer and owned a small estate. David received a good education at a local university, worked in diplomatic missions, wrote many philosophical treatises.

Main work

The Treatise on Human Nature is today considered Hume's main work. It consists of three sections (books) - "On knowledge", "On affects", "On morality." The book was written during the period when Hume was living in France (1734-1737). In 1739, the first two volumes were published, the last book saw the world a year later, in 1740. At that time, Hume was still very young, he was not even thirty years old, moreover, he was not well known in scientific circles, and the conclusions that he made in the book "A Treatise on Human Nature", all existing schools should have been considered unacceptable. Therefore, David prepared in advance arguments in defense of his position and began to expect fierce attacks from the scientific community of that time. But it all ended unpredictably - no one noticed his work.

The author of the "Treatise on Human Nature" then said that he came out of print "stillborn." In his book, Hume proposed to systematize (or, as he put it, anatomize) human nature and draw conclusions based on the data that are justified by experience.

His philosophy

Historians of philosophy say that David Hume's ideas are radical skepticism, although the ideas of naturalism still play an important role in his teaching.

The development and formation of Hume's philosophical thought was greatly influenced by the work of the empiricists J. Berkeley and J. Locke, as well as the ideas of P. Baile, I. Newton, S. Clark, F. Hutcheson and J. Butler. In his Treatise on Human Nature, Hume writes that human cognition is not something innate, but depends solely on experience. Therefore, a person is unable to identify the source of his experience and go beyond it. Experience is always limited to the past and consists of perceptions, which can be roughly divided into ideas and impressions.

Human Science

The "Treatise on Human Nature" is based on philosophical thoughts about man. And since other sciences of that time relied on philosophy, this concept is of fundamental importance for them. In the book, David Hume writes that all sciences are somehow related to man and his nature. Even mathematics depends on the human sciences, because it is the subject of human knowledge.

Hume's doctrine of man is interesting in its structure. "A treatise on human nature" begins with a theoretical and cognitive section. If the science of man is based on experience and observation, then first you need to turn to a detailed study of knowledge. Try to explain what experience and knowledge are, gradually moving on to affects and only then to moral aspects.

If we assume that the theory of knowledge is the basis of the concept of human nature, then thinking about morality is its goal and final result.

Human signs

In A Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume describes the main features of human nature:

1. Man is an intelligent creature who finds food in science.
2. Man is not only intelligent, but also a social being.
3. Among other things, man is an active being. Due to this tendency, as well as under the influence of various kinds of needs, he must do something and do something.

Summing up these attributes, Hume says that nature has provided people with a mixed lifestyle that suits them best. Also, nature warns a person not to be very keen on any one tendency, otherwise he will lose the ability to engage in other activities and entertainment. For example, if you read only scientific literature, with complex terminology, then the individual will eventually cease to enjoy reading other printed publications. They will seem unbearably stupid to him.

Retelling the author

To understand the main ideas of the author, you need to refer to the abridged presentation of the "Treatise on Human Nature" It begins with a preface, where the philosopher writes that he would like to make understanding his conjectures easier for readers. He also shares his unfulfilled hopes. The philosopher believed that his work would be original and new, so he simply could not be ignored. But apparently, humanity still needed to grow up to his thoughts.

Hume begins his "Treatise on Human Nature" with a historical bias. He writes that the bulk of ancient philosophers looked at human nature through the prism of the refinement of sensuality. They focused on morality and the greatness of the soul, leaving aside the depth of thought and judgment. They did not develop chains of reasoning or turn individual truths into a systematic science. But it is worth finding out whether the science of man can have a high degree of accuracy.

Hume despises any hypothesis if it cannot be confirmed in practice. Human nature should only be investigated through practical experience. The sole purpose of logic should be to explain the principles and operations of the human ability to reason and know.

About cognition

In A Treatise on Human Nature, D. Hume devotes an entire book to the study of the process of cognition. In short, cognition is a real experience that gives a person real practical knowledge. However, here the philosopher offers his understanding of experience. He believes that experience can only describe what belongs to consciousness. Simply put, experience does not provide any information about the external world, but only helps to master the perception of human consciousness. D. Hume in his "Treatise on Human Nature" more than once notes that it is impossible to study the reasons that give rise to perception. Thus, Hume excluded from experience everything that related to the external world, and made it part of perception.

Hume was convinced that knowledge exists only through perception. In turn, he attributed to this concept everything that the mind can imagine, sense the senses, or manifest in thought and reflection. Perceptions can come in two forms - ideas or impressions.

The philosopher calls impressions those perceptions that most of all cut into consciousness. He refers to them affects, emotions and outlines of physical objects. Ideas are weak perceptions, as they appear when a person begins to think about something. All ideas come from impressions, and a person is not able to think about what he did not see, did not feel and did not know before.

Further in "A Treatise on Human Nature" David Hume tries to analyze the principle of combining human thoughts and ideas. He named this process "the principle of association". If there was nothing that would connect ideas, then they could never be embodied in something big and common. An association is a process in which one idea evokes another.

Causal relationships

In the summary of Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, one should also consider the problem of causality, to which the philosopher assigns a central role. If scientific knowledge pursues the goal of understanding the world and everything that exists in it, then this can only be explained by examining cause-and-effect relationships. That is, you need to know the reasons due to which things exist. Even Aristotle in his work "The Doctrine of Four Causes" recorded the conditions necessary for objects to exist. One of the foundations for the emergence of a scientific worldview was the belief in the universality of the connection between causes and effects. It was believed that thanks to this connection, a person can go beyond the limits of his memory and feelings.

But the philosopher did not think so. In A Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume writes that in order to explore the nature of an obvious relationship, you first need to understand how a person comes to understand causes and actions. Every thing that exists in the physical world, by itself, cannot manifest either the reasons that it was created, or the effects that it will bring.

Human experience makes it possible to understand how one phenomenon precedes another, but does not say whether they generate each other or not. In a single object, it is impossible to determine the cause and effect. Their connection is not subject to perception, therefore it cannot be proved theoretically. Thus, causality is a subjective constant. That is, in Hume's treatise on human nature, causality is nothing more than an idea of \u200b\u200bobjects that, in practice, turn out to be interconnected at the same time and in one place. If the connection is repeated many times, then its perception is fixed by the habit on which all human judgments are based. And the causal relationship is nothing more than the belief that this state of affairs will continue in nature.

Striving for social

David Hume's "Treatise on Human Nature" does not exclude the influence of social relationships on a person. The philosopher believes that in human nature itself lies the desire for social, interpersonal relationships, and loneliness seems to people to be something painful and unbearable. Hume writes that man is incapable of living without society.

He refutes the theory of the creation of a "contractual" state and all the teachings about the natural human condition in the pre-social period of life. Hume ignores the ideas of Hobbes and Locke about the natural state without a twinge of conscience, saying that elements of the social state are inherent in people. First of all, the desire to create a family.

The philosopher writes that the transition to the political structure of society was associated precisely with the need to create a family. This innate need should be considered as the basic principle of the formation of society. The emergence of social relations is greatly influenced by family, parental relationships between people.

The emergence of the state

D. Hume and his "Treatise on Human Nature" give an open answer to the question of how the state appeared. First, people had a need to defend or attack in the face of aggressive clashes with other communities. Second, strong and orderly social bonds have proven to be more beneficial than solitary existence.

According to Hume, social development occurs as follows. First, family and social relations are laid, where there are certain norms of morality and rules of behavior, but there are no bodies forcing one or another to perform certain duties. At the second stage, a public-state state appears, which arises from an increase in livelihoods and territories. Wealth and possessions cause conflicts with stronger neighbors who want to increase their resources. This, in turn, shows how important military leaders are.

The government emerges precisely from the formation of military leaders and acquires the features of a monarchy. Hume is convinced that government is an instrument of social justice, the main organ of order and social discipline. Only it can guarantee the inviolability of property and the fulfillment by a person of the obligation imposed on him.

According to Hume, the best form of government is a constitutional monarchy. He is sure that if an absolute monarchy is formed, it will certainly lead to tyranny and impoverishment of the nation. Under the republic, society will be constantly in an unstable state and will not have confidence in the future. The best form of political government is to combine hereditary royalty with representatives of the bourgeoisie and nobility.

Work value

So what is a Treatise on Human Nature? These are reflections on knowledge that can be refuted, skeptical assumptions that a person is not able to reveal the laws of the universe and the basis on which the ideas of philosophy were formed in the future.

David Hume was able to show that knowledge gained from experience cannot be universally valid. It is true only within the framework of previous experience, and no one guarantees that future experience will confirm it. Any knowledge is possible, but it is difficult to consider it 100% reliable. Its necessity and objectivity is determined only by habit and the belief that future experience will not change.

No matter how sad it is to admit it, nature keeps a person at a respectful distance from its secrets and makes it possible to learn only the superficial qualities of objects, and not the principles on which their actions depend. The author is very skeptical that a person is able to fully cognize the world around him.

And yet the philosophy of D. Hume had a great influence on the further development of philosophical thought. Immanuel Kant took seriously the statement that a person obtains knowledge from his experience and empirical methods of cognition cannot guarantee their reliability, objectivity and necessity.

Hume's skepticism found a response in the works of Auguste Comte, who believed that the main task of science is to describe phenomena, and not to explain them. Simply put, in order to know the truth, one must have reasonable doubt and a little skepticism. Do not take any statement at face value, but test and double-check it in different conditions of human experience. This is the only way to understand how this world works, although this method of cognition will take years, if not an eternity.

Historians of philosophy of different orientations and eras discussed all sorts of lines, tendencies and directions of the philosophical process. Academic controversies over such differences are known to anyone familiar with the main landmarks in the development of world philosophical thought. In this case, we would like to dwell on one more - rather trivial - difference, formulated, so to speak, from the position of philosophical common sense. The fact is that among significant philosophers there have always been those who, suspicious of broad philosophical abstractions, thoroughly explored the world of our perceptual experience, considering this sphere as the foundation and starting point of any possible philosophical reasoning, and those who sought to formulate their views in in terms of mental generalizations and synthesizing principles of reason, looking down on their colleagues from the first group, reproaching them (rightly or unjustly - another question) for the lack of a holistic vision of philosophical problems. All this manifested itself in the most obvious form in the two leading Western European philosophical traditions of the modern era - British and German (although there were many exceptions to the rule). For the historian of philosophy, the most radical and consistent expressions of each of these tendencies are of particular interest. If we turn to the first of them, it will be obvious that the central place occupied in it by Hume, whose work is justly attributed to the classics of empiricist philosophical thought.

Life and works. David (David) Hume was born in 1711 in Edinburgh into a Scottish noble family. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, where from 1723 to 1726 he studied ancient Greek, logic, metaphysics, "natural philosophy" and possibly ethics, and working as a merchant in Bristol, he went on a three-year trip to France (1734-1736 ). It was during this period, being in Paris, Reims, and then in the Jesuit college La Flèche - the same one where R. Descartes studied at one time - he prepared the main work - "Treatise on Human Nature", the first two books of which ( "On Knowledge" and "On Affects") were published in 1739, and the third ("On Morality") - in 1740. Contrary to Hume's expectations, the Treatise did not arouse much interest among the general public; he, according to the author, “came out stillborn out of print, without even having the honor of stirring up a murmur among the fanatics ”(1, 45). True, there have been several critical reviews both in England and abroad. Hume himself was most outraged by the first review of the Treatise, published in 1739 in the November issue of the journal History of Scientists' Work. It was allegedly written by W. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester. Hume did not respond to this attack, for, as he noted in his autobiography, he adhered to the decision not to respond to the attacks of his opponents.

In 1744 he made an unsuccessful attempt to take the chair of "ethics and pneumatic philosophy" at the University of Edinburgh. Also ended in failure in 1752, his attempt to take the chair of logic at the University of Glasgow, vacated after the departure of A. Smith. One reason for Hume's failure to make an academic career in his homeland was opposition from theologians of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

In 1748 the "Study on Human Cognition" was published, and in 1751 - "Study on the Principles of Morality", which are revised and abridged versions of the first and third books of the "Treatise". Stylistically, these works are superior to the early Treatise.

Around the same time, the Dialogues on Natural Religion were also written, published, however, only posthumously - in 1779. In 1752, Hume published an essay on economic topics. Their friendship with Adam Smith influenced both of them. While he was inferior to Smith in the depth and originality of his elaboration of economic questions, Hume at the same time stimulated many important ideas of his younger colleague.

His work as librarian for the Edinburgh Bar Society gave Hume access to a wealth of factual material from which his eight-volume History of England was prepared. In this work, which was published from 1754 to 1762, he pays special attention to the psychological motives of the activity historical figures... The Scottish thinker also sought to adhere to a more or less neutral point of view regarding the activities of the Whig and Tory parties, hoping for a rapprochement of their positions, leading to civil peace and social stability.

In 1757, The Natural History of Religion was published. Participation in the diplomatic mission in Paris in 1763 as the personal secretary of the British ambassador (for several months - during the absence of the ambassador - he even served as a chargé d'affaires) allowed Hume to get acquainted with French enlighteners, including atheist materialists. In France he received the warmest welcome. Of particular importance was his friendship with J. J. Rousseau, which, however, ended in a complete break between them during the latter's trip to England. The mocking articles and pamphlets about him that appeared in the English press Rousseau groundlessly attributed to Hume and his friends.

In 1767-1768 Hume worked in London as Assistant Secretary of State for Great Britain.

He died in Edinburgh in 1776. A year after his death, A. Smith published Hume's autobiographical essay, My Life.

The starting point is the science of man. In the introduction to the Treatise, Hume states the precariousness of the foundations of many sciences, as well as the strengthening of the prejudices of the educated public of his time against philosophy as such.

And the reason for this, in his opinion, is that "moral philosophy" is not yet sufficiently developed - a universal science about human nature, about cognitive and other possibilities of man. But mathematics, natural science, logic, ethics (that is, the doctrine of morality in the proper sense of the word) and criticism (that is, literary and aesthetic criticism) - all of them depend on the philosophical science of man as their basis. Such science should be empirical and at the same time in no case go beyond the limits of descriptions phenomena; it should not claim to know the essence of matter and spirit.

Experience and its structure. Hume resolves the question of the source of knowledge from a sensationalist position. Cognitive experience consists of "perceptions", which have a number of common features with the initial elements of sensory experience in the concepts of D. Locke and D. Berkeley - "ideas". This is not surprising, for the leading British empiricists of the 17th – 18th centuries. were, as a rule, supporters of a kind of psychological atomism. At the same time, there is some difference in the very interpretation of these “building blocks” of our experience by empiricist philosophers. In contrast to Locke, who took the position of epistemological realism and believed that “simple ideas” appear in the soul as a result of the influence of independent external objects on our senses, as well as from the immaterialist Berkeley, for whom ideas-sensations are reality (for ideas “to be - means to be perceived ", but they are embedded in the minds of people by God), Hume declares a skeptical philosophical position, affirming the problematic nature of the external objects themselves and any external influence on us. Perceptions for him are all that make up our experience and our ideas about the world.

We now turn to consideration of two questions: the question of how mankind artificially establishes the rules of justice, and the question of those grounds that force us to attribute moral beauty and moral ugliness to the observance or violation of these rules. /… /

At first glance, it seems that of all living beings inhabiting earth, nature treated man with the greatest cruelty, if we take into account the innumerable needs and needs that she placed on him, and the insignificant means that she gave him to satisfy these needs. /… /

Only with the help of society can a person compensate for his shortcomings and achieve equality with other living beings and even acquire advantages over them. /… / Thanks to the joining of forces, our ability to work increases, thanks to the division of labor, we develop the ability to work, and thanks to mutual assistance, we are less dependent on the vicissitudes of fate and accidents. The benefit of the social order consists precisely in this increase in strength, skill and security. /… /

If people who received public education from an early age came to realize the endless benefits provided by society, and, in addition, acquired an attachment to society and conversations with their own kind, if they noticed that the main disorder in society stems from the benefits that we are called external, namely from their instability and ease of transition from one person to another, then they should look for remedies against these disorders in an effort to put, as far as possible, these benefits on the same level with the stable and permanent advantages of mental and physical qualities. But this can be done only through an agreement between individual members of society, with the aim of consolidating the possession of external goods and providing everyone [the opportunity] to peacefully use all that he has acquired through luck and work. /… /

After the agreement on refraining from encroachment on other people's possessions is carried out and everyone consolidates their possessions for themselves, the ideas of justice and injustice, as well as property, rights and obligations, immediately arise. /… /

First, we can conclude from this that neither concern for the public interest nor strong and widespread benevolence are the first and foremost motives for obeying the rules of justice, since we have recognized that if people had such benevolence, then no one would care about the rules. did not think.

Second, we can conclude from the same principle that the sense of justice is not based on reason or on the discovery of some connections or relationships between ideas, eternal, unchanging, and universally binding.

/ ... / So, caring about our own interest and about the public interest made us establish the laws of justice, and nothing can be more certain than the fact that this concern has its source not relations between ideas, but our impressions and feelings, without which everything in nature it remains completely indifferent to us and cannot touch us in the least. /… /

Third, we can further confirm the position put forward above that the impressions that give rise to this sense of justice are not natural to the human spirit, but arise artificially from agreements between people. /… /

To make this more obvious, it is necessary to pay attention to the following: although the rules of justice are established solely out of interest, the connection with interest is rather unusual and different from that which can be observed in other cases. A single act of justice is often contrary to the public interest, and if it remained the only one, not accompanied by other acts, then in itself could be very detrimental to society. If a completely worthy and benevolent person returns a large fortune to some miser or a rebellious fanatic, his act is just and praiseworthy, but society undoubtedly suffers from this. In the same way, each single act of justice, considered by itself, serves private interests no more than public / ... / But although individual acts of justice may contradict both public and private interests, it is undoubtedly that the general plan, or the general system of justice eminently favorable or even absolutely necessary, both for the maintenance of society and for the well-being of each individual. / ... / So, as soon as people were able to sufficiently convince themselves by experience that whatever the consequences of any single act of justice committed by an individual, however, the whole system of such acts, carried out by the whole society, is infinitely beneficial both for the whole and for each its part, as it is not long left to wait for the establishment of justice and property. Each member of society feels this benefit, each shares this feeling with his comrades, as well as the decision to conform his actions with him, provided that others will do the same. Nothing else is required in order to induce an act of justice to be performed by a person who has such a case for the first time. This becomes an example for others and, thus, justice is established through a special kind of agreement, or agreement, i.e. through a sense of benefit, which is supposed to be common to all; and each single act [of justice] is performed in the expectation that other people should do the same. Without such an agreement, no one would have suspected that there was such a virtue as justice, and would never have felt the urge to conform to it. /… /

We now turn to the second of our questions, namely why we combine the idea of \u200b\u200bvirtue with justice, and the idea of \u200b\u200bvice with injustice. /… / So, initially, people are prompted both to establish and to comply with these rules, both in general and in each individual case, only by concern for the benefit and this motive in the initial formation of society turns out to be quite strong and compulsory. But when a society becomes large and turns into a tribe or a nation, such benefits are no longer so obvious and people are not able to so easily notice that disorder and unrest follows each violation of these rules, as it happens in a narrower and more limited society. /… / If injustice is even so alien to us that it does not affect our interests in any way, it nevertheless causes us displeasure, because we consider it harmful to human society and harmful to everyone who comes into contact with the person guilty of it. Through sympathy, we take part in the displeasure he experiences, and since everything in human actions that causes us displeasure is called by us in general Vile, and everything that gives us pleasure in them is called Virtue, this is the reason , by virtue of which a sense of moral good and evil accompanies justice and injustice. /… / So, self-interest turns out to be the primary motive for establishing justice, but sympathy for the public interest is the source of moral approval that accompanies this virtue.