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A Critique Of David Hume’s Empiricism
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1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
There are problems in Hume’s theory
of empiricism. The major one arises in an attempt to answer the question
of how reliable is our senses. Very often, our senses deceive us. This
is true when we see a mirage, in the changing size of objects according
to our psychological and physiological state, in hallucination and other
forms of illusions.
The problem is that there is no way of
immediately differentiating the real from the unreal in such situations.
The mirage for example is an effect caused by hot air in deserts or on
roads, that makes you think you can see something, such as water, which
is not there.
Now the question is, how do we differentiate between a true sense experience from a false or illusory sense experience?
Thus, arises the famous arguments from illusion which places doubts on the reliability of sense experience.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
It
has already been pointed out that David Hume maintained a radical stand
in his position on knowledge acquisition by maintaining that knowledge
comes only from sense experience. He did this by drawing out the
problems inherent in reason as a source of knowledge.
The purpose of
this study is therefore to examine David Hume’s position and also to
show that in as much as we agree that human beings acquire knowledge
through senses experience, sense experience alone cannot constitute or
guarantee knowledge. Just as Jacques Maritain pointed out that every
philosophical system contains some truth and tells something about the
real, some philosophies however exaggerate their claims and this is
where they then run into problems. This is so with David Hume, he ran
into this kind of problem and this was because though knowledge can be
acquired through sense experience, he exaggerated the position by
maintaining that knowledge can only come through sense experience.
It
therefore becomes part of the purpose of this study to point out some
of these problems as we can in order to show that though sense
experience leads to knowledge, however knowledge does not stop there
after there are some limitations to the senses in epistemological
procedure so that whatever information we receive through the senses are
subjected to judgment before it is accepted.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
When
this work is completed, it is our hope that it is going to be of
importance in the sense that at least we would have succeeded in
bringing to light some of the very important aspects of David Hume’s
empiricism and at the same time would have also succeeded in pointing
out problems inherent in it.
The work will equally be of help or
assistance to students who will want to do some works in the area of
David Hume’s empiricism as it will provide some aid to them by providing
them with a kind of insight into the nature of Hume’s empiricism. But
we must point out here that this work should not be taken as all there
is in Hume’s empiricism. But where however, we could not cover, the
references. That appear at the end of the work will therefore be
adequate to direct or refer students to where information as regards
those areas will be gathered.
To people who may not be doing works on
David Hume`s Empiricism; to non-philosophers, who may thus be reading
for knowledge acquisition or for pleasure, this work will equally be of
immense help as the approach that will be adopted here and the choice of
works will not be difficult to understand.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]One of the never ending processes in life is the process of knowledge acquisition which to the lay man may not constitute any problem as regards how it is acquired. But to philosophers, from time past this has constituted serious debacles. However, in philosophy, it has become the special concern of epistemology one of it’s branches to analyze how knowledge is acquired.Epistemology has rationalism and empiricism as its most outstanding schools. These two schools in analyzing how knowledge ... Continue reading---
