Talk:David Hume

Suggested things that could be done-- More dates would be nice, maybe a timeline or something. Perhaps more info on his work as a historian. More explication of his ideas. Links to off-wikipedia resources.

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For example, physicists' laws of planetary orbit work for describing past planetary behavior, so we presume that they'll work for describing future planetary behavior as well.

So could we say that, for Hume, it was not an issue whether or not the laws of planetary orbit actually did work for describing past behavior? Despite there maybe being small discrepancies between theoretical predictions and observed astronomical data so far, and despite the fact that we have not been able to observe all planetary bodies accurately for all times past, he's going to accept that the laws have actually described planetary behavior acceptably until now?

More generally, does Hume accept that nature has been regular "so far", and merely question whether or not it is reasonable to assume the future will be also? Or is the regularity of things "so far" ever also an issue?

--Ryguasu 18:05 Nov 4, 2002 (UTC)

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Well, it can be an issue. But it's an issue decidable by standard empirical means. To the extent that we don't know, then we should limit our claims. But it's not a problem, in principle. One of Hume's examples, that bread has so far nourished humans, is an easily ascertainable matter of fact. If there's any problem here, it's one completely unlike the problem with inductions to the future.

--Dr. Retard

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I changed the bit on causation - it's a huge issue whether Hume really made any ontological claims about causation - in fact, to move from epistemological ignorance to an all-out denial that something is ontologically real seems like a bizarre move for someone who was so sceptical about the powers of human reason. But perhaps I've gone too far from NPOV? It would be nice to sum up the debate, though a debate about what Hume said wouldn't fit the page very well given its current structure, I feel. Thoughts? -- Evercat

Well done. I was quite aware of this issue when I first wrote it and tried to word things 'just so'. But you caught my slips. If you feel like adding something: what I forgot was Hume's foreshadowing of logical positivism, and all the famous quotes. --Dr. Retard

Sadly (or happily maybe) logical positivism was never something I really studied. -- Evercat 20:18 May 8, 2003 (UTC)