Once the reader gets past the language and time issues that have passed since Hume's lifetime, the ideas he presents become clear and make a great deal of sense.
Hume uses several main arguments and conclusions in his writing. The first two are the most important, as they seem to set the groundwork for the others. The first is that everyone has impression and ideas about things but that these must be examined closely because they are often false. This seems logical because many things that people do, when looked back on, are found to be not really the best or most logical choice after all.
The second thing that Hume points out is that there are two different kinds of reasoning. One deals with fact and the other with ideas. Facts deal with mathematically-based issues that can be proven, and the other deals with understandings that have been passed down. They appear to be true, but there is no mathematical way to prove why they are true. This is like people who believe, for example, that fruits and vegetables are good for health. This appears to be the case, but there is no mathematical formula that can be used to prove that this belief is true for all people all of the time.
Hume also points out other, smaller bit of information, such as that causation has a great deal to do with his understanding of things (Bongie, 1998). In order to reason, one has to understand why they are reasoning on something. What kind of causation is used relates to the necessity of finding the information. Other points deal with past and future and their resemblance to each other, external objects, the idea of self, and the limits of enquiry. All of these things are important, but not as important as the first two points that Hume makes. This is why the others are not discussed in detail here. Without the first two points and an understanding of them, the other points Hume makes become meaningless.
One individual that should be compared with Hume is Friedrich Nietzsche. The Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Germany in the latter part of the 19th century. He was interested in Christianity and traditional morality, and often challenged the foundations of these issues. He was not that concerned about what the world beyond would be like, but rather had interest in the reality that people live in now, and involved himself in creativity, health, and life. Life-affirmation was a central theme in his philosophy, which will be more thoroughly discussed momentarily.
Nietzsche was born in Rocken bei Lutzen, which is southwest of Leipzig and dominated by farmlands, on the 15th of October of 1844. His grandfathers were ministers in the Lutheran Church, and his father was Rocken's town minister. When Nietzsche was very young, his father passed away from an ailment of the brain, and his younger brother died only six months after that. After this took place, he moved away to another town, Naumburg an der Saale, where he lived for the next eight years, sharing space with not only his mother but his grandmother, his younger sister, and two aunts.
He went on to boarding school after that, and then on to the University of Bonn, where he studied both biblical and classical texts and found himself very interested in what they had to say. At 23 he entered military service, which was required. He was injured, put on sick leave, and eventually went back to the University after the wound he had suffered did not heal properly. He took a job with the faculty of a Swiss University at the age of 24, and from there he worked for some time before eventually leaving the University due to sickness. He collapsed in 1889 and died later that same year.
One of Nietzsche's greatest works was a book entitled Beyond Good and Evil. His concept of what he calls a "will to power" is one of the central themes in his philosophical beliefs, and therefore it is also a recurring theme in the book. When Nietzsche was young and only a budding philosopher, he often admired and was highly influenced by the writings of other philosophers, most notably Arthur Schopenhauer. However, Schopenhauer, like most scientists and philosophers of that day, attributed a "will to live" as being the highest motivational life force that could be found anywhere in nature. Nietzsche also observed that having a "will to live" was not really life affirming enough for him to be comfortable with and that humankind actually...
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