According to Hume, all the objects of human inquiry and knowledge can be divided into two kinds (and only two kinds). They are 'relations of idea' on the one hand, which are discoverable by reason independent of real existence in the universe, and 'matters of fact' on the other, which are discoverable by experience. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Please contact for permissions.

Hume

What Can we Know?

According to Hume, many nonhuman animals (or beings whom he sometimes calls 'sensible creatures') are analogous to human beings in respects of the body and the mind. We are able to sympathise with an animal in similar ways we sympathise with another human being. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Please contact for permissions.

Inter-Species Sympathy/Empathy

‘Sympathy’ (or what is now often called ‘empathy’) is in Hume’s view a complex mechanism of the human mind which relies on the combined operation of three more fundamental principles: the ‘copy principle’, principle of ‘association of ideas’, and the principle of more vivid perceptions ‘enlivening’ less vivid associated perceptions. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Please contact for permissions.

Sympathy/Empathy

What Hume calls the ‘association of ideas’ is a fundamental operating ‘principle’ (i.e. mechanism) of the human mind. The principle operates by resemblance, by contiguity, and by causes and effect. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Please contact for permissions.

Association of Ideas

Hume divides all 'perceptions' (i.e. experiences) into 'impressions' and 'ideas'. This theory device gives him a more finely grained account of the operations of the mind than either Locke or Descartes have. Impressions are original 'perceptions of the human mind' which are vivid, forceful, strong or lively. Ideas are the 'faint images' of the original impressions. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Please contact for permissions.

Impressions and Ideas

If Hume is right in arguing that reason alone is not sufficient to generate moral judgements that distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong, then what are the missing ingredients? This question brings us to Hume's positive account on the foundations of human morality. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Please contact for permissions.

Moral Foundations

According to Hume, reason alone can never determine the distinction between moral good and evil. We can never find out whether an act is morally right or wrong just by using our reasoning. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Please contact for permissions.

Moral Motivations

Hume has said some very provocative things about the roles of, and the relations between, reasons and passions. "We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of passions, and can never pretend to be any other office than to serve and obey them." What is Hume's arguments for the claims he made? Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Please contact for permissions.

Reason vs Passion

If Descartes is the father of modern philosophy, Hume is the person who gave shape to the contemporary philosophical world. First by querying Descartes' theories about knowledge, and then developing his own modest account of knowledge, and later his theories of ethics and aesthetics.