David Hume

<p>In the 18th century, philosopher David Hume shook the thinking of the Western world when he challenged the empiricists of his day and claimed that absolute certainty was not actually possible to attain. He claimed that “all knowledge degenerates into probability.” If empiricism was right in claiming that all knowledge comes through our senses, through our experiences, then in fact we can’t be absolutely sure about anything, even things like causality, the laws of nature, and especially religion. David Hume is sometimes known as the most famous skeptic in history because he proposed that reason is a dead end and that there are no ultimate answers. David Hume’s ideas were so influential that Immanuel Kant, usually considered one of the greatest Western thinkers, built his philosophy as a response to Hume’s skepticism.</p>

In the 18^th century, philosopher David Hume shook the thinking of the Western world when he challenged the empiricists of his day and claimed that absolute certainty was not actually possible to attain. He claimed that “all knowledge degenerates into probability.” If empiricism was right in claiming that all knowledge comes through our senses, through our experiences, then in fact we can’t be absolutely sure about anything, even things like causality, the laws of nature, and especially religion. David Hume is sometimes known as the most famous skeptic in history because he proposed that reason is a dead end and that there are no ultimate answers. David Hume’s ideas were so influential that Immanuel Kant, usually considered one of the greatest Western thinkers, built his philosophy as a response to Hume’s skepticism.

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Intro to Philosophy Part 6

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