PHILOS 25B Lecture Notes - Lecture 32: Baruch Spinoza, Barry Stroud, David Hume
Document Summary
Aims of the: even though our beliefs about metaphysical issues are not justified, we still need to provide an account about why we have these beliefs, e. g. we cannot help but believe in causality, an external world, etc. Hume wants to show that there is a great deal that humans are incapable of grasping. God exists, the nature of mind, the nature of substance, etc. He thinks these questions cannot be answered. Previous philosophers had not raised the question of whether we can know these things in the first place: descartes, spinoza, and leibniz offered answers to many metaphysical questions. Berkeley and locke also offered arguments for the existence of god. Hume is one of three major early modern philosophers to raise this question. The other two are locke (to some extent) and kant: locke"s essay concerning human understanding, kant"s critique of pure reason. E. g. beliefs about causality, external reality, future, etc: positive project.
