Hume, Father of Postmodernism and Anti-rationalism—Part 1

The Autonomist ^ | 10/10/07 | Reginald Firehammer

[Hank Kerchief]

PHILOSOPHY PING

(If you want on or off this list please freepmail me.)

Hank

[Borges]

Why not go back to Bishop Berkley?

[wastedyears]

Firehammer? I want a cool last name like that.

[lafroste]

Ping for later

[cinives]

There’s only one problem; rationalism underpins atheism, and therefor enables socialism, communism, and things like death camps and medical experiments on humans like the Nazis.

The only savings of the human race is the Judeo-Christian ethic.

[litehaus]

"Firehammer? I want a cool last name like that."

Well, as long as we are talking philosophy, lemme throw at you -- Ludwig Feurerbach....

[joeystoy]

ping

[Borges]

Thought you might like this.

[Hank Kerchief]

While both Berkeley and Hume are today wrongly classified at empericists (they were in fact idealists), Hume’s “philosophy” is much more rich in the bad ideas that would effect the future of philosophy. The positivists, for example, were strongly influenced by Hume, but mostly dismissed Berkeley, I think.

Regi

[shrinkermd]

Great post. thanks

[shrinkermd]

Great post. thanks

[wastedyears]

Lol

[Varda]

bump for later read

[Borges]

Richard Gere said that Bishop Berkley was his favorite philosopher. So you have Hume-> Positivists vs. Berkley-> Gere.

But seriously though Berkley was the first philosopher to make the claim that language can be used fora variety of things besides describing things. He was extremely important.

[Borges]

Also...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1179639/posts

[Hank Kerchief]

This article criticizes rationalism, which Hume reintroduced to philosophy. Rationalism, in philosophy, has a very specific meaning—it does not mean “being rational” or “using reason;” it is the philsophical mistake of believing truth can be arrived at by “reason alone,” without reference to that reality we are conscious of.

I think what you are calling “rationalism” is what nowadays we mean by rationalization.

Hank

[PeterPrinciple]

For Hume, “ideas” are like fuzzy pictures or representations of what we directly experience. The idea “dog” or “table” is just an incomplete “picture” of a dog or table recalled from memory.

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For some reason this reminds me of Clinton and his famous “depends on what is is.” Words used to have very clear meanings.

[B-Chan]

(It's Edmund Burke)

[HockeyPop]

later read