Monday, May 09, 2011

David Hume's Birthday

Missed it, but here is some snippet reading. Not sure if it is where I got the idea planted but Hume says
I have long entertained a suspicion, with regard to the decisions of philosophers upon all subjects, and found in myself a greater inclination to dispute, than assent to their conclusions. There is one mistake, to which they seem liable, almost without exception; they confine too much their principles, and make no account of that vast variety, which nature has so much affected in all her operations. When a philosopher has once laid hold of a favourite principle, which perhaps accounts for many natural effects, he extends the same principle over the whole creation, and reduces to it every phænomenon, though by the most violent and absurd reasoning.
It should be read for what it is, but to me it is a reminder that all our thought has an emotional bias. Belief in objectivity is in fact an emotional/moral stance.

No comments: