Talk:David Hume

The design argument

Part of this section sounds opinionated, the phrase “many are convinced Hume killed the argument for good” uses a weasel word and makes it POV, I think it’s enough to leave it as a classical criticism, I’m going to cut out the “and though the…argument for good.” Part.

Gender views

Hume had some pretty outrageous views on gender and women, I didn't find anything about that in the article. It might be a good idea to include, if nothing else then to show how one perhaps shouldn't accept Everything a 'great mind' says... (also I believe he does generalize and go against his own is-ought rules there, when saying that because women are made to feel shame, society ought to keep making women feel shameful)

That is from the section on chastity, isn't it? Hume didn't violate the is-ought rule there; he was describing an "is" and not an "ought". He was talking about why it is that all human societies levy such a stigma on flirtarious women. He said that men get very possessive about their property and don't like to think that a child may not be their own, so they expect women to be modest and reserved. I think that was a reasonable explanation. You may disagree, but I don't see how it's outrageous.

Exactly. Hume was using his moral psychology to explain observable social phenomena. It's called A Treatise of Human Nature for a reason.

Hume and Religion

It said Hume held notoriously ambiguous views of Christianity. While it his clear that his arguments against knowledge, design, and miracles, do challenge Christianity, Hume has not expressed any positive views of Christianity.

Hume could have been an agnostic, deist, atheist, or anywhere between those. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.109.116.30 (talk) 19:34, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

This should be noted in the opening of the article. While to say Hume's views of Christianity were ambiguous rather than negative is less controversial, its less accurate. And this should be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.109.116.169 (talk) 01:03, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

induction not evolutionary

The claim at the end of the problem of induction section that

"This is the closest thing possible during his (pre-Darwinian) time to an evolutionary account of our inductive tendencies, and Hume here has lit on a central feature in any properly atheistic Science of Man, placing him firmly in the naturalist tradition of great thinkers."

seems to be POV espescially without a source It is also innaccurate as it seems to suggest some innate ideas about induction which contradicts hume's blank slate idea of the mind. We may well read evolution into his account and he probably would have too had he known of it but there's no indication that this occurred to him.

Religion: Secondary source

I have removed the following:

Nevertheless, he was capable of writing in the introduction to his The Natural History of Religion that "The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author". Hume affirms this through the Law of Causality, writing, "I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that something could arise without a cause." He writes at the end of the essay: "Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they are anything but sick men's dreams", and "Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgement appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject".^{[citation needed]}

I can't find this stuff in Hume. Apart perhaps from the letters reference, all the other quotes seem to come from the writers collected in "Hume on natural religion", by S. Tweyman[1]. Myrvin (talk) 08:25, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

parts are quoted in a RS: Roy Porter. Rjensen (talk) 12:15, 22 November 2011 (UTC)