Tuesday, September 23, 2008

David Hume and The Stranger

Consider Hume's "Treatise of Human Nature", which he later extracts and expounds upon the ideas he proposed in Treatise in a shorter essay entitled "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals".

Define core concepts before proceeding to make connections to Meursault.

Also, you can always post a blog after its incept date.

Mr. Whyte

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

ghiugbi

literature2112 said...

"Ghiugbi" makes no sense. Hume wasn't Martian. He was Scottish.

-5

Anonymous said...

Hume’s "Treatise of Human Nature" explores the humans mind and reason. He argues that our ideas and impressions of space and time aren't infinitely divisible. In other words we have a limited space within our brains so our thoughts may only go so far as well. Therefore abstract and complex ideas, like God, are formed from simple ideas caused by simple impressions. General ideas are nothing, but particular ideas attached to a certain word that gives it a wider application. For example we have dofferent applications to how much something is ugly by comapring it to what we call beautiful. Then, our concept of morality is strictly voluntary. He claims that every action must be motivated by sentiment not reason. He exclaims, "It resides in the mind of the person, who is ungrateful. He must, therefore, feel it, and be conscious of it."
Meursault can be compared to Hume’s definition of morality and reason towards God and morality. He believes God does not exist just because people believe in it (Camus 121). Further Meursault’s actions are driven by his desire to live life following his own ideas. His sentiment motivates him to want to kill the Arab; his reason tells him he can turn and walk away but he feels an impulse to kill and commits the action (58-59). There are different degrees in where Meursault’s actions are judged. For him, there is no wrong or harm in going to the beach and enjoying life while his mother has barely died. Society measures these actions as morally unacceptable. This demonstrates how the same action is perceived differently among individuals. Yet it is not reason the one that drives what we decide but the motivation comes from our emotions and inner being.

Anonymous said...

David Hume’s “Treatise of Human Nature” talks about knowledge as being something that is based on things from our experiences. Hume states that our complex ideas are made from many simple ideas, this leads to ideas being similar to experiences, because they both connect with one another. Hume also says that we get our ideas from our senses. This means that humans think the same way all the time, because when a person believes that they are thinking in a very high level, they are actually taking their ideas from the past and uniting them to make another idea. Hume criticizes the metaphysical systems that people use to prove that God does exist. Hume says that these ideas are not something that gives a person a direct impression, so they are not a good reason to force a person to believe them. An example of this is the universe, because no one really knows how big the universe really is. This ties in to Meursault, because Meursault does not force himself to believe in God just because other people believe in God’s existence. This idea comes in through the many ideas that Meursault has, Meursault has ideas of being in a place that he really does not want to be in, believing that life is worthless, not knowing what he wants in life, and wanting to die. All of these little ideas create Meursault’s bigger idea, which is that God does not exist. This proves Hume’s theory correct, because Meursault created his idea bigger idea, God does not exist, from his many smaller ideas.

Anonymous said...

David Hume’s “Treatise of Human Nature” talks about knowledge as being something that is based on things from our experiences. Hume states that our complex ideas are made from many simple ideas, this leads to ideas being similar to experiences, because they both connect with one another. Hume also says that we get our ideas from our senses. This means that humans think the same way all the time, because when a person believes that they are thinking in a very high level, they are actually taking their ideas from the past and uniting them to make another idea. Hume criticizes the metaphysical systems that people use to prove that God does exist. Hume says that these ideas are not something that gives a person a direct impression, so they are not a good reason to force a person to believe them. An example of this is the universe, because no one really knows how big the universe really is. This ties in to Meursault, because Meursault does not force himself to believe in God just because other people believe in God’s existence. This idea comes in through the many ideas that Meursault has, Meursault has ideas of being in a place that he really does not want to be in, believing that life is worthless, not knowing what he wants in life, and wanting to die. All of these little ideas create Meursault’s bigger idea, which is that God does not exist. This proves Hume’s theory correct, because Meursault created his idea bigger idea, God does not exist, from his many smaller ideas.