David Hume

Hume was born in Edinburgh i 1711, is counted to be the most prominent amongst the empiristk philosophers. According to him, the philosophy in his time was dominated by meaningless speculations, and it had little to do with the regular man and woman. The philosphy had therefore to be purged from the unsond ideas and illusions and Hume decided to take this job.

METHAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
Hume thought the methaphysical questions to be meaningless.Hume worked primarly in epistemology but could not avoid hold certain methaphysical views. Humes starting point is an analysis of the conent of the consience. He claimed that the consience contains impressions and ideas. And impression is the direct sensual experience of something, for example the experience of heat, the sight of a tree or the smell of a rose. These impressions can be saved and recalled later, but then as ideas.
With starting point in this, Hume defined his method for correct thinking: if one has an idea about something, he should always ask himself what impression causes it.This means reducing all ideas into impressions. Can it not be reduced such, it has to be disclaimed.
Most people will say that a human is the same from brith to death. Hume disagrees.
For example a person, Socarates, is nothing but the sum of the impressions which the ones around him understands/captures him to be. A personal identity does not exists. In a much alike way Hume analyses the law of causality, and calims that there are no laws whatsoever in reality. What we think are laws of causality,are not laws at all, but only our expectations to things. They are not an objective knowledge, but subjective impressions. Knoledge about anything is therefore not possible. And induction aswel is not possible.
He divides utterings into two groups, some are neccesary (which are like words), and others are conditioned (which are like facts).
Hume claims that uttering that neccesarly are true cannot say something about reality, and that conditioned utterings are not neccesarly true in the next moment.

ETHICS
Ethic is about setting norm for correct action. Humes method for correct thinking goes as we have seen about looking for the source of our impression. And what impression is the source for "should" (Is/Should problem)? Hume did not find such an impression. Therefore he claimed that normative utterings are meaningsless and impossible.
Som vi har omtalt tidligere handler etikk om å sette normer for korrekt handling, dvs. gi regler for hvordan man bør oppføre seg. Humes metode for korrekt tenkning går som vi har sett ut på at man alltid må finne det inntrykk som gir opphav til forestillingen. Men hvilket inntrykk ligger til grunn for forestillingen «bør»? Hume kunne ikke finne noe slikt inntrykk. Derfor hevdet han at normative utsagn er meningsløse, og at det ikke er mulig å sette etiske normer. He meant however that descriptive ethic is possible. Hume meant in addition that everyone has an automatic compassion for other humans, a fellow feeling. This characteristic is innate, some kind of instinct, and it is the basis for all moral.
This fellow feeling consists in a fundamental feeling of symphati for other humans. Humes definition of good action is: An actions is good if we can rejyoice about the outcome, even if the action does not consern ourselves.
In contradiction to earlier philosopher, Hums used the word feeling, where the earlier one emphasized the logic and reason. According to Hume one can through thinking rationally come to how one best can come to a goal, but one cannot find out what would be an ethical correct goal. These goals one can find only through feelings and faith.

POLITICS
A putting in order of a society requires some ethical principals. What principals? According to Hume there are no objective norm for right and wrong, except our subjective fellow feeling. And the only reasonable way to organize a society in is to have a system where everyone can express their understanding and be part of the rulership, where the plurality outrules.