Reason, Passion, and Action: the Third Condition of the Voluntary

Philosophy ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 70 (273) ◽  
pp. 453-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. D. J. Chappell
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
The Third

1. ‘Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can pretend to no other office, but to serve and obey them.’ (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature (THN) 2.3.3) Unfortunately, Hume uses ‘reason’ to mean ‘discovery of truth or falsehood‘ (THN 3.1.1) as well as discovery of logical relations. So suppose we avoid, as Hume I think does not, prejudging the question of how many ingredients are requisite for action, by separating these two claims out:A. Reason (= logical powers) is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.B. Reason (= belief(s)) is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

Truth, Happiness and Obligation: the Moral Philosophy of William Wollaston

Philosophy ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 51 (195) ◽  
pp. 35-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Tweyman
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Philosopher ◽  
Theories Of Truth ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
The Third ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Opening Section

William Wollaston, a leading British moral philosopher of the eighteenth century, has fallen into obscurity primarily, I believe, for two reasons. In the first place, it is usually supposed that Wollaston's moral theory was refuted by Hume in the opening section of the third book of the Treatise of Human Nature. Secondly, Wollaston's theory, or parts thereof, have been assigned pejorative labels such as ‘odd’ and ‘strange’, which create the impression that it is not a moral philosophy which can be taken seriously. In this paper I attempt to deal with the second of these reasons by setting forth what I take to be Wollaston's meaning in certain key sections of his work, The Religion of Nature Delineated, especially in so far as they help to shed light on his theories of truth and happiness, and the relation of these to his theory of obligation. Wollaston will be found to be a moral philosopher with important things to say, and therefore to be a moral philosopher with a theory worth taking seriously. If I am correct in my interpretation of Wollaston, then it can also be established that Hume has not refuted Wollaston in the opening section of Book III of the Treatise. But here my attention will be confined entirely to Wollaston's own moral theory.

Parsing the Frost

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Levinson ◽  
Marjorie Levinson
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Frost Formation ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Sensory Register

The reading of Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” at the center of this chapter opens up the cognitive and aesthetic stakes of seeing writing. It does so by analyzing the encounter with visible script, an experience that can be understood as a reworking of a previously unrecognized source, the scene of writing in David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 4. Just such an encounter is the activity in play with the figure of the window frost and with the entire poem. Broadly speaking, sentence formation is seen as analogous to frost formation. In this way, the discussion seeks to shift the sensory register of criticism of the poem from its traditional emphasis on the acoustic to a new appreciation of the visible.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Lewens
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Potential Functions ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
The Third ◽  
Current State ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Compare And Contrast

Many evolutionary theorists have enthusiastically embraced human nature, but large numbers of evolutionists have also rejected it. It is also important to recognize the nuanced views on human nature that come from the side of the social sciences. This introduction provides an overview of the current state of the human nature debate, from the anti-essentialist consensus to the possibility of a Gray’s Anatomy of human psychology. Three potential functions for the notion of species nature are identified. The first is diagnostic, assigning an organism to the correct species. The second is species-comparative, allowing us to compare and contrast different species. The third function is contrastive, establishing human nature as a foil for human culture. The Introduction concludes with a brief synopsis of each chapter.

Hume's Skepticism in the Treatise of Human Nature.

1988 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 263
Author(s):  
Michael Williams ◽  
Robert J. Fogelin
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature

scholarly journals Review of The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1739-1841 [by Stephen Gaukroger]

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Abou-Nemeh
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Human Science ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The Third ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Oxford University Press

This compelling and erudite book examines the emergence of the human sciences in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and explores the rise of sensibility in studies of human nature and behavior. The Natural and the Human is the third installment of Stephen Gaukroger’s massive project that investigates the ways in which scientific values were consolidated into a dominant program of inquiry and shaped notions of modernity in the West from the thirteenth century onward. (The first two volumes, The Emergence of a Scientific Culture and The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility, were published by Oxford University Press in 2006 and 2010, respectively.) <br>

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