Hume and Descartes: Similarities and Differences

Hume and Descartes: Shared Ideas

Similarities between Hume and Descartes:

1. Hume, a learned individual, shares with Descartes the ideal and pursuit of autonomous reason—a reason liberated from all authority, serving as the sole guide in understanding reality, morality, and societal theories.
2. Both Descartes' rationalism and Hume's empiricism share a concern for the problem of knowledge: reason, nature, scope, and limits. They place the theme of knowledge at the center of their philosophies.
3. The emergence of both philosophies is closely connected with modern science. Hume applied Newton's physics method to the study of human nature. His greatest aspiration was, as he stated, to become the Newton of moral sciences.

Key Differences: Rationalism vs. Empiricism

Differences:

1. Ultimately, rationalism and empiricism are defined and contrasted by their different approaches to the origin of knowledge. Empiricism maintains that all our knowledge ultimately derives from sensory experience, while rationalism asserts that the mind possesses innate ideas and principles not acquired from experience. For empiricism, reason operates within the narrow confines of experience.
2. While rationalism considered mathematics the ideal, archetypal science and adopted the deductive method, empiricism leans towards positive and experimental sciences. These sciences start with empirical observation of facts, and induction is the method employed: scientific laws are generalizations from numerous empirically observed cases.
3. Rationalism attributes absolute and objective value to rational knowledge, believing it capable of transcending experience. Empiricism, however, tends towards phenomenalism and skepticism, affirming reason's inability to surpass the limitations of experience.
4. It is crucial to note British empiricism's concern with "practical" philosophy—political, moral, and religious aspects. In this regard, Locke and Hume embrace all the ideals of the Enlightenment, which can be summarized as an attempt to illuminate the foundations of reason in political, moral, and religious matters.