Analysis Of Thomas Hobbes And David Hume

Regardless of the branch of philosophy that a philosopher is focusing on, whether it be epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, or aesthetics, each one must establish a base from which they will build their specific thought process. It is within the nature of reason, or their signature strategy to approaching logic and observations, that effectively separates one philosopher from the next. Correspondingly, philosophers Thomas Hobbes and David Hume attempt to lay an empirical foundation, rooted deeply in the observations of the physical world. From the apprehension of facts via the senses, both Hobbes and Hume speculate on the nature of moral judgement itself. Immanuel Kant, on the other hand, rejects the experience and empiricism route …show more content…
This introspective and observational form of assessing nature and circumstances is broken into two categories, called Hume’s Fork. On one side, there are relations of ideas, where the majority of them are mathematical truths that are impossible to deny without contradicting. Just as we are taught to assume the Pythagorean Theorem, that is, a-squared plus b-squared equals c-squared, we have never actually come across a perfect, two-dimensional right triangle in nature. Nevertheless, we still accept this statement, as it is “intuitively certain” (Hume, pg. 40). While relations of ideas are incapable of employing the senses and physical earth to back up its conventions, Hume’s matters of fact are acquired entirely through sensory experiences, happening so often they seem to form a mental cause and effect link. To deny matters of fact would not be contradictory, as we cannot prove either side of the statement presented. Using Hume’s example, we cannot prove the proposition that the sun will rise every single morning; it is just a habit that we caught on to long ago via our senses. Therefore, it is equally acceptable to propose that the sun will not rise every …show more content…
While the two philosophers dwell in the present and look toward the future in an attempt to delineate right and wrong for instances later on, Immanuel Kant removes himself from the physical world and worldly, physical motivations. Unlike Hobbes, Kant’s motivation is not only about selfishly saving our own individual well-beings. Unlike Hume, experience and empiricism is not required for Kant, and reason alone can deem something right or wrong without the help of sentiments and emotions. In fact, Kant seems to combine the two aspects of Hume’s fork, by suggesting we can use our experiences to further our reason and our reason to further our experiences. Nevertheless, Kant stands apart from Hobbes and Hume by not using the present to judge the