Study On Hume's Belief Theory

Hume is representative of Empiricism of modern philosophy. One of his representative is theory of Human Nature, and theory of belief is important to understanding this book and the whole philosophy of Hume. This paper aims to clarify the relationship between faith and knowledge, rationalize the entire development process of epistemology, cause the importance to the belief theory in epistemology, and highlight the affect and revelation of the belief theory. This paper mainly discusses the following four parts:Firstly, discuss the theoretical origin of the belief theory. The belief theory has its theoretical origin. Plato was the first philosopher to explore the definition of knowledge, the relationship between knowledge and belief. Many Theologian and philosopher such as Thomas Aquinas and Calvin tried to prove the guarantee of the belief of the god. Belief theory is further extended in modern Empiricism and Rationalism. But overall, the belief theory before Hume's epistemology was not discussed.Secondly, discuss the basic contents of belief theory. The belief theory of Hume was derived from his classification of knowledge, or rather from the trace of causality, and the three were interlocking. Hume believes that knowledge is divided into two categories, namely: the relationship between concepts and practical issues, knowledge in the second category accounted for the majority of causal relationship. Hume found through analysis that no reason has been based, however, as a natural science foundation. This is because the faith at work. Then this article is the belief theory in the detail that the nature of the belief, origin and function of the belief. Firstly, the nature of faith is a stable impression associated with feeling. Secondly, the impression is the direct cause of faith, the ultimate root is the habit of association. Finally, the role of faith in the concept is simple up to equal status with the impression.Thirdly, discuss impact of the belief theory to traditional knowledge specifically. Traditional truth was"the accordance of proposition and object"from Aristotle. But Hume believed that "there is no truth, only belief". Causal relationship is self-evident in traditional epistemology, but Hume believed that causal relationship was from belief caused by habit, and doubted the causal relationship and its Inevitability. The belief theory causes the huge impact to the whole epistemology, by causing the fatal blow to the traditional truth and causal necessity.Lastly, discuss the effect of Hume's belief theory to the future generations at macro level. The whole traditional epistemology was subverted by the Hume's belief theory, and had a profound influence on later generations. Since then, epistemology is developed along the direction of the integration of traditional epistemology and Hume's belief theory, and it is mainly on the think of the belief and the discussion to the property of the belief from modern philosopher. Undoubtedly it is the left and development of Hume's belief theory. Modern philosophers study belief theory because of the Psychologism treatment to belief theory by Hume.