Find Truth And Construct Truth-A Comparative Study Between Leibniz And Hume’s Classification Of The Truth

The classification of truth is an important issue in early modern epistemology,and its origin can be traced to the Descartes’ distinction between material substance and spiritual substance.Locke was the first people who proposed two correspondences, the correspondence between ideas and their objects, and the correspondence between different ideas. For Leibniz there are tow kinds of truth: truth of reasoning, and truth of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary, and their opposite is impossible; those of fact are contingent, and their opposite is possible. David Hume fully accepted Leibniz’s classification, for him all the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into relations of ideas and matters of fact, the former are certain, and the latter are possible.Leibniz and Hume’s classifications of truth are truths of very similar, but they treat different kinds of truth with completely different attitudes. Leibniz attaches great importance to truth of reasoning, and considers it as the foundation of all truth; but Hume believes that relations of ideas are just pure form, and they are not true knowledge. According to Leibniz’s Monadology, the probability of the truths of fact is not absolute, and this probability is just for human-beings whose cognitive ability is limited; but for God, the original monad, truths of fact are necessary as well as truths of reasoning. In other words, truths of fact are those truths of reasoning which haven’t shown themselves, but their inevitabilities exist objectively. The cognitive ability of human is limited, but the monads of human are full of desire and power which tend to imitate God. We need to try our best to find the sufficient reason for the truths of fact,then we can find the inevitability of truth which exist objectively. Hume treats matters of fact with a negative attitude, and he believes that the main foundation of matters of fact is causality, but causality has neither the necessity nor objectivity, it is only human habitual association. Therefore, the necessity of matters of fact is not objective,the only thing we can do is making credible judgments for future events according to the past habits, namely constructing the truths.Leibniz and Hume treat different kinds of truths differently, the reason is that the starting point of Leibniz’s philosophy is a metaphysical hypothesis – Monadology;but Hume’s starting point is the fundamental principle of empiricism which consider all ideas as the copies of impressions, and the impressions can only come from sensory experience, so our knowledge is nothing else than what we experience.Therefore, Hume rejects any metaphysical assumptions, which are precisely the foundation of Leibniz’s philosophy. Their different philosophical starting point is onbehalf of the fundamental difference between rationalism and empiricism philosophy in early modern of Europe.