Isaac Chan’s Reviews > An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding > Status Update

Note 6/n:
observations or samples. This strikes at the heart of 1 of my thoughts (as I outlined in my review of the 'Abstract') - I would love to see a modern econometrician respond to Hume.

Note 5/n:
propositions are not logically joined - they require a medium (IF one is to hold that they are joined via reason, which Hume does not). My question is whether modern Humean research, or any rationalist philosophers after Hume, has shed any light on this medium.

Millican comments that Hume, understandably, does not mention statistical science as a form of reasoning to infer causation from past ...

Note 4/n:
out the obvious reality that it is highly intuitive for the human mind to infer the latter proposition from the former. And Hume knows it, or else there would be no point in writing this book. Perhaps Hume is using 18th-century English, perhaps Hume's genius IQ made it fundamentally unintuitive for him to deduce causation from past observation - who knows? We move.

Hume points out that the 2 ...

Note 3/n:
out to me that it is far from logical for the latter proposition to follow from the former.

Hume says that it is far from 'intuitive' for the latter proposition to logically follow. I get what he's saying, but I would like to query him on his choice of the word 'intuitive'. I do not wish to squabble over definitions, and in fact I think it is the mark of an unserious thinker to do so, but I would point...

Note 2/n:
what is the foundation of experience?' '...... you mothafucka'

I now firmly understand the demarcation between the 2 propositions: 'Such and such effects have always been conjoined with such and such objects/ events', and 'Such and such effects will always follow from such and such objects/ events'. The latter is always inferred from the former, and in fact it is common sense to do so, but Hume points ...

Note 1/n:
The agenda is clearer to me now, as to why we ask the central question 'Why do we hold that every object in existence must have a cause?' The ever-deeper probing of the foundation of our thought is clear: From 'What is the foundation of all our judgments concerning matters of fact?' 'Cause and effect.' 'Well then, what is the foundation of our judgments of cause and effect?' 'Experience.' 'Well then, ...

Note n/n:

interest, etc: and these concepts can help me succeed in the phenomenal world.

Note 3/n:
hard to understand the phenomenal world, accepting that he/ we can never know the noumena.

Cuz who cares if the noumena might be a naked old guy who struts shamelessly around gym locker rooms and dries his balls with the hand-drying machine - all I care about is that the phenomenal world validates concepts such as the price-specie-flow mechanism, time-tested principles of value investing and compound ...

Note 2/n:
But it is also not difficult to accept the fact that we can never transcend the bounds of experience, and make do with 'rationalisation within experience'. In fact, such acceptance might be the very key to 'practical wisdom' and 'practical knowledge'. So, to me, Hume had already gained the same intuition that Kant later formalized - through his extensive economic and political works, I think he laboured ...

Note 1/n:
More on rationalisation in a world bounded by experience: I find myself becoming more interested in the fact that Hume himself rationalised often, despite expounding the doctrine of skepticism. It seems quite clear to me now, that it is not difficult to accept the conclusion that all our judgments of 'matters of fact' can only stem from fickle experience, and there is nothing certain in this experience.