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

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it feels like we can reach any radical philosophical conclusion of our fancy as long as we can think of sufficiently neat definitions.

Note 3/n:
free will - do I even know how crushing it is to REALLY understand the implications of determinism? The only outcome can be a futile devastation like Sergeant Slick. I must be like Rex and Cody - ignorant of the truth (whatever it may be), but focused on worldly missions to achieve worldly success.

Also, much of Hume's arguments regarding liberty and necessity are obviously just playing around with ...

Note 2/n:
discussions, I reflected on how the problem of free will has really never been a foremost philosophical interest of mine. It is also fitting that I watched Ep16 - Season 1 of 'The clone wars' yesterday, with the profound opening crawl 'Truth enlightens the mind, but won't always bring happiness to your heart'. I feel like there is really nothing much to gain with too much penetration into the problem of ...

Note 1/n:
According to many sources, Hume is obviously a compatibilist, so idk why tf Millican notes here that Hume 'is showing that his determinist worldview is compatible with morality'. I read Hume's arguments until I fell asleep last night and I still don't know how this determinism is compatible with morality, if every action that a person will ever do is already predetermined before his birth.

Through these...

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other editors by miles. He put in the effort to guide the reader section by section, and his notes are self-referencing.

No wonder I couldn't understand 'On liberty' and the Nicomachean ethics.

Note 5/n:
'Nicomachean ethics'. The explanatory notes and introduction by Millican are heads and shoulders above the Mill book. This is unacceptable - I would've thought OWC had a central editor committee that ensures consistent quality across all their books. The Enquiry is much shorter than the Mill and the Aristotle volumes which allows for more room for expert commentary, but still, Millican outshines the...

Note 4/n:
attribute a breakdown in some expected factor return pattern (e.g. the value factor earning me a negative excess return in a given year) to a breakdown in the uniform rule, by chance - I don't usually assume a contrary cause, like value stocks suddenly becoming less risky than growth stocks.

Finally, I compared my copies of Oxford World's Classics 'Enquiry', 'On liberty and other essays' and ...

Note 3/n:
objects) and thus the doctrine of necessity. I get it.

I'm not sure if I agree with Hume's argument that the vulgar commonly attribute uncertainty in events to contingency in the causes, whereas philosophers know that they are due to contrariety in the causes. When I see the clock stopping, yes I assume some defect (a contrary cause); but in the uncertain spheres like the financial markets, I commonly ...

Note 2/n:
explain/ predict empirical phenomena, and not wasting our time with the futile endeavour of speculating about the underlying metaphysics of things.

Humorously, I am currently unsure why Hume has chosen to go into this multi-page ramble about the uniformity of human nature, just to argue that people indeed have become accustomed to human nature's uniformity (as they have to the uniformity of other ...

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I feel indignant at Hume now, as he labels the vulgar as 'those who take things at first appearances' (I recall this accusation of the vulgar in the Treatise as well) - because zooming out, I feel like there's no conceptual difference between the 'vulgar' and instrumentalists, of which Hume subscribed to. They are both about accepting events and phenomena as they ARE and as they pertain as tools to ...