Exam 10: The Skeptic: David Hume

Who explicitly wrote that skepticism was psychologically impossible?

Who famously visited Hume as he was dying?

Locke held that substance was a complex idea.

Do you believe that Hume is more likely to agree with the philosophy of Plato, or with the philosophy of Epicurus? Explain your answer, outlining the views of all three philosophers as you do so.

Do you agree with Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities? Why or why not? What are two possible objections to this distinction? Do you agree with them or not?

Locke held that all ideas originate in sensation and religion.

Who held that reason was the ground of all knowledge?

If one accepts Hume's account of the degree to which we have knowledge of causation, is science possible? Explain your view fully.

What did Hume once propose should be taxed?

Locke claims that we have no idea of substance.

What can meaningful ideas be traced back to, according to the empirical criterion of meaning?

Can an empiricist coherently believe in God? Explain your answer.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge.

Hume's view of the self is similar to that of a

Does the external world exist, according to Berkeley? If not, how can he account for our common-sense view that it does? If it does, in what form does it exist? That is, is it a materialist world, or not? How can a world exist without being made of material "stuff"?

In what way might Berkeley's idealism support the view that God must exist? Does Berkeley's idealism necessarily support this view, or could one accept it and still be an atheist? Explain your answers to these questions.

Sound is a primary quality.

Berkeley was

Bertrand Russell held that skepticism was logically impossible.

Who claimed that the skeptic wishes to cure the "rashness of the dogmatists"?