Tag: Empiricism

  • From Passion to Belief

    by Daniel Tippens David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher and empiricist, did not believe that there are any self-evident truths (beyond the trivial “relations of ideas”), nor did he believe that reason is what makes us confident in our beliefs. For him, all knowledge is acquired and justified by experience — observation of the…

  • The Past is [Not] What it is or What it Was

    by Daniel A. Kaufman __ My title is derived from a comment made by our own Mark English, in a recent discussion on his excellent essay on history.  The thought his comment expresses is mistaken, but in the best sort of way, for explaining where it goes wrong helps us to understand something essential –…