Hume tudománytörténeti jelentősége
David Hume’s Importance for the History of Science

Summary/Abstract: David Hume is a towering figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, of the history of philosophy in general, and his contributions are significant in the history of the human sciences too. Here I focus specifically on the significance of his philosophy for the history of science. If looked at from this angle, Hume’s contributions can be summarized in at least two possible ways: they can be read as contributions to the early history of modern human sciences from cognitive psychology to sociology, and as contributions to the metaphysical and epistemological discourse on then-contemporary knowledge-making practices. Here I propose to read his opus magnum, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739/1740) primarily in the first context (along with his Four Dissertations), and the neat philosophical expositions of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) primarily in the second. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) adopts a third perspective of natural history and offers a moral phenomenology that is distinct from both.

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