ヒュームの知識論における自然な信念から学知への道程

Abstract

At least one of Hume's aims in his theory of knowledge is, I think, to fix the boundary and establish the method or 'logic' of philosophical inquiry through the examination of the 'principles' or operations of mind producing two kinds of 'natural beliefs' , that is, causal beliefs and beliefs in external existences. I attempted in this paper to examine the connection between the inquiry into the process of forming particular natural beliefs and the establishment of general philosophical view of the world in Hume's theory of knowledge. I tried to support my reading of Hume by mentioning Hume's own passages in his Treatise and his first Enquiry. First I examined Hume's several uses of the word 'imagination' and attempted to fix the concept of imagination as the mental faculty lying at the bottom of all our conceivings of actual and possible existences. This was necessary because imagination in this sense of the word is the very 'principle' of both kinds of natural beliefs. Second I proposed a reading of Hume's argument concerning the processes of producing each kind of natural beliefs and contended that we can make clear the assumptio ns underlying these processes through completing the procedures of inference implicit in them. In conclusion I found the assumptions thus acquired to be those concerning the spatio-temporal features of the world and the manner of changes therein. In these assumptions also consist main features of Hume's philosophical view of the world.