Hume

[poliphilo]

I don't possess a logical mind.

I know because I was trying to read Hume last night and I was slip-sliding all over the place like it was my first outing on the ice.

Ailz says Hume is easy.

Ailz has a logical mind.

The two essays we're studying for her course are the ones on The Immortality of the Soul and Suicide. As far as I can make out Hume is saying, in both of them, that human beings suffer from an inflated idea of their own importance. Also he gets in some sly digs at the clergy.

I enjoyed the sly digs.

Neither essay was published in Hume's lifetime. They were considered too inflammatory. Too dangerous to their author. When they finally saw the light of day (at the end of the 18th century) the editor surrounded them with dark matter of his own "intended as an antidote to the poison contained in these performances".

A little clear thinking and Authority throws a hissy fit.

Comments

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I don't get Hume. I mean, I appreciate him, but it's very hard work for me to understand him. My brain doesn't like it... And other reads, equally "hard" can somehow just flow naturally and effortlessly into my brain and store themselves as knowledge with no pain and toil on my part. Very strange.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ailz finds him easy- and invigorating. She just can't get enough....

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Hume, Locke, Smith... I just can't get those Brits! Hand me some Voltaire or something; that's much more my style. I'm perhaps just continental to the core, in spite of the tweed and the accent?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm woefully ill-read in philosophy. I think I'm beginning to understand why.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not too keen on it either, really. I prefer literary criticism and other stuff that sort of borders on it but isn't philosophy as such.

Voltaire is a bit of an exception, perhaps because I got so keen on him when reading his short stories as a teenager that he seems somehow familiar...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've read Candide and that's all. I should read more.

I love that smile of his.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Obviously, Hume and Lovecraft would have gotten along splendidly...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's a conversation I'd have enjoyed eavesdropping...

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I rather imagine it would have gone something like this...

"We are insignificant!"
"Yes!"
DOOM, GLOOM
"The sky is falling!"
DOOM, GLOOM
"We are insignificant!"
"Yes!"
DOOM, GLOOM

Repeat ad nauseum

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But I expect it would have been convivial. I can imagine them emptying quite a few bottles of claret or port between them.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely!

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

no, I don't have a logical mind either. It's one of the reasons I have such trouble with math.

And, referencing below, it's probably why I have trouble reading Lovecraft...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm hopeless at math. It scares me.

I don't get Lovecraft. He seems so unsubtle. I like my horror understated.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Well, if not understated the least it could do is sneak up on me.

I am so relieved someone else doesn't *get* Lovecraft. He's always been pointed out to me as 'THE' horror writer, and I just don't like him.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually that keen on any horror writer (except for Poe.) I prefer ghost stories.

But I love horror movies. Anything with zombies in it. I can't explain the inconsistency....

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Spooky stuff is good -

and even though I'm not a Michael Jackson fan, I still love 'Thriller'. I've seen the video a million times and I could watch it a million times more.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thriller is fun.

I like vintage Jackson. For a few years, back in the '80s, he really was "the King of Pop".