ESSAY ON: The Concept of Certainty: Locke and Hume

Number of Pages 5

This research paper: This is a 5 page paper discussing Locke’s and Hume’s concepts of certainty. In John Locke’s “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (1690) and David Hume’s “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” (1748) both philosophers examine the theory of knowledge and the aspects of ideas, relationships, and certainty. Locke used the different types of knowledge (intuitive, demonstrative, and sensory) to discuss the level of certainty of ideas based on their degree of probability and margin of error. All ideas could then be ranked hierarchically in regards to their degree of certainty. Intuitive and demonstrative knowledge had a different degree of evidence and certainty than did sensory knowledge. Hume, on the other hand, did not believe that anything outside of the sensory field, such as metaphysical discussions, could be considered certain. For Hume impressions were the most vivid elements of knowledge and ideas were less vivid but based on impressions. Ideas could be considered certain only if they were factual and had spatial or temporal relationships or mathematical universality and all other ideas had no certainty as they included doubt. Bibliography lists 5 sources.


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