Enquiry on Human Understanding Simplified on Superphysics

The Importance of Metaphysics Research

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⁶ If these studies were useless, they shouldn’t be despised since they are a harmless pleasure.

The Origin of Ideas

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There is a big difference between the mind’s perceptions:

when a man feels the pain of excessive heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth
when he afterwards recalls to his memory this sensation, or anticipates it by his imagination.

These faculties may mimic the perceptions of the senses.

Proofs

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All the materials of thinking are derived either from our outward or inward feeling.

The mixture and composition of these belongs alone to the mind and will.

All our ideas are copies of our impressions. I have 2 proofs for this.

Association of Ideas

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There is a connection between:

the different thoughts or ideas of the mind
their appearance to the memory or imagination

They introduce each other with method and regularity.

Any thought which breaks in on the regular tract or chain of ideas is immediately remarked and rejected.

Doubts on the Mind's Operations

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²⁰ All the objects of human reason is divided into 2 kinds:

Relations of Ideas

This includes Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic – every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain.

Doubts on the Mind's Operations

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PART 2

²⁸ But we have not yet attained any tolerable satisfaction with regard to the question first proposed. Each solution still gives rise to a new question as difficult as the foregoing, and leads us on to farther enquiries.

Skeptical Solution to these Doubts

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The passion for philosophy, like that for religion, aims at:

the correction of our manners and
extirpation of our vices.

But imprudence can push the mind towards that side which already draws too much.

Custom

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Custom is the great guide of human life.

It is alone that principle which:

renders our experience useful to us
makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events which have appeared in the past.

Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses.

Custom

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⁴² We may add force to these experiments by others of a different kind, in considering the effects of contiguity as well as of resemblance.

Distance diminishes the force of every idea, and that, upon our approach to any object; though it does not discover itself to our senses; it operates upon the mind with an influence, which imitates an immediate impression.

Probability

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There is no such thing as Chance, only our ignorance of the real cause of any event.

There is certainly a probability, which arises from a superiority of chances on any side; and according as this superiority encreases, and surpasses the opposite chances, the probability receives a proportionable encrease, and begets still a higher degree of belief or assent to that side, in which we discover the superiority.

The Idea of Consequential Connection

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Math’s great advantage over the moral sciences is that its ideas are sensible.

This makes them always clear and determinate.

The smallest distinction between them is immediately perceptible.

The same words express the same ideas, without ambiguity or variation.

The Idea of Consequential Connection

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But there is another method to avoid this conclusion.

When any natural object or event is presented, it is impossible for us, by any sagacity or penetration, to discover or even conjecture, without experience:

Liberty and Necessity (Freedom and Consequence)

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It might seem very easy to give exact definitions of the words used in reasoning. But in reality, it is very difficult.

Past Present and Future

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The conjunction between motives and voluntary actions is as regular and uniform as that between the cause and effect in any part of nature.

This regular conjunction has been universally acknowledged among mankind, and has never been disputed, either in philosophy or common life.

Freedom and Consequence

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Part 2

It is very common for people to refute a philosophical hypothesis by saying that it will have dangerous consequences to religion and morality.

Opinions that lead to absurdities are certainly false. But opinions are not false because of their dangerous consequences.

Reason of Animals

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Our reasonings on matter of fact are based on a kind of Analogy.

This Analogy leads us to expect the same events from any cause, which we have observed to result from similar causes.

The Doctrine of Miracles

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The doctrine of miracles is not significant.

But Dr. Tillotson argues against the reality of miracles. His argument is the most concise, elegant, and strong against miracles.

The authority of Christian scriptures is founded merely in the testimony of the apostles.

Miracles -- Enquiry on Human Understanding Simplified

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Part 2

The testimony of a miracle might be the entire proof of it. The falsehood of that testimony would be a real prodigy.

But there never was a miraculous event established on so full an evidence.

Providence and a Future State

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¹⁰² My friend loves sceptical paradoxes. He advanced many principles which I do not approve of.

The Doctrine of Epicurus

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But when philosophers, who pretend to neglect authority, and to cultivate reason, hold the same discourse, I pay them not, I own, the same obsequious submission and pious deference.

Academic (Skeptical) Philosophy

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Part 1

The most philosophical reasonings have been on proving the existence of a Deity, and refute the fallacies of Atheists.

Yet most religious philosophers still dispute whether anyone can be so blinded as to be a speculative atheist. How shall we reconcile these contradictions?

Academic (Skeptical) Philosophy

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It may seem a very extravagant attempt of the sceptics to destroy reason by argument and ratiocination.

Yet is this the grand scope of all their enquiries and disputes.