Hume's Science of Human Nature
Hume's Science of Human Nature Hume believed human nature to be the proper focus of the philosopher because its first principles necessarily carry over to every human endeavor, cognitive and conative alike. A science of human nature affords fundamental insight not only into such domains as morals Wayne Waxman, "David Hume". aesthetics, and politics, but "Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion," which "are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties". Situating himself in the line of British empiricist thinkers extending from Francis Bacon and John Locke, Hume restricted the investigation of human nature to evidence gleaned from "careful and exact experiments, and the observation of those particular effects. which result from its different circumstances and situations" It constitutes a science insofar as we "must endeavou...