David Hume, um anatomista da cognição humana: uma análise do livro epistemológico do Tratado

Abstract

In the studies contained within this dissertation it will be found an attempt to read the first book of the Treatise of Human Nature based on the concept of epistemic normativity. Great traditional contemporary readers of Hume already recognize the importance of working with the book in question bearing in mind the relevance of this concept in a way that it is possible to encounter with more than one reading of the humean first epistemological study that has normativity playing a central role. However, we will endeavor to defend a hypothesis that wasn't found in any of the well-known commentaries on Hume in here studied. Thus, although the present work follows an important interpretative contemporary tradition, some of the conclusions that will appear here are not stated, at least in this particular manner, in any other of the studies aforementioned. In this context, the following path will be covered: first, we shall proceed to a conceptual analysis on empiricism, methodology and epistemic normativity, hoping that, with this, a clearer and more refined version of our hypothesis will be then available to us, meaning we will be able to state that it will be argued, in this dissertation, that the first book of the Treatise is mostly a description of the results obtained by the application of the experimental method to human cognition. What is meant by this is that no prescriptive statements concerning which beliefs we ought to give our assent to, or which we ought to abandon, will be found there, except in the fourth part of the book, that is mainly concerned with skepticism. Having in such a way formulated our hypothesis, we will venture to defend it, presenting our reading of almost each section in the book as descriptive of our cognitive psychology, and responding to some scholars that seem to think otherwise. As a form of conclusion, we will then briefly consider some of the consequences of this reading to the naturalism versus skepticism debate amongst Hume's readers, just to point possible entailments of our study in order to try to shed some light on the discussion itself, showing the relevance of reading the Treatise as we have here proposed.