History of Philosophy II

Picking up with Berkeley we discussed the nature of mind (nous) and the mind of God. What worried Berkeley was that Locke's materialism would lead people to abandon belief in God and society would become selfish and materialistic. I can't help note that he was right about that especially with regard to western Europe. Hume in a matter of speaking makes things worse when he points out that the reason Berkeley's argument against Locke succeeds - belief in material substance we cannot sense is contradictory - also applies to Berkeley's own conclusion that the mind of God is what sustains the universe. (I am always about in the quad and that is why the tree continues to be.) Hume's skepticism (scepticism in British English) destroys our confidence in God, necessity, cause and effect, the thing in itself, the persistent self, and many other brilliant things. So Hume is the last of the great British Empiricists and perhaps the greatest philosopher to write in English so far. In preparation for the next class I looked at Hume's main argument against Metaphysics. The a priori, a posteriori, synthetic, and analytic types of information that we have. He argues we cannot have synthetic a priori information and so metaphysics is impossible. My quiz question is do you think metaphysics is possible? And next class we look to see if Kant answered Hume.