Traité de la nature humaine
- Langue:
- anglais
- État:
- Œuvre complète
- Paternité:
- Écrite par l'auteur
- État du texte:
- Aucun bruit de numérisation détecté (mesure automatique sur tout le texte, non vérifiée à la main)
- Étendue:
- ~240 000 mots · 1 130 passages
Citer cette œuvre
- APADavid Hume. (n.d.). A Treatise of Human Nature [Traité de la nature humaine]. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature
- MLADavid Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature [Traité de la nature humaine]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature.
- ChicagoDavid Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature [Traité de la nature humaine]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature.
Référence de l’édition reproduite. SigPhi est la reproduction numérique. Année, éditeur et traducteur sont indiqués lorsqu’ils sont connus ; « n.d. » signale une année inconnue.
De quoi il s'agit
Le premier livre de Hume et le plus radical : l'origine des idées dans les impressions, la critique de la causalité, la négation d'un moi substantiel, et la thèse que la raison est esclave des passions.
Contexte et histoire
Il le publia en 1739-1740, à peine plus de vingt ans, et presque personne ne le lut : il écrivit lui-même qu'il « tomba mort-né des presses ». Il en réécrivit les parties dans les Enquêtes, plus brèves et plus aimables, et demanda expressément sur le tard qu'on prît celles-ci pour sa position, non le Traité. La postérité n'en a pas tenu compte, et c'est le Traité qu'on lit de lui.
Contexte éditorial, non une source citable : contrairement aux passages de l'œuvre, ces données ne peuvent pas être vérifiées dans le corpus.
Nothing is more usual and more natural for those, who pretend to discover anything new to the world in philosophy and the sciences, than to insinuate the praises of their own systems, by decrying all those, which have been advanced before them. And indeed were they content with lamenting that ignorance, which we still lie under in the most important questions, that can come before the tribunal of human reason, there are few, who have an acquaintance with the sciences, that would not readily agree with them. It is easy for one of judgment and learning, to perceive the weak foundation even of those systems, which have obtained the greatest credit, and have carried their pretensions highest to accurate and profound reasoning. Principles taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduced from them, want of coherence in the parts, and of evidence in the whole, these are every where to be met with in the systems of the most eminent philosophers, and seem to have drawn disgrace upon philosophy itself. Nor is there required such profound knowledge to discover the present imperfect condition of the sciences, but even the rabble without doors may, judge from the noise and clamour, which they hear, that all goes not well within. There is nothing which is not the subject of debate, and in which men of learning are not of contrary opinions. The most trivial question escapes not our controversy, and in the most momentous we are not able to give any certain decision. Disputes are multiplied, as if every thing was uncertain; and these disputes are managed with the greatest warmth, as if every thing was certain. Amidst all this bustle it is not reason, which carries the prize, but eloquence; and no man needs ever despair of gaining proselytes to the most extravagant hypothesis, who has art enough to represent it in any favourable colours.…