Because Hume drew correct conclusions from very little information (relative to what it took for Science to catch up), and I want to learn how to do that.
Qiaochu_Yuan has a point, but Hume was conspicuously right about so many things that almost everyone around him was wrong about, I think there might indeed be some “Humeness” having an effect going on there. Maybe: unusual good rationality. Or maybe he was a plant from our simulators.
It’s not clear that Hume having drawn correct conclusions from very little information comes from any essential Humeness that you should be trying to emulate. If the set of reasonable-sounding answers to the kinds of questions philosophers like Hume were thinking about is small enough, you’d expect that out of a sufficiently large pool of philosophers some of them would get it mostly right by sheer luck (e.g. Democritus and atoms). You’d need evidence that Hume was doing very well even after adjusting for this before he becomes worth studying.
(I say this knowing almost nothing about Hume—I last took a philosophy course over 8 years ago—and so if it’s obvious that Hume was doing very well even after adjusting for the above then sure, study Hume.)
Because Hume drew correct conclusions from very little information (relative to what it took for Science to catch up), and I want to learn how to do that.
Good answer.
Qiaochu_Yuan has a point, but Hume was conspicuously right about so many things that almost everyone around him was wrong about, I think there might indeed be some “Humeness” having an effect going on there. Maybe: unusual good rationality. Or maybe he was a plant from our simulators.
What about Epicurus.
It’s not clear that Hume having drawn correct conclusions from very little information comes from any essential Humeness that you should be trying to emulate. If the set of reasonable-sounding answers to the kinds of questions philosophers like Hume were thinking about is small enough, you’d expect that out of a sufficiently large pool of philosophers some of them would get it mostly right by sheer luck (e.g. Democritus and atoms). You’d need evidence that Hume was doing very well even after adjusting for this before he becomes worth studying.
(I say this knowing almost nothing about Hume—I last took a philosophy course over 8 years ago—and so if it’s obvious that Hume was doing very well even after adjusting for the above then sure, study Hume.)
This seems to be the case.