The Justification of David Hume's Notion About The Relationship Between Thought and Emotion in Human Nature

Abstract

As it will be remembered, God, the subject of philosophy in the Middle Ages, has left its place to "nature" since the 17th century. This comprehensive theoretical change, which provides the description of reality, has led to the formation of a worldview independent of metaphysical, theological and political references in many fields such as knowledge, morality, human and society. Especially since the main interest of the Scottish Enlightenment was the natural history of man, Hume focused on human nature and tried to produce his thoughts from here as the category of the subject rather than the object. Hume, with his understanding of philosophy, which has an important place in the history of philosophy with his critical attitude, and which connects science and morality to emotions, has also become one of the most important representatives of Enlightenment thought with this foundation. Hume, unlike the rationalists, placed the science of human nature, which is the initiating power of our actions, at the center of all sciences. According to Hume, if human nature is meticulously researched and the right results are obtained from this research, it becomes possible to predict what a person has done in the past, present and even in the future, based on the results in question. According to Hume, even mathematics, natural philosophy and natural religion depend on human science. Because the way of all of these fields is to get to know the person. Hume's views on human nature and history are based on two basic assumptions: First, there is an unchanging, uniform nature in human beings. Second, if a science of human nature is to be established, its foundations and method must be based on experience and observation. In this direction, Hume stated that the aim of his philosophy is to “abandon the distracting and tedious methods followed until now”, “to march directly to the capital city instead of capturing a castle or village on the border”, that is, as determined “to the center of the sciences, to the very nature of human nature that was once superior to all”. According to Hume, instead of the fruitless discussions of previous philosophies, one should focus on the science of human nature and try to fully grasp the scope and power of human understanding. Because “There is no important question whose answer is not within the scope of human science. Also, without knowing this science, there is not a single question we can answer definitively.” Hume's basing the causality of human knowledge on human nature and experience in terms of its source and limits has deeply affected the philosophical, religious and metaphysical teachings that claimed reality/truth after him. Based on his works A Treatise of Human Nature and An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, this study is based on Hume's understanding of emotion-thought and human nature, which produces ideas in many fields of social sciences. aims to present it within the limits of the human mind.