RATIONALISM IN DAVID HUME

Abstract

To David Hume, human knowledge originates from experience. However, there is a part of this knowledge that isn’t derived from the same source. In this case, for the philosopher, when knowledge doesn’t originate from experience, it comes from the imagination. And this is precisely the case of mathematics that, because it originates independent of experience, carries with it a sure and certain knowledge. In this sense, the objective of this paper is to expound the theory of knowledge in David Hume and how it questions rationalism. As such, I intend to examine the Treatise of Human Nature and the Investigations about Human Understanding, having as a conducting wire the following parts: i) the problem of the formation of human knowledge in general; ii) understand the status of math as knowledge, as well as iii) to approach the Cartesian influence in Hume’s theory through Berkeley’s and Locke’s theories.