Anthony Gottlieb:
"...Then there is (David) Hume’s naturalism, by
which I mean something different from the Greek “naturalism” mentioned earlier.
Here I mean Hume’s determination to see man as wholly a part of nature and
fundamentally similar to other creatures—that is, as an animal among other
animals. This type of naturalism informs his treatment of our cognitive
faculties, our moral sense, and, in a way, of the phenomenon of religion, which
is, for him, something to be explained rather than justified. In the case of
our cognitive faculties, his approach is, tellingly, the opposite of, say, that
of Hobbes or Leibniz. They say: well, such-and-such can’t count as knowledge,
because even animals can do that. But Hume says: animal knowledge is
such-and-such, so ours is, too..."
c 1909
Artist: Clarence F. Underwood (1871 - 1929)