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In discussing Hume's view of causality, it has been generally focused on its negative aspects and skeptical results. Whereas, according to naturalistic interpretation, Hume's purpose is to illustrate the nature of human beings and to determine the limits of human understanding. Hume's aim is not to philosophically reject the belief in causally connected, but rather to criticize the sort of philosophical thinking that claim to rationalize them. In this paper, the author intends to provide first the naturalistic explanation of Hume's causality discussion, relying on Kemp Smith's unprecedented interpretation. In explanation kemp smith provided for the functioning of human mind, the origin of the necessary connection idea is an inner feeling that is generalized to reality, and the belief in causality cannot be proved by any argument. The emotional origin of belief in causality, which is not based on reason, is a serious challenge in its acceptance and justification. Therfore the second and main purpose of this article is to examine the mental origin of the necessary connection, then the concept of reason is evaluated from Hume's view to clarify in what sense belief in causality cannot be based on reason. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It seems that in Cartesian thought the possibility of sense experience cannot easily be put forward because of the theoretical foundations of his philosophy. He, in his masterpiece, i.e., Meditations on First Philosophy, from the very beginning tries to erase any sign of sensory world - the main subject-matter of sense experience and its pre-condition - through (ordinary or hyperbolical) doubts. His attack on senses is so giant that until Sixth Meditation they cannot be restored unless through theology by recourse to the non-deceiving God. The restoration upon which there are great differences among scholars. In our paper, we try to show that regarding to the end of Cartesian philosophy as the mastery over nature, to the extent that he explicitly calls his philosophy, "practical" as opposed to the "theoretical" philosophy of Scholastics, we cannot help but accept not only possibility of sense experience but also its necessity. This mastery over nature can only be attained, for human beings, within the realm of sense experience which is the final link among man as the thinking thing and nature as the extended one, through which the Cartesian science is to be established. Now, if sense experiences have remained unexplained in Cartesian thought, Descartes' claim that "our philosophy makes us the lords and masters of the nature" remains unexplained, too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There could be various comparative studies between Kant and Kierkegaard on fields like human knowledge, ethics, faith, art, etc. This paper aims to compare the two philosopher's epistemology through their writings. The main common ground of Kant's and Kierkegaard's epistemology is their belief in the idea of a "fissure" between theory and practice, which constitutes the core of their contemplations on human knowledge. This article shows that Kant's theory of knowledge paved the way for Kierkegaard to describe his notions of the "fissure" between being and thought. Thus, it will be shown that Kant and Kierkegaard have been led to believe in the finitude of human beings in knowledge by this split. Then, it will be demonstrated that Kierkegaard, following Kant, distinguishes "being" from "essence" and "actuality" from "ideality". Finally, we argue that Kant's critique of the traditional proofs of God's existence anticipates Kierkegaard's conflict with natural theology and his idea that traditional demonstrations are useless for a believer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After offering an overview of some of the main themes of Popper’s political thought, the paper argues that his account faces two problems relating to institutions. The first is that while Popper stresses the ‘rational unity of mankind’, and the potential for any of us to furnish criticisms of public policy, it is not clear what institutional means currently exist for this to enable this to take place. Second, Popper has stressed the conjectural character of even our best theories. However, at any point, some theories will have fared better in the face of criticism than others, and they may give us important information about constraints on our actions. At the same time, as ordinary citizens we may not be in a good position to understand the theories in question, let alone appraise the state of the specialised discussion of them. There is, it is suggested, a case for thinking of ways to institutionally entrench such fallible theories, especially in the current setting in which social media play an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]