Henry Imler June 30th, 2005

Here are some notes from Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume on what he called “Relation of Ideas” and “Matters of Fact.”

• Every idea that is intuitively or demostratively certain.
• Examples are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and other math, Logic
• Discoverable by thought - don’t rely of world being a certain way
• Demonsratively certain
• True regardless of experiance
• a priori to experiance
• Nessisarilly true
• They are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without thier dependance on what is existant in the universe

• contingently true
• a posteriori to experiance
• The contrary of every mater of fact is possible (does not have to happen though)
• True contingent upon how the world happens to be.
  Science
• Our knowledge of Matters of Fact beyond our immediate experiance relies on Cause and Effect

Relation of Ideas are:

• Uncontradictory
  For Example:
  • 3 X 5 = 1/2 X 30 - Is always true
  • 3 x 5 > 1/2 X 30 - Can never be true

On the other hand, with Matters of Fact it is:

• Possible to have contradiction
  For Example
  • Case A: The Sun will rise tommorow - Can happen
  • Case B: The Sun will not rise tommorow - Can happen (not likely, but it is possible

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• Notes
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