O papel do discurso no assentimento dos juízos históricos na filosofia de David Hume

Abstract

It is our aim to elucidate the role and importance of discourse in David Hume’s theory of knowledge and his project of building a science of man according to the pat-terns of Newtonian physics. Since the historical judgments are presented as important examples to point out the function of language in Hume’s work, an investigation con-cerning the limits of belief in historical judgments will be made. Moreover, it will be discussed what would motivate man, according to Hume, to give assent or not to such judgments. In this work, the textual analysis of the author is adopted as method. So, we examine Hume’s theory of perceptions, the problem of causality and the question of beliefs. The work can be divided in two parts. The first part deals with classical concepts of Hume’s philosophy and ends up providing theoretical framework for the second part of the work. The second part deals directly with historical judgments and belief in them, attacking superstition and miracles. Later we present the reason accord-ing to which the history can be sustained as the main route that Hume indicates for the establishment of his philosophical-scientific project: history as an object of empirical demarcation in order to open possibilities for intellectual advances.