DESCRIPTION: Adam Grzeliński is a Polish historian of philosophy and professor of humanities at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (UMK). He specializes in modern British philosophy, aesthetics, and epistemology. In the article in question, the author notes that commentators on David Hume's thought disagree on its coherence and often claim that it is a collection of skeptical doubts directed at 17th-century metaphysics of substance. One of the most interesting problems is the alleged discrepancy between the phenomenological approach of Hume's epistemology, presented in the first part of his Treatise and in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and the common-sense theory of practical philosophy: ethics, politics, economics, contained in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals and some essays. In this article, the author defends the systematic nature of his philosophy. According to Hume's own statements, the different parts of his philosophy constitute successive parts of his “science of man,” i.e., of human nature. The connection between the two main parts of Hume's philosophy can be found in his theory of ethics. He rejects the metaphysical concept of “substance,” typical of 17th-century thought, and attempts to create a new theory based on the “experimental” or empirical method. In this way, he shows that our moral distinctions have nothing to do with metaphysical assumptions. "Unjustified metaphysical judgments become superstitions until, thanks to a proper description of human nature, we show that many judgments do not boil down to the operations of reason alone, but are based ‘only’ on feelings. According to Hume, many of the existing judgments of metaphysics belong to this kind of claim. According to Hume, properly defining the limits of reason requires us to question the possibility of traditional, so-called ontological proof of God's existence or proof of the existence of the world. The existence of the Creator must remain a matter of faith, and the existence of a world independent of man – a matter of conviction. (...) So what, in fact, would moral judgment concern? Traditionally, in order to determine someone's responsibility for an act, a spontaneous, deliberate, and thoughtful action of a human being is contrasted with conditions over which he had no control: for example, the cause-and-effect action of natural factors or even a strong emotional disturbance that prevents a person from being fully responsible for their actions at the time they are committed. However, such a contrast between two orders: the intentional, proper to a conscious person, and the mechanical, causal order of unconscious factors, would be based on the assumption of two types of substances. Instead, Hume presents a project in which the more or less variable characteristics of someone's character would be evaluated" (pp. 89-90).
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