Hume, Lecture #3

 

1.   Knowledge is based on experience plus custom, not on logic.

 

2.   In opposition to Descartes, Hume argues that beliefs are not distinguished from fantasies by being conclusions of superior arguments; they are distinguished by the manner in which experience and custom impress them on the mind. (This is not supposed to imply that all beliefs are necessarily true.)

 

3.   The three principles of association transmit `liveliness and vivacity’ from beliefs to memories, thus rendering the latter into beliefs.

 

4.   The top paragraph on p. 37 again implicitly attacks Descartes. Here, Hume claims that logical dependence is an entirely unreliable guide to ontological dependence.