| dc.description.abstract | This thesis objective to offer an original interpretation of essays XV, XVI, XVII
and XVIII, written and published by the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776)
in the work entitled Moral, political and literary essays (1742). Therefore, we approach
not only the essays themselves, but other texts by the same author, which contain the
elements of his philosophy and clarify them, in addition to consulting the texts of the
scholars of these essays and Hume's philosophy in general. The work is divided into
three moments. The first deals with Hume's philosophical project in general, exploring
the most important aspects of his philosophy, which concern the theories of
knowledge, passions and morals; the second performs a detailed interpretation of the
essays on the philosophers, the main focus of this research, and finally, the third
consists of the debate with some interpreters, where I try to defend and demonstrate
my interpretation. Hume wrote these essays in the first person and each of them is
associated with an Ancient philosophical school. But these schools adopt distinct and
even antagonistic moral principles. Having written these essays in the first person,
Hume seems to defend what he says. But this leads to an intriguing result, because
apparently there is no way to reconcile the principles pertinent to each school. It is
necessary to clarify the difference between the Humean philosophical proposal and
the moral proposals of the sects. In this sense, we do not see these essays as
unimportant in all of the Scottish philosopher's work. On the contrary, they are essays
that help, once properly interpreted, to clarify the interpretative imbroglios of this
philosophy. Tradition does not understand the meaning of these essays, much less
manages to clearly define Hume's claims. The difficulty of understanding them properly
is proportional to the difficulty of interpreting Hume's philosophy as a whole. Three
trends of interpretation prevail over Hume's philosophy: one with skeptical bias,
another naturalist and a third that seeks to reconcile the first two. These trends can be
identified to some extent in the essays object of our study, whose results seek to
contribute to the universal philosophical culture, based on the themes it raises and with
the understanding of one of the most important philosophies in human history. | en |
