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Fiction

Hegel & Hume Talk It Over

Chris Christensen watches Hume and Hegel argue about how they can have knowledge of reality.

I doubt there are two philosophers further apart in their ideas than George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) and David Hume (1711-1776). Hegel’s rationalist metaphysics, based on the arguments of reason, ranges far afield and is difficult to understand. Hume’s empiricism, on the other hand, with its conclusions derived through experience, is accessible to the layman. A thoroughgoing skeptic, Hume thought that metaphysics should be “committed to the flames.” Hegel was six years old when Hume died, so there was no professional overlap.

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