David Hume e os ensaios sobre a felicidade : teoria das paixões aplicada às filosofias morais

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.