Society and artifice in Hume's political theory

Author(s)

Roberto Carlos de Oliveira

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2007-12-03

Examining board members

José Oscar de Almeida Marques; Deborah Danowski; Yara Adario Frateschi

• Advisor: José Oscar de Almeida Marques

Abstract

The analysis of David Hume (1711-1776) entail the epistemology, the morals and the politics so that the society is presented like the result of interaction between the natural faculties of men and the artificial recourses current from reflexion. The artifice connotes the reflected and voluntary inventions that ampliflies the perspectives of human nature, that is, the mechanisms of sociabilization of man which promote their social development, placing them in the universe of morals and politics and adapting their particular interests to the public interest. The essence of the artifice resides in the human capability to dominate their impulses through sublimation, which directionates the desires to an estable perspective of satisfaction. In this sense, it amplifies the possibilities of man's realization, yonder to collaborate with the maintenance of society. This study intends to display how Hume composes a philosophy which analyses the society from the implications and unfoldments of natural principles and to indicate how the artifice establishes an entailment between moral and politics, between the particular interests of individuals and the general interests of society, contributing to the establishment of social instituitions and the authority (AU)