One of Hume's most well-known works and a masterpiece of philosophy, A Treatise of Human Nature is indubitably worth taking the time to read.

This book examines the logical foundations of visual information: information presented in the form of diagrams, graphs, charts, tables, and maps. The importance of visual information is clear from its frequent presence in everyday reasoning and communication, and also in compution. Chapters of the book develop the logics of familiar systems of diagrams such as Venn diagrams and Euler circles. Other chapters develop the logic of higraphs, Pierce diagrams, and a system having both diagrams and sentences among its well-formed representations. (...) Syntax, semantics, rules of inference and soundness and completeness results are provided for each of the systems. In addition to developing the logic of diagrams, key questions about the status of visual information Hammer discusses, such as the relationship between the language and visually-presented information. (shrink)

According to the cliché a picture is worth a thousand words. But this is a canard, for it vastly underestimates the expressive power of many pictures and diagrams. In this note we show that even a simple map such as the outline of Manhattan Island, accompanied by a pointer marking North, implies a vast infinity of statements—including a vast infinity of true statements.

A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume's comprehensive attempt to base philosophy on a new, observationally grounded study of human nature, is one of the most important texts in Western philosophy. It is also the focal point of current attempts to understand 18th-century western philosophy. The Treatise addresses many of the most fundamental philosophical issues: causation, existence, freedom and necessity, and morality. The volume also includes Humes own abstract of the Treatise, a substantial introduction, extensive annotations, a glossary, a comprehensive (...) index, and suggestions for further reading. (shrink)

Scientists typically use a variety of representations, including different kinds of figures, to present and defend hypotheses. In order to understand the justification of scientific hypotheses, it is essential to understand how visual representations contribute to scientific arguments. Since the logical understanding of arguments involves the truth or falsity of the representations involved, visual representations must have the capacity to bear truth in order to be genuine components of arguments. By drawing on Goodman's analysis of symbol systems, and on Tarski's (...) work on truth, I show that the figures used in science meet this criterion. (shrink)

The world contains objective causal relations and universals, both of which are intimately connected. If these claims are true, they must have far-reaching consequences, breathing new life into the theory of empirical knowledge and reinforcing epistemological realism. Without causes and universals, Professor Fales argues, realism is defeated, and idealism or scepticism wins. Fales begins with a detailed analysis of David Hume's argument that we have no direct experience of necessary connections between events, concluding that Hume was mistaken on this fundamental (...) point. Then, adopting the view of Armstrong and others that causation is grounded in a second-order relation between universals, he explores a range of topics for which the resulting analysis of causation has systematic implications. In particular, causal identity conditions for physical universals are proposed, which generate a new argument for Platonism. The nature of space and time is discussed, with arguments against backward causation and for the view that space and time can exist independently of matter or causal process. Many of Professor Fales's conclusions seem to run counter to received opinion among contemporary empiricists. Yet his method is classically empiricist in spirit, and a chief motive for these metaphysical explorations is epistemological. The final chapters investigate the perennial question of whether an empiricist, internalist and foundational epistemology can support scientific realism. (shrink)