Adam Smith versus David Hume on foundations. Smith and Hume, who were contemporaries, were correspondents.
Digressions&Impressions
Smith, Design, Hume/Kant, and Transcendental IllusionsEric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
As soon as one contemplates the possibility that Universes come and go, the idea “the two great purposes of nature, the support of the individual, and the propagation of the species” becomes less certain.
ReplyDeleteThis leads to the thought that 'something' cannot emerge from 'nothing'; and why that something should manifest periodically as a universe of any particular kind, beyond the scope of human inquiry. If the universe is the 'wheels of a watch' the hour it points to is its own beginning and end. Its defining factor though, is its existence: just like for us.
I could not say that my great purpose was continuity of jrbarch :-)