This week's Philosopher is David Hume, Petitions might work & The Photo of the week

This week we looked at David Hume who is revered as one of the great philosophers writing in English and he also seems to have been quite a down to earth sort of a guy (for a philosopher) and after, as a young man  suffering from some Psychosomatic illnesses  he became a stout ruddy looking adult. For a proper philosopher the analysis would of course be about the themes but I am very far from this and am interested in the life and character of the people who are considered important  - on finishing the class today I picked up Ayer's book Hume: A Very Short Introduction from my local library to find out more.

David Hume

David Hume lived from 1711 to 1776  when he lost his life to Cancer. Hume was an interesting Scottish guy who went to university in Edinburgh at the age 12 which during the 18^th century was not so unusual he went with his elder brother John who had inherited the Hume estate following  the early death of their father. 

The Hume/Home family were later to have one of their antecedents become Prime-minister of Great Britain in 1963 (although for less than a year) he being Sir Alec Douglas Home.

David Hume spent time away from Scotland working in Bristol as a clerk after it seems getting

Sir Alec

a young lady 'into trouble' he also with a view to making his meagre annual income stretch spent time in France including some time at La Flèche where Descartes had been. Hume was labeled as an atheist but had good relations with many people in the church in Scotland and abroad during his life.
Despite this his religious views meant that he missed out on a couple of University academic posts including the chair of Philosophy at Glasgow.

Hume is considered a Sceptic and Empiricist, his books on Philosophy were not big sellers during his life but his history of England was lauded by many.

In the philosophical discipline his considerations of many themes including Causality and also Identity are now seen as incredibly significant.

[ On the way back from CityLit as I went down the escalators at Holborn tube station  on the up escalators  I saw a figure very much in the news by himself without any minders the former Labour  Culture minister who as Lord Smith is hitting headlines as a result of his job as Chairman of the  Environment Agency and looking fairly untroubled]

So petitions might work

Yes I am questioning  of the influence of petitions perhaps they seem a little too easy - again I'm finding that they do help highlight causes in this case action regarding the horrors of female genital mutilation (FGM)  has been highlighted and a petition has caused a reaction from the Secretary of State for Education..
Following my support of the petition against FGM here's what I got today from Fahma Mohamed 

I have good news -- Michael Gove has responded to our petition and agreed to meet me! 

I'll be meeting the Education Secretary and Children's Minister Edward Timpson at the end of February. Read about the news in The Guardian.

It is so exciting to get the opportunity to speak to Michael Gove face-to-face. I'll tell him what it is like to be a young person worried about FGM in the UK today. 

At the meeting I will be handing over the petition. If we want him to agree to write to all schools about FGM we need to show him this is an issue of national concern. We already have 178,000 signers -- let's aim for 200,000 before the meeting. 

[do offer your support if you want to see this barbaric behaviour stopped]

More good news with the agreement to curtail industrial action by the RMT hope the negotiations continue to progress here's the story from the now national LBC (today)

And away from these big things  here's my 


Photo of the week