TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of Study
1.2 Statement of Problems
1.3 Research Objectives
1.4 Research Question
1.5 Research Hypothesis
1.6 Scope of Study
1.7 Significance of study
1.8 Limitation of study
1.9 Definition of terms
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Literature Review
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 Research methodology
3.1 Research Design
3.2 Population of study
3.3 Sampling Design and Procedure
3.4 Data Collection Instrument
3.5 Administration of Data Collection Instrument
3.6 Methods of data analysis
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 Data Presentation and Analysis
4.1 Data Presentation
4.2 Test of Hypothesis
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation
5.1 Summary
5.2 Conclusion
5.3 Recommendation
References
Questionnaire
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
Are we not often at times shocked by the discovery that what we thought was certain is later proved dubious and false? If this be a regular occurrence, is it not the case that we may become suspicious of all claims to certainty? But then, the history of human opinion rightly forms the most fertile source material for the development of any theory of knowledge. Yet, no theory or belief has proved so full of absurdity, that it lacked its own disciples. The history of science is itself replete with theories priory accepted by the sages of old but later on discredited.
Philosophers are therefore concerned with the basis of all knowledge claims, so that they might arrive at a consensus for judging these claims. For it, much of what had been taken as certain has instead been proved false or sceptical. Then, what can we really know and how can we really ever be certain?
Such were the feelings of David Hume, as he posited his philosophy of “impression and ideas” of which this work is to throw more light on.
The philosophy of David Hume then is both an attack on rationalism and a “reducto and absurdum” of empiricism since the empiricism he defines is one-sided as the rationalism he attacks. He frankly confessed his dissatisfaction with his position in a passage which seems to be the starting point for a consideration of the outline of his work.:
There are two principles which I cannot render consistent nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, namely, that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existence, and that the mind never perceives any real connection among distinct existence.[1]
Thus, the appeal to those two principles and the understanding of them is the key of Hume’s work. The first principle, that what we can distinguish in perception is distinguished in existence is subjective. I rather see it as making the articulations and distinctions of things depend on the distinctions of the mind. But the second principle is based on the opposite assumptions.