Abstract

The division of propositions into analytic and synthetic types is one of the important analytic tools of human understanding in Hume's philosophy. British empiricist philosophers analyzed meaning, word functions, and the word-meaning relation with the purpose of knowing the human nature. Through analyzing propositions, David Hume intended to learn about human's power of understanding. He called this method the analysis of human knowledge and divided it into analytic and synthetic types. The rise of this view in Hume's philosophy originates in the general structure of his philosophy, the dominance of Aristotelian logic over his thoughts, and the specific value that he attached to reason, its capabilities, and its limitations. Even after his death, the use of this division in analyzing knowledge was quite common for centuries. Following the establishment of the science of human nature, Hume made this division the center of his work and inferred empiricism from it. Later he directly referred to skepticism in his philosophy.The writer of this paper intends to demonstrate that the use of this division inevitably led to skepticism in Hume's philosophy. In addition to the analysis of analytic and synthetic propositions in the framework of Hume's philosophy, the writer has also referred to the role of this division in his interest in skepticism.