The Human Ability ot Reason

One day, Mary Wollstonecraft and David Hume were having an important discussion about the human ability to reason. Here is a little of their exchange:

David: “All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain.” (Hume, 1794)

Mary: Let’s not let us forget about things that are not empirically provable. “Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they cannot trace how, rather than to root them out.”(Wollstonecraft, 1792)

David: “The discovery of defects in the common philosophy, if any such there be, will not, I presume, be a discouragement, but rather an incitement, as is usual, to attempt something more full and satisfactory than has yet been proposed to the public.” (Hume, 1794)

Mary: That is why I call upon women to incite change, to prove that women are indeed rational beings capable of reason.