How Did David Hume Contribute To Extreme Skepticism

There is a crisis of personal identity and the ‘self’ which arises from David Hume’s conclusions of living life in a balanced manner. According to Hume, a balanced life integrates reason, sociality, and business in such a way so that they have a “mitigated skepticism.” However, if one of these three areas is more focused on than the others, such as reason, than one begins to lead a not-useful, non-goal-oriented life full of “little satisfaction.” Pure reason also leads to extreme skepticism and is against nature. Hume explains that “no durable good can ever result from [excessive skepticism]” because it has no influence on society or on the mind. This lack of good caused by pure reason is a crisis of personal identity and the ‘self’ because it is against nature, and according to Hume, the ‘self’ and one’s identity is found in perceptions that are unjustified by nature. One’s sense perceptions are independent of one another and cane never exist at the same time. Thus, as a result, Hume explains that one perceives something from these perceptions, his or her ‘self’, but that this is an illusion because the ‘self’ does not continue if the perceptions are fleeting and not simultaneous. Relating Hume’s denial of pure reason with these illusory perceptions, extreme skepticism makes one doubt the existence of these perceptions and his or her perception of ‘self’, and this doubt

To Percy, the “exaltation of science” offers a “more or less permanent orbit of transcendence,” and art has an “order of abstraction” that allows a viewer to distance him or herself from anxieties of reality. However, Percy does acknowledge that it is especially difficult for artists and writers to reenter the world because they are essentially coming from one they created via language and imagery or paint on a