David Hume claims that there is some difference between subjects like mathematics and morality, that mathematics discusses things that are concrete and their concepts are concrete. But morality is not like this. it is more relative. One could, as I will now, pose the question as to weather there is a difference in the essence of mathematics and like subjects and morality and other such subjects like it.
Why should there be such a question? The answer is simple. To answer this question lets ask the following:
1. What are the aforementioned subjects trying to analyze? If one wants to answer this, one could say that one is trying to analyze the physical world while the other is trying to analyze some ethical principles that society and the individual should use in their existence. It looks like there is a difference here, but this difference is only a surface level difference. If one looks at both the answer, one can conclude that both these subjects are analyzing one thing: the external world. Mathematics and morality are trying to both look at the world and make sense of it.
2. What is mathematics and what is morality? Do they exist in and of them self? It is preposterous to say that any subject should exist by itself in the world without there being an intellect to analyze it. The content of that subject matter, the "stuff" it studies might exist, but the subject itself is a product of the pondering of intellectual beings and thus could not exist with out them. There is no difference in this with regards to what subject it is. One could pose as an objection the statement that mathematics studies something concrete while morality studies that which is metaphysical. But this statement is flawed. Why? Lets see. Mathematics does not study physical objects, it studies numbers, or the representation of those objects. It does not matter that i say that two fish plus five fish equals seven fish or that i say that two balls plus five balls equals seven balls, the relation between these two examples, that of the addition of their quantities, is essentially the same. To take this point further, current mathematics does not just analyze numbers, but rather the philosophy of mathematics analyzes groupings of objects known as sets, a collection of objects symbolized as two brackets with their members in them. Yet again analysis does not focus on the physical objects but rather on something that makes them a part of a set. Thus mathematics does not study the physical, but rather it studies the metaphysical numerical relations between such objects.
Morality itself studies the metaphysical relations between objects and a society.
3. Doesn't morality essentially help man while mathematics is more or less ambivalent towards him? The answer here again is no. While the attempt to analyze morality itself can surely help man, if it used in a specific manner which meets that end, there is nothing in studying the subject of morality that specifically implies that studying it will help man. It can, if used in a certain manner. Mathematics is like this as well. Studying the subject of Mathematics does not imply that knowledge obtained by it will help man, but nor does it not imply that it wont help man if used in a specific context. Morality can help man if used a certain way. Mathematics can do the same if used in a certain manner. Which manner? Through scientific analysis that aims to help man. Mathematics is the language of science, and if science is used in a manner that helps man, then mathematics is really helping him as well.
SO, IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SUBJECTS JUST MENTIONED? YES, BUT ONLY IN SPECIFICS, NOT IN GENERALITIES OR IN ESSENCE. THE SUBJECT OF MATHEMATICS TRY TO ANALYZE SOME PARTS OF WHAT WE PERCEIVE WHILE MORALITY DOES THE SAME WITH OTHER PARTS.
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