Philosophy A-Level
Hume's Fork
What Hume's Fork means in Philosophy A-Level, as defined for AQA.
Definitions of Hume's Fork
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Reference: AQA
Every meaningful proposition is either a relation of ideas, knowable a priori but telling us nothing about existence, or a matter of fact, empirical and never demonstrable.
The division of meaningful propositions into relations of ideas, known by reason and true by definition, and matters of fact, known by experience.
A claim is either a relation of ideas, true by definition and telling us nothing about the world, or a matter of fact, needing experience.
Topics that use Hume's Fork
- Arguments relating to the existence of God (AQA A-Level)
- Meta-ethics (AQA A-Level)
- Reason as a source of knowledge (AQA A-Level)
Related terms
- A priori knowledge of existence
- Actual versus potential infinity
- Agency and causation as the distinguishing criterion
- Analogical and inductive reasoning
- Anselm's argument and its revival by Malcolm
- Argument from analogy
- Argument from queerness
- Argument from relativity
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