Method, thesis, faith

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I've been proceeding with my philosophical agenda. You'll recall that a few months ago I settled on mereology and Kant as the next steps. I'm still waiting for Steve to dig Parts out of his basement, but in the mean time I've read Descartes (Discourse and Meditations), and I just finished Hume's Enquiry (with the Letter from a Gentleman and the Abstract) this morning.

Descartes and Hume both have key insights on which they base their philosophies. Descartes has his 4-step method, and Hume his tracing of ideas to impressions. The method I'm interested to establish is the application of the principle of abstraction, which is that there is a trade-off between detail and power in moving between levels of scale. Mereology and epistemology are fields within which to establish this method.

My current thesis is that these early modern philosophers—Descartes and Hume, as well as Locke, Berkeley, Kant—approach agreement as each approaches the thing he is most certain about; and abstraction accounts for this fact. In other words, the following concepts are roughly synonymous:
They are similar, and abstraction accounts for the differences. This is tentative without reading Kant; I'll start the Prolegomena this afternoon on the bus, and I still hope to get in that class this fall.

One significant side-effect: it turns out that Hume is not nearly as antagonistic to faith as usually portrayed. I've seen this quote before:
When we run over libraries, persuaded of [my new] principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
That's the last paragraph of the Enquiry. The inference I've generally seen drawn is that all "divinity" is worthless, "nothing but sophistry and illusion". But two paragraphs earlier, we read:
Divinity or Theology, as it proves the existence of a Deity, and the immortality of souls, is composed partly of reasonings concerning particulars, partly concerning general facts. It has a foundation in reason, so far as it is supported by experience. But its best and most solid foundation is faith and divine revelation.
In other words, Hume very much thinks that there is such a thing as divinity which does contain experimental reasoning. He's not against theology; he's against bad theology. Moreover, it's pretty clear from the rest of the book that "faith and divine revelation" are not negative categories for Hume. After all, his whole project is to show that reason has limits, that reason in fact has no rational basis. So I don't think he is even really against devotional literature, so long as it doesn't masquerade as philosophy. Hume is against pride, not faith. Who knew?
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