ALEXANDRE CERAVOLO ABRAHÃO

In this research, the proposal is to understand the ambiguous historical relation between the notions of Sign and Force, based on works such as the “Essays Moral, Political, Literary” written by David Hume. This means that we must, first, investigate the notions of Rhetoric in the Scottish author's work, expressed, for example, in texts on education, superstition, eloquence and poetry, and at the same time, study its relation with the idea of ​​force and attraction, derived from Newtonian science and its reception in the 18th century. Bringing these two instances together allows us to understand how a philosophy of Nature and Experience, that is, a philosophy that starts from the sensible, at the same time undertakes an investigation into the production of Signs, language and logical principles, but even so, it does not replace the Natural, whether in soft or constant Forces. The relationship between Force and Sign has its history in philosophy, which dates back to many authors from the 19th and 20th centuries, but here, we intend to reconstruct this notions in Hume, as it will allow us to better understand both his Moral philosophy, and the economy of Mind and Passions.