Online research in philosophy

Donald L. M. Baxter’s meticulous attention to textual detail yields a highly original interpretation of some of the most neglected or maligned parts of Hume’s Treatise. The book will be useful to those interested in the metaphysics of identity and time, and the epistemology of metaphysics, and will be indispensable to Hume scholars, who have lacked an in-depth treatment of these crucial and intricate issues.

'I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.' These famous words of David Hume, on his inability to perceive the self, set the stage for JeeLoo Liu and John Perry's collection of essays on self-awareness and self-knowledge. This volume connects recent scientific studies on consciousness with the traditional issues about the self explored by Descartes, Locke and Hume. Experts in the field offer contrasting perspectives on matters such as the relation between consciousness and self-awareness, the notion of personhood and the epistemic access to one's own thoughts, desires or attitudes. The volume will be of interest to philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists and others working on the central topics of consciousness and the self.

The theorist who denies the objective reality of non-relational temporal properties, or ‘A-series’ determinations, must explain our experience of the passage of time. D.H. Mellor, a prominent denier of the objective reality of temporal passage, draws, in part, on Kant in offering a theory according to which the experience of temporal passage is the result of the projection of change in belief. But Mellor has missed some important points Kant has to make about time-awareness. It turns out that Kant's theory of time-awareness also involves projection – but for him, the projection of temporal passage is necessary to any coherent experience at all, and for this reason events in the world cannot be represented except as exhibiting real tensed change. Consequently we cannot intelligibly suppose the world we know to be without the passage of time. This fact would permit a modest transcendental argument the conclusion of which is that we are entitled to describe the world in terms of temporal passage.

David Hume (1711-76) is one of the greatest figures in the history of British philosophy. Of all of Hume's writings, the philosophically most profound is undoubtedly his first, A Treatise on Human Nature. Hume on Morality introduces and assesses: Hume's life and the background of the Treatise ; the ideas and text in the Treatise ; and Hume's continuing importance to philosophy. James Baillie provides us with a map to Books 2 and 3 of the Treatise, focusing on Hume's theory of the passions and morality. This book sets out its principal ideas and arguments of the Treatise in a clear and readable way and is ideal for anyone coming to Hume's work for the first time.

David Hume (1711-1776) is one of the greatest figures in the history of British philosophy. Of all Hume's writings, the most profound is undoubtedly Treatise of Human Nature . The first book of the Treatise , in which he outlines the epistemology and metaphysics underpinning his system, is universally acknowledged to be his greatest intellectual achievement. Hume on Knowledge provides for the first time ever a map to Book I and sets out principal ideas and arguments in a clear and readable way. Any reader coming to the Treatise for the first time will be able to easily understand the importance and intricacies inherent to Hume's thought.

Throughout history, almost all mathematicians, physicists and philosophers have been of the opinion that space and time are infinitely divisible. That is, it is usually believed that space and time do not consist of atoms, but that any piece of space and time of non-zero size, however small, can itself be divided into still smaller parts. This assumption is included in geometry, as in Euclid, and also in the Euclidean and non- Euclidean geometries used in modern physics. Of the few who have denied that space and time are infinitely divisible, the most notable are the ancient atomists, and Berkeley and Hume. All of these assert not only that space and time might be atomic, but that they must be. Infinite divisibility is, they say, impossible on purely conceptual grounds.

According to the received view, Hume is a much more rigorous and consistent concept-empiricist than Locke. Hume is supposed to have taken as a starting point Locke’s meaning-empiricism, and worked out its full radical implicalions. Locke, by way of contrast, cowered from drawing his theory’s strange consequences. The received view about Locke’s and Hume’s concept-empiricism is mistaken, I shall argue. Hume may be more uncompromising (although he too falters), but he is not more rigorous than Locke. It is not because of (intellectual) timidity that Locke does not draw Hume’s conclusions from his empiricism. It is, rather, because of his much sounder method.Selon l’opinion génerale, Hume est un empiriciste conceptuel beaucoup plus rigoureux et consistent que Locke. On croit que Hume a pris l’empiricisme des significations de Locke comme son point de depart et puis élabore toutes ses implifications radicales -- et que Locke, au contraire, se retire et évite de tirer les etranges conséquences de sa théorie. Je veux soutenir que l’opinion acceptée sur l’empiricisme conceptuel de Locke et Hume est en erreur. Hume est peut-être plus décidé (quoique lui, aussi, hésite) mais il n’est pas plus rigoureux que Locke. Si Locke ne tire pas les conclusions d’Hume de son empiricisme ce n’est pas a cause de sa timidite (intellectuelle). Plutôt, il le fait grace a sa methode beaucoup mieux fondée.

This article critically examines the contemporary resurgence of empiricism (or “neo-empiricism”) in philosophy, psychology, neuropsychology, and artificial intelligence. This resurgence is an important and positive development. It is the first time that this centuries-old empiricist approach to cognition is precisely formulated in the context of cognitive science and neuroscience. Moreover, neo-empiricists have made several findings that challenge amodal theories of concepts and higher cognition. It is argued, however, that the theoretical foundations of and the empirical evidence for neo-empiricism are not as strong as is usually claimed by its proponents. The empirical evidence for and against neo-empiricism is discussed in detail.