This new edition of Hume's Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, published in the Oxford Philosophical Texts series, has been designed especially for the student reader. The text is preceded by a substantial introduction explaining the historical and intellectual background to the work and its relationship to the rest of Hume's philosophy. The volume also includes detailed explanatory notes on the text, a glossary of terms, and a section of supplementary readings.

David and Mary Norton present the definitive scholarly edition of Hume's Treatise, one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. This set comprises the two volumes of texts and editorial material, which are also available for purchase separately. David Hume is one of the greatest of philosophers. Today he probably ranks highest of all British philosophers in terms of influence and philosophical standing. His philosophical work ranges across morals, the mind, metaphysics, epistemology, religion, and aesthetics; he had broad interests not (...) only in philosophy as it is now conceived but in history, politics, economics, religion, and the arts. He was a master of English prose. The Clarendon Hume Edition will include all of his works except his History of England and minor historical writings. It is the only thorough critical edition, and will provide a far more extensive scholarly treatment than any previous editions. This edition offers authoritative annotation, bibliographical information, and indexes, and draws upon the major advances in textual scholarship that have been made since the publication of earlier editions - advances both in the understanding of editorial principle and practice and in knowledge of the history of Hume's own texts. (shrink)

Unpopular in its day, David Hume's sprawling, three-volume 'A Treatise of Human Nature' (1739-40) has withstood the test of time and had enormous impact on subsequent philosophical thought. Hume's comprehensive effort to form an observationally grounded study of human nature employs John Locke's empiric principles to construct a theory of knowledge from which to evaluate metaphysical ideas. A key to modern studies of eighteenth-century Western philosophy, the Treatise considers numerous classic philosophical issues, including causation, existence, freedom and necessity, and morality. (...) Unabridged republication of the edition originally published by Oxford at the Clarendon Press, London, 1888. (shrink)

Rachel Cohon's Hume is a moral sensing theorist, who holds both that moral qualities are mind-dependent and that there is such a thing as moral knowledge. He is an anti-rationalist about motivation, arguing that reason alone does not motivate, but allows that both beliefs and passions are motivating. And he is both a descriptive and a normative moral theorist who, despite having resources for putting checks on our sentimentally-based moral evaluations, does end up with a kind of a relativistic account (...) of the virtues and vices. Professor Cohon's arguments in Hume's Morality1 are tight and vigorous. Anyone working on these . (shrink)

This is the first edition in over a century to present David Hume’s _Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding_, _Dissertation on the Passions_, _Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals_, and _Natural History of Religion_ in the format he intended: collected together in a single volume. Hume has suffered a fate unusual among great philosophers. His principal philosophical work is no longer published in the form in which he intended it to be read. It has been divided into separate parts, only some (...) of which continue to be published. This volume repairs that neglect by presenting the four pieces that Hume in later life desired to "alone be regarded as containing [his] philosophical sentiments and principles" in the format he preferred, as a single volume with an organization that parallels that of his early _Treatise of Human Nature_. This edition’s introduction comments on the historical origins and evolution of the four parts and draws attention to how they mutually inform and support one another. The text is based on the first edition of Hume’s _Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects_. Notes advise the reader of the changes made in the final edition. Excerpts from the work of some of Hume’s most important contemporary critics are included as appendices. Hume’s abundant references to ancient historians, geographers, poets, and philosophers—many of them now quite obscure—are rendered accessible in this volume through extensive textual notes and a bibliography of online sources. (shrink)

My own life -- Selections from Hume's letters concerning virtue, religion and matters literary -- Selections from Hume's letters on history, politics, law, commerce and Scottish affairs -- Hume's last letter : to Adam Smith -- Selections from An enquiry concerning the principles of morals -- Extracts from Of the liberty of the press.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME'S BUNDLES, SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND KANT Even if we are inclined to view Hume's attempt to explain ascriptions of personal identity as an abysmal failure, we might still be sympathetic toward his proposal to replace the going substance theory of the nature of mind with his bundle account. Thus we might fault Hume for erecting an unachievably high standard for personal identity, or round on him for excluding bodily criteria (...) 2... from his solution, but nonetheless applaud his spiriting away of the Cartesian soul substance leaving his "true idea of the human mind" (261) as a collection of perceptions in its stead. However, Hume's concern to give an account of the idea of the unity of a human mind in terms of related perceptions has run into notoriously rough sledding, not the least of which is the fact that Hume himself in his Appendix to "Of Personal Identity" seems to abandon his bundle theory in despair. In this paper I shall first be concerned to examine the criticism of his bundle theory which Hume brings forth in the Appendix and explain why I think the core difficulty remains insoluble for Hume. I shall then go on to suggest that the unworkability of Húmete bundle theory is directly tied to his failure to appreciate certain features of the peculiarly first person nature of his question about the make-up of minds. In thus emphasizing the place of the first person voice in my interpretation I am stealing a leaf, if not a chapter, from Kant. But this is as it should be since one of the aims of this essay is to provide an interpretation of Hume's difficulties with his account of the nature of mind which explains part of the reason why 'self-consciousness' (or 'apperception') looms so very large in the Critique of Pure Reason attack upon Hume's type of bundle theory. 60. 1. Hume's Second Thoughts In a burst of self criticism at the Appendix to the section on personal identity, Hume brings forth this objection to his own efforts:...Having thus loosen' d all our particular perceptions, when I proceed to explain the principle of connexion, which binds them together, and makes us attribute to them a real simplicity and identity; I am sensible, that my account is very defective, and that nothing but the seeming evidence of the precedent reasonings cou'd have indue' d me to receive it (635). After additional reflections Hume encapsulates his objection thus:...All my hopes vanish, when I come to explain the principles, that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness (6SS-6). What is the defect Hume calls to our attention? Notice first that the footnote on page 635 explicitly refers us back to that part of his account Hume considers defective; and when we look back to the text of the Treatise in question, page 260, we find it is precisely there that Hume uses the analogy of a republic to sketch his bundle theory of the unity of mind in terms of the two associative principles, resemblance and causation. So it must somehow be that this account in terms of the associative principles is mistaken. But what then is the mistake? According to Hume it is that he cannot 'explain' the principles which unite the discrete percepts. Now it seems to me there are only two possible things Hume could mean in saying this. He could mean either (1) that the principles which connect the percepts of one mind are instances of the associative principles, but he cannot explain them; or (2) there must be other, non-associative, principles which connect the percepts of a single mind and these he cannot explain. 61. I think we can safely conclude (1) cannot represent Hume's misgivings when he says he is unable to explain the uniting principles of the mental bundles. There is first the fact that he does not call into question his general programme of accounting for the nature of the unity of complex things by the principles of causation, resemblance and contiguity — for example, ships, plants, animals, houses and rivers (e.g. 257f) — but only his... (shrink)

This article argues that a successful answer to Hume's problem of induction can be developed from a sub-genre of philosophy of science known as formal learning theory. One of the central concepts of formal learning theory is logical reliability: roughly, a method is logically reliable when it is assured of eventually settling on the truth for every sequence of data that is possible given what we know. I show that the principle of induction (PI) is necessary and sufficient for (...) logical reliability in what I call simple enumerative induction. This answer to Hume's problem rests on interpreting PI as a normative claim justified by a non-empirical epistemic means-ends argument. In such an argument, a rule of inference is shown by mathematical or logical proof to promote a specified epistemic end. Since the proof concerning PI and logical reliability is not based on inductive reasoning, this argument avoids the circularity that Hume argued was inherent in any attempt to justify PI. (shrink)

This paper is a reply to George Boolos's three papers (Boolos (1987a, 1987b, 1990a)) concerned with the status of Hume's Principle. Five independent worries of Boolos concerning the status of Hume's Principle as an analytic truth are identified and discussed. Firstly, the ontogical concern about the commitments of Hume's Principle. Secondly, whether Hume's Principle is in fact consistent and whether the commitment to the universal number by adopting Hume's Principle might be problematic. Also the so-called (...) `surplus content' worry is discussed, which points out that the conceptual resources to grasp Hume's Principle vastly outstrip the conceptual resources employed in arithmetical reasoning. And lastly whether Hume's Principle is in bad company with other unsuccessful implicit definitions. In the last section, an account towards our entitlement to Hume&'s Principle is sketched. (shrink)

One recent `neologicist' claim is that what has come to be known as "Frege's Theorem"–the result that Hume's Principle, plus second-order logic, suffices for a proof of the Dedekind-Peano postulate–reinstates Frege's contention that arithmetic is analytic. This claim naturally depends upon the analyticity of Hume's Principle itself. The present paper reviews five misgivings that developed in various of George Boolos's writings. It observes that each of them really concerns not `analyticity' but either the truth of Hume's Principle (...) or our entitlement to accept it and reviews possible neologicist replies. A two-part Appendix explores recent developments of the fifth of Boolos's objections–the problem of Bad Company–and outlines a proof of the principle $N^q$, an important part of the defense of the claim that what follows from Hume's Principle is not merely a theory which allows of interpretation as arithmetic but arithmetic itself. (shrink)

In this note we derive Robinson???s Arithmetic from Hume???s Principle in the context of very weak theories of classes and relations.

Debunking arguments against both moral and mathematical realism have been pressed, based on the claim that our moral and mathematical beliefs are insensitive to the moral/mathematical facts. In the mathematical case, I argue that the role of Hume’s Principle as a conceptual truth speaks against the debunkers’ claim that it is intelligible to imagine the facts about numbers being otherwise while our evolved responses remain the same. Analogously, I argue, the conceptual supervenience of the moral on the natural (...) speaks presents a difficulty for the debunker’s claim that, had the moral facts been otherwise, our evolved moral beliefs would have remained the same. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall discuss several topics related to Frege’s paradigms of second-order abstraction principles and his logicism. The discussion includes a critical examination of some controversial views put forward mainly by Robin Jeshion, Tyler Burge, Crispin Wright, Richard Heck and John MacFarlane. In the introductory section, I try to shed light on the connection between logical abstraction and logical objects. The second section contains a critical appraisal of Frege’s notion of evidence and its interpretation by Jeshion, the introduction (...) of the course-of-values operator and Frege’s attitude towards Axiom V, in the expression of which this operator occurs as the key primitive term. Axiom V says that the course-of-values of the function f is identical with the course-of-values of the function g if and only if f and g are coextensional. In the third section, I intend to show that in Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884) Frege hardly could have construed Hume’s Principle (HP) as a primitive truth of logic and used it as an axiom governing the cardinality operator as a primitive sign. HP expresses that the number of Fs is identical with the number of Gs if and only if F and G are equinumerous. In the fourth section, I argue that Wright falls short of making a convincing case for the alleged analyticity of HP. In the final section, I canvass Heck’s arguments for his contention that Frege knew he could deduce the simplest laws of arithmetic from HP without invoking Axiom V. I argue that they do not carry conviction. I conclude this section by rejecting an interpretation concerning HP suggested by MacFarlane. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall discuss several topics related to Frege's paradigms of second-order abstraction principles and his logicism. The discussion includes a critical examination of some controversial views put forward mainly by Robin Jeshion, Tyler Burge, Crispin Wright, Richard Heck and John MacFarlane. In the introductory section, I try to shed light on the connection between logical abstraction and logical objects. The second section contains a critical appraisal of Frege's notion of evidence and its interpretation by Jeshion, the introduction (...) of the course-of-values operator and Frege's attitude towards Axiom V, in the expression of which this operator occurs as the key primitive term. Axiom V says that the course-of-values of the function f is identical with the course-of-values of the function g if and only if f and g are coextensional. In the third section, I intend to show that in Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik Frege hardly could have construed Hume's Principle as a primitive truth of logic and used it as an axiom governing the cardinality operator as a primitive sign. HP expresses that the number of Fs is identical with the number of Gs if and only if F and G are equinumerous. In the fourth section, I argue that Wright falls short of making a convincing case for the alleged analyticity of HP. In the final section, I canvass Heck's arguments for his contention that Frege knew he could deduce the simplest laws of arithmetic from HP without invoking Axiom V. I argue that they do not carry conviction. I conclude this section by rejecting an interpretation concerning HP suggested by MacFarlane. (shrink)

According to Hume’s principle, a sentence of the form ⌜The number of Fs = the number of Gs⌝ is true if and only if the Fs are bijectively correlatable to the Gs. Neo-Fregeans maintain that this principle provides an implicit definition of the notion of cardinal number that vindicates a platonist construal of such numerical equations. Based on a clarification of the explanatory status of Hume’s principle, I will provide an argument in favour of a (...) nominalist construal of numerical equations. The neo-Fregean objections to such a construal will be examined and rejected. And the implications of the nominalist construal for the use of numerals and for the understanding of ontological questions for the existence of numbers will be spelled out. (shrink)

The question of the analyticity of Hume’s Principle (HP) is central to the neo-logicist project. We take on this question with respect to Frege’s definition of analyticity, which entails that a sentence cannot be analytic if it can be consistently denied within the sphere of a special science. We show that HP can be denied within non-standard analysis and argue that if HP is taken to depend on Frege’s definition of number, it isn’t analytic, and if HP is (...) taken to be primitive there is only a very narrow range of circumstances where it might be taken to be analytic. The latter discussion also sheds some light on the connections between the Bad Company and Caesar objections. (shrink)

One prominent criticism of the abstractionist program is the so-called Bad Company objection. The complaint is that abstraction principles cannot in general be a legitimate way to introduce mathematical theories, since some of them are inconsistent. The most notorious example, of course, is Frege’s Basic Law V. A common response to the objection suggests that an abstraction principle can be used to legitimately introduce a mathematical theory precisely when it is stable: when it can be made true on all (...) sufficiently large domains. In this paper, we raise a worry for this response to the Bad Company objection. We argue, perhaps surprisingly, that it requires very strong assumptions about the range of the second-order quantifiers; assumptions that the abstractionist should reject. (shrink)

George Dickie argues that Hume's principles of taste have value-laden properties as their subjects, including those properties we now refer to as ‘aesthetic’. I counter that Hume's principles have value-neutral properties as their subjects, and so exclude those properties we now refer to as ‘aesthetic’. Dickie also argues that Hume's essay on taste provides ‘the conceptual means for recognizing the problem of the interaction of aesthetic properties with other properties of artworks’. I counter that the very passages Dickie takes to (...) provide these conceptual means in fact suggest that Hume recognizes no such problem. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XX, Number 2, November 1994, pp. 261-287 Collingwood's Understanding of Hume S. K. WERTZ What was David Hume's reception in the British idealistic tradition? In this paper, I shall contribute a short chapter on this question by examining Hume's place in R. G. Collingwood's thought.1 Such an examination has been lacking in the literature, so what follows is a comprehensive study of Collingwood's use of Hume (...) throughout all of R.G.'s writings. I shall mainly focus on two main, unrelated discussions of Hume: first is the theory of the imagination which primarily occurs in The Principles of Art, and second is the set of relations between human nature and human history which is principally found in The Idea of History. These sections will be followed by a section on minor discussions and omissions and a conclusion. It is a common misconception that Collingwood (1889-1943) has little to offer Hume scholarship, and I wish to amend that here. Actually, Collingwood has good insights into the nature of the imagination and its role in human understanding, besides instructive thoughts on Hume on human nature and history, even though his discussion of the latter is flawed. This essay serves both historical and philosophical purposes. It is to sample Hume's place in early twentieth century British idealism at a time when he began to emerge as an important philosophical figure worthy of careful study. (By "idealism," I mean the philosophical movement which takes ideas to be an irreducible part of the world and whose program is opposed to both materialism and realism.) So Collingwood's portrait is historically interesting. But over and above this, it carries significant philosophical amendments, S. K. Wertz is at the Department of Philosophy, Texas Christian University, Box 30781, Fort Worth, TX 76129 USA. e-mail: [email protected] 262 S. K. Wertz criticisms, and suggestions about Hume's thought and the eighteenth century intellectual climate. Collingwood has mostly been studied as a philosopher of history or as an aesthetician, but not in toto from the perspective of one of the historical figures to whom he is deeply indebted. Such a view affords a portrait of Hume that is instructive and rewarding. The comparison of Hume and Collingwood lead us to finer appreciation of both philosophers. Let us first look at Collingwood's positive contribution. Imagination Collingwood begins his analysis by declaring his intentions: I shall...try to show that there are such things, to be with what Hume (whose account of them I shall take as my starting-point) called 'ideas' as distinct from 'impressions'. I shall try to show that there is a special activity of mind correlative to them, and that this is what we generally call imagination, as distinct from sensation on the one hand and intellect on the other. (PA 170-71, emphasis added) Why would Collingwood start with Hume's distinction between impressions and ideas? Undoubtedly, this means that Collingwood is willing to accept the validity of the distinction and to build on it. Isn't this a strange place for an idealist to begin? Not really. When we look at British philosophy at the turn of this century, we find idealists preoccupied with the distinction,2 so it is not extraordinary to find Collingwood utilizing it to some extent. Like most Oxford students of the time, Collingwood read Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in his undergraduate program. Consequently we find them in the problems he addresses. "It was Hume who first perceived the [Lockean] problem [of confusing sensation with imagination]," Collingwood attributes, "and tried to solve it by distinguishing ideas from impressions" (PA 200). In detail: He [Hume] was right when he laid it down that the immediate concern of thought is not with impressions but with ideas; that it is ideas, not impressions, that are associated with one another and thus built up into the fabric of knowledge; and that ideas, though 'derived' from impressions, are not mere relics of them like an after-taste of onions or an after-image of the sun (as Lockeans like Condillac supposed), but something different in kind: different, if not in what he... (shrink)

The paper formulates and proves a strengthening of ‘Frege’s Theorem’, which states that axioms for second-order arithmetic are derivable in second-order logic from Hume’s Principle, which itself says that the number of Fs is the same as the number ofGs just in case the Fs and Gs are equinumerous. The improvement consists in restricting this claim to finite concepts, so that nothing is claimed about the circumstances under which infinite concepts have the same number. ‘Finite Hume’s (...) class='Hi'>Principle’ also suffices for the derivation of axioms for arithmetic and, indeed, is equivalent to a version of them, in the presence of Frege’s definitions of the primitive expressions of the language of arithmetic. The philosophical significance of this result is also discussed. (shrink)

In a recent article, I have explored the historical, mathematical, and philosophical issues related to the new theory of numerosities. The theory of numerosities provides a context in which to assign numerosities to infinite sets of natural numbers in such a way as to preserve the part-whole principle, namely if a set A is properly included in B then the numerosity of A is strictly less than the numerosity of B. Numerosities assignments differ from the standard assignment of size (...) provided by Cantor’s cardinality assignments. In this talk, I generalize some specific worries emerging from the theory of numerosities to a line of thought resulting in what I call a ‘good company’ objection to Hume’s Principle (HP). The talk has four main parts. The first takes a historical look at 19th-century attributions of equality of numbers in terms of one-one correlations and argues that there was no agreement as to how to extend such determinations to infinite sets of objects. This leads to the second part where I show that there are countably infinite many abstraction principles that are ‘good’, in the sense that they share the same virtues of HP and from which we can derive the axioms of second order arithmetic. The third part connects this material to a debate on Finite Hume Principle between Heck and MacBride and states the ‘good company’ objection. Finally, the last part gives a tentative taxonomy of possible neo-logicist responses to the ‘good company’ objection and makes a foray into the relevance of this material for the issue of cross-sortal identifications for abstractions. (shrink)

Richard Kimberly Heck and Paolo Mancosu have claimed that the possibility of non-Cantorian assignments of cardinalities to infinite concepts shows that Hume's Principle (HP) is not implicit in the concept of cardinal number. Neologicism would therefore be threatened by the ‘good company' HP is kept by such alternative assignments. In his review of Mancosu's book, Bob Hale argues, however, that ‘getting different numerosities for different countable infinite collections depends on taking the groups in a certain order – but it (...) is of the essence of cardinal numbers that the cardinal size of a collection does not depend upon how its members are ordered'. This paper's goal is to implement Hale's response to the Good Company problem by producing a Cantorian argument for HP. In Section 2, we present the Heck-Mancosu argument against neologicism. In Section 3, we discuss Hale's defence of Hume's Principle. In Section 4, we discuss Cantor's abstractionist definitions of number. In Section 5, we argue that good abstraction must comply with what we call ‘Gödel’s Minimal Account of Abstraction’ (GMAA). We finally show (Sections 5 and 6) that non-Cantorian theories of cardinality fail to satisfy GMAA. (shrink)

The paper formulates and proves a strengthening of 'Frege's Theorem', which states that axioms for second-order arithmetic are derivable in second-order logic from Hume's Principle, which itself says that the number of Fs is the same as the number of Gs just in case the Fs and Gs are equinumerous. The improvement consists in restricting this claim to finite concepts, so that nothing is claimed about the circumstances under which infinite concepts have the same number. 'Finite Hume's Principle' (...) also suffices for the derivation of axioms for arithmetic and, indeed, is equivalent to a version of them, in the presence of Frege's definitions of the primitive expressions of the language of arithmetic. The philosophical significance of this result is also discussed. (shrink)

This article concerns the ongoing neo-logicist program in the philosophy of mathematics. The enterprise began life, in something close to its present form, with Crispin Wright’s seminal [1983]. It was bolstered when Bob Hale [1987] joined the fray on Wright’s behalf and it continues through many extensions, objections, and replies to objections . The overall plan is to develop branches of established mathematics using abstraction principles in the form: Formula where a and b are variables of a given type , (...) Σ is a higher-order operator denoting a function from items of the given type to objects in the range of the first-order variables, and E is an equivalence relation over items of the given type. In what follows, I will sometimes omit the initial quantifiers.Frege [1884, 1893] himself employed three abstraction principles. One of them, used for illustration, comes from geometry: "The direction of l1 is identical to the direction of l2 if and only if l1 is parallel to l2."Call this the direction principle. The second was dubbed N= in [Wright, 1983] and is now called Hume’s principle: Formula where F≈G is an abbreviation of the second-order statement that there is a one-to-one relation mapping the F’s onto the G’s. In words, states that the number of F is identical to the number of G if and only if F is equinumerous with G. Unlike the direction-principle, the relevant variables, F, G here are second-order. Georg Cantor …. (shrink)

This paper presents new constructions of models of Hume's Principle and Basic Law V with restricted amounts of comprehension. The techniques used in these constructions are drawn from hyperarithmetic theory and the model theory of fields, and formalizing these techniques within various subsystems of second-order Peano arithmetic allows one to put upper and lower bounds on the interpretability strength of these theories and hence to compare these theories to the canonical subsystems of second-order arithmetic. The main results of this (...) paper are: (i) there is a consistent extension of the hyperarithmetic fragment of Basic Law V which interprets the hyperarithmetic fragment of second-order Peano arithmetic, and (ii) the hyperarithmetic fragment of Hume's Principle does not interpret the hyperarithmetic fragment of second-order Peano arithmetic, so that in this specific sense there is no predicative version of Frege's Theorem. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:David Hume on Personal Identity and the Indirect Passions Robert S. Henderson Scholarly reflection on Hume's "doctrine" ofselfand personal identity continues to focus on the sections "Of Personal Identity" and the "Appendix" toA Treatise ofHuman Nature. To answer the question of why we have so great a propension to ascribe an identity to these successiveperceptions which make up experience, Hume says that we must distinguish betwixtpersonal identity, as it (...) regards our thought or imagination, and as it regards our passions or the concern we take in ourselves. He considers only the former in these sections. Towards the end of the personal identity section he writes that our identity with regard to the passions serves to corroborate that with regard to the imagination, by the making our distant perceptions influence each other, and by giving us a present concern for ourpast or future pains or pleasures (T 261). In the advertisement to the Treatise Hume says that the subjects of the understanding and passions make a compleat chain of reasoning by themselves (T xii). In light of the importance Hume attaches to the distinction, and since there are many indications that the Treatise should be read as an integral whole, it is surprising that so little attention is given to what he says of personal identity in the other books. As the title suggests, this paper concentrates on the second part of the distinction and especially on the discussion ofthe indirectpassions in Book II of the Treatise. This is not to suggest that self does not play an important role elsewhere in Hume's science ofman; for example, it is selfwhich experiences the impression ofwill and the direct passions. However, the indirect passions have a particularly important part to play in ascriptions of personal identity and this justifies the present investigation. II We can safely predict that personal identity as it regards our passions will not be the idea??some philosophers whose views of self as having the philosophical (strict) relation ofidentity Hume has rejected in "Of Personal Identity." The relationship between thought and passion to which he draws attention suggests that the idea of selfin this context has a relation to the positive suggestions in that earlier section of why Volume XVI Number 1 33 ROBERT S. HENDERSON we do speak meaningfully of the identity of the self. We are able so to speak because ofarelationship which is felt to exist between a person's distinct and changing perceptions. The relationship has to do with the discovery by memory of the connection of a person's perceptions through the association ofideas by resemblance and causation (T 261). Examination of the idea of self to which Hume makes frequent reference in Book II requires some review ofthe method ofthe Treatise. Perceptions make up human experience. Perceptions are either impressions or ideas which derive from impressions. Hume describes the indirect passions as secondary or reflective impressions and these stem from original impressions or from their ideas. He distinguishes between direct andindirect passions. Directpassionsarise immediately fromgood or evil, frompain orpleasure (T 276). Examples are joy, hope and fear. Indirect passionsproceed from the same principles, but by the conjunction ofother qualities (T 276). That is, the indirect passions not onlyhave a cause (an impression which excites them), but also an object (to which the passion directs our view when excited). We shall see that a significant quality of the indirect passions is the relation of these impressions to their objects, which are either one's own or another's self. In Book II of the Treatise Hume examines the indirect passions: love, hate, pride and humility. These passions are evaluations of persons; of selfin the case of pride and humility, and of another in the case of love and hatred. Evaluation of persons is a central feature of Hume's moral philosophy: To have the sense ofvirtue, is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character. The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration (T 471). We shall see that the indirect passions in particular make an important contribution to the answer ofHume's original question ofthe source?? owe propension to ascribe an identity. Ill... (shrink)

That no qualities ought to be ascribed to a cause beyond what are requisite for bringing about its effect(s) is a methodological principle Hume employs to evacuate arguments from design of much theological significance. In this article I defend Hume’s use of the principle against several objections brought against it by Richard Swinburne.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Abstract General Ideas in Hume George S. Pappas Hume followed Berkeley in rejecting abstract general ideas; that is, both of these philosophers rejected the view that one could engage in the operation or activity ofabstraction — a kind ofmental separation ofentities that are inseparable in reality —as well as the view that the alleged products of such an activity — ideas which are intrinsically general — really exist. What (...) has not been clear to commentators on either of these two philosophers has been why they each were so opposed to abstraction and abstract general ideas. The provision of an answer to this question is the main thrust of this paper. The nature of the question should be clarified at the outset. I am notasking the psychological question, whatwere BerkeleyandHume's actual intentions when they were moved to reject abstraction and abstract general ideas. Though I regard this question as one of great interest and importance, I am presently aiming to answer a somewhat different one, viz., what role, what philosophical role, does the rejection of abstraction and abstract general ideas play in the philosophies ofBerkeley and Hume? The answer to this latter question is apt to have some bearing on the right way to answer the first question; but, for present purposes, it is important to keep the two questions distinct. The maincontentionofthe paperis thattherejectionofabstraction and abstract general ideas lies at the very heart of the philosophy of Berkeley, and that pretty much the same may be said for Hume. Berkeley's defense ofa kind ofidealism stands or falls with the success ofhis attack on abstract general ideas, and Hume's critique ofinfinite divisibility in matters pertaining to space and time, along with his destructive critique ofvarious metaphysical notions, crucially depends on the successful denial of abstract general ideas. I. Berkeleyan Idealism Berkeley's most extended treatment of abstract ideas comes in the introduction to the Principles ofHuman Knowledge, first published in 1710. However, since he does not take up the topic in any systematic way later in the same book, nor in the Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Phihnous (1713), it has seemed to many commentators that Berkeley's attack on abstract ideas is a local matter, one having only to do with issues concerning language use and a somewhat isolated criticism of Locke. That this is the wrong way to look at things is Volume XV Number 2 339 GEORGE S. PAPPAS perhaps best indicated by a couple of passages from the Principles. In section 5 ofthat work Berkeley says: If we thoroughly examine this tenet it will, perhaps, be found at bottom to depend on the doctrine of abstract ideas. For can there be a nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of sensible objects from there being perceived, so as to conceive them existing unperceived? The tenet Berkeley is here referring to is to the effect that sensible objects such as trees and chairs exist independently ofperception. This allusion is made clear when we notice that in the immediately preceding passage Berkeley says: It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing among men that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But, with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this Principle may be entertained... whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question may... perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For, what are the aforementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations? and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived? (Principles 4) The claim that sensible objects exist independently ofall perception is the very denial of Berkeley's esse is percipi thesis regarding such objects. For the latter thesis holds that each sensible object is such that it exists if and only if it is perceived. So, in the first-quoted passage from Principles 5, Berkeley is saying that the denial of esse is percipi 'depends on' the doctrine of abstract ideas. Surely, the esse is percipi thesis is part ofthe core ofBerkeley's... (shrink)

Despite Decades of scholarly attention certain sections of Kant's first Critique have proved recalcitrant to received readings, canonical interpretations are impossible to come by. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the literature on Kant's treatment of causality in the Second Analogy, where there exists a controversy of many years standing about the success of Kant's arguments in favour of what has come to be known as ‘the causal principle’. For example, contemporary Kant scholars of stature no less than (...) Lewis White Beck and W.H. Walsh argue that Kant offers a uniquely persuasive case for causation. Other interpreters claim that the materials of the Second Analogy fail utterly to provide what is needed to vindicate judgements of cause and effect in a way that would satisfy the sceptic about causation.2 Thus the despairing conclusion of one recent review of the literature on the Second Analogy:It is possible that there lurks somewhere in the pages of the Critique of Pure Reason a convincing reply to Hume's sceptical doubts about the causal principle. But no such reply has yet been brought to light. (shrink)

Hsueh M. Qu has recently argued that Hume's famed "Separability Principle" from the Treatise entangles him in a contradiction. Qu offers a modified principle as a solution but also argues that the mature Hume would not have needed to avail himself of it, given that Hume's arguments in the first Enquiry do not depend on this principle in any form. To the contrary, I show that arguments in the first Enquiry depend on this principle, but I (...) agree with Qu that Qu's solution to Hume's quandary frees him of the contradiction. Next, I compare Qu's solution to Hume's original position. By analyzing the divergent forms of Hume's "Dictum" that follow from them, I show that Qu's solution and Hume's original position have significantly different consequences in a range of domains, including Hume's modality. Generally, Qu's solution fits better with Hume's other commitments—even though Hume often fails to recognize it—thereby increasing its plausibility. (shrink)

That the legacy of Berkeley's philosophy has been a largely sceptical one is perhaps rather surprising. For he himself took it as one of his objectives to undermine scepticism. He roundly denied that there were ‘any principles more opposite to Scepticism than those we have laid down’. Yet Hume was to write of Berkeley that ‘most of the writings of that very ingenious author form the best lessons of scepticism, Bayle not excepted’. And it has become something of a commonplace (...) to say that Berkeley's philosophy is sceptical in direction, if not in intention. He is represented as a half-hearted sceptic, applying radical empiricist principles in his treatment of matter but baulking at their implications when he came to consider spirits. Hume is credited with being the more thoroughgoing of the two. Berkeley had denied the substantiality of extended things. Hume felt obliged, by parity of reasoning, to deny the substantiality of the self. On his account of the mind there is ‘properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different’. It is commonly supposed that Berkeley, in maintaining the quite contrary view that we know ourselves to be simple, undivided beings, showed a lack of rigour or consistency. (shrink)

That the legacy of Berkeley's philosophy has been a largely sceptical one is perhaps rather surprising. For he himself took it as one of his objectives to undermine scepticism. He roundly denied that there were ‘any principles more opposite to Scepticism than those we have laid down’ . Yet Hume was to write of Berkeley that ‘most of the writings of that very ingenious author form the best lessons of scepticism, Bayle not excepted’. And it has become something of a (...) commonplace to say that Berkeley's philosophy is sceptical in direction, if not in intention. He is represented as a half-hearted sceptic, applying radical empiricist principles in his treatment of matter but baulking at their implications when he came to consider spirits. Hume is credited with being the more thoroughgoing of the two. Berkeley had denied the substantiality of extended things. Hume felt obliged, by parity of reasoning, to deny the substantiality of the self. On his account of the mind there is ‘properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different’ . It is commonly supposed that Berkeley, in maintaining the quite contrary view that we know ourselves to be simple, undivided beings , showed a lack of rigour or consistency. (shrink)

Hume's Principle, dear to neo-Logicists, maintains that equinumerosity is both necessary and sufficient for sameness of cardinal number. All the same, Whitehead demonstrated in Principia Mathematica's logic of relations that Cantor's power-class theorem entails that Hume's Principle admits of exceptions. Of course, Hume's Principle concerns cardinals and in Principia's ‘no-classes’ theory cardinals are not objects in Frege's sense. But this paper shows that the result applies as well to the theory of cardinal numbers as objects set out (...) in Frege's Grundgesetze. Though Frege did not realize it, Cantor's power-theorem entails that Frege's cardinals as objects do not always obey Hume's Principle. (shrink)

Einstein argued in his latter years that the intelligibility of the world was in the nature of a miracle, and that in no way could one have expected a priori such a high degree of order; this is why he rejected the atheist, positivist standpoint, and believed in a Spinozist God. Einstein's argument, however, is essentially a form of the ?argument from design? for a personal God based on the existence of beautiful, mathematically simple laws of nature; that physical order (...) is a unique, improbable alternative compared to the infinite number of chaotic universes that might have existed. Einstein, in his early manhood, was a Humean, but in later years, as he moved toward Spinoza, from phenomenalism to noumenalism, he clearly rejected Hume's restriction of probable inferences to observed sequences. Darwin's arguments against biological design did not apply to Einstein's argument, because the laws of physics are not the outcome of any cumulative struggle for existence and natural selection. Perhaps the beautiful simplicity of basic physical laws helps account for the fact that relatively more physicists than biologists or psychologists hold to a theistic standpoint. Einstein's finite universe would have seriously weakened the argument that life, though infinitely improbable, would have been realized in an infinite world. But in any case, Einstein would have regarded ?emergence? theories of life as irrational. In accordance with the principle of identity of Emile Meyerson, the epistemologist whom he most respected, it would have followed that the occurrence of consciousness and intelligence was grounded in a God with those attributes, and that theism was consequently the basis for scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Sections “Introduction: Hume’s Principle, Basic Law V and Cardinal Arithmetic” and “The Julius Caesar Problem in Grundlagen—A Brief Characterization” are peparatory. In Section “Analyticity”, I consider the options that Frege might have had to establish the analyticity of Hume’s Principle, bearing in mind that with its analytic or non-analytic status the intended logical foundation of cardinal arithmetic stands or falls. Section “Thought Identity and Hume’s Principle” is concerned with the two criteria of thought identity (...) that Frege states in 1906 and their application to Hume’s Principle. In Section “The Nature ofion: A Critical Assessment of Grundlagen, §64”, I scrutinize Frege’s characterization of abstraction in Grundlagen, §64 and criticize in this context the currently widespread use of the terms “recarving” and “reconceptualization”. Section “Frege’s Proof of Hume’s Principle” is devoted to the formal details of Frege’s proof of Hume’s Principle. I begin by considering his proof sketch in Grundlagen and subsequently reconstruct in modern notation essential parts of the formal proof in Grundgesetze. In Section “Equinumerosity and Coextensiveness: Hume’s Principle and Basic Law V Again”, I discuss the criteria of identity embodied in Hume’s Principle and in Basic Law V, equinumerosity and coextensiveness. In Section “Julius Caesar and Cardinal Numbers—A Brief Comparison Between Grundlagen and Grundgesetze ”, I comment on the Julius Caesar problem arising from Hume’s Principle in Grundlagen and analyze the reasons for its absence in this form in Grundgesetze. I conclude with reflections on the introduction of the cardinals and the reals by abstraction in the context of Frege’s logicism. (shrink)

The purpose of Donald Winch’s "historiographic revision" is to show that most recent interpretations of Smith have distorted his meaning because they have misread the intention of Smith’s work, treating it either as the first great justification of the nascent liberal capitalist polity, or as such a justification infiltrated by intimations of the Marxian notion of alienation. In Winch’s view, either account of Smith’s project is misleading by virtue of imposing nineteenth-century perspectives and categories upon "what is quintessentially a work (...) of the eighteenth century." The problem, then, is to determine the historically appropriate context or problematic within which the complex and at times paradoxical thought of the Wealth of Nations, the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and the Lectures on Jurisprudence can reasonably be situated. As Winch notes, his study is an application of the contextualist methodological principles of Quentin Skinner and J. G. A. Pocock, and is similar in design to recent works on Locke by John Dunn and on Hume by Duncan Forbes. (shrink)

In section 1 of An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume claims that those who deny the reality of morals are disingenuous. He also notes that philosophy has had a history of disagreements about whether morals originate in reason or in sentiment. Throughout his book, Hume applies an experimental method to find the “universal principles” from which morality is ultimately derived. Then, in Appendix 1, he then argues for the origin of these principles in sentiment or taste, a product (...) of “the human fabric.” Reason, Hume says, discovers objects “as they really stand in nature, without addition or diminution.” Taste “has a productive faculty, and gilding or staining all natural objects with the colours, borrowed from internal sentiment, raises, in a manner, a new creation.” How can the quest for universal principles find a satisfactory answer in taste, a “productive” faculty? How is the notion that morality is a “new creation” consistent with an insistence on the reality of moral distinctions? Are the deliverances of taste, which are prompts to virtue, also judgments that can be evaluated as true or false? This essay shows that, on a proper reading, the elements of Hume’s moral epistemology in the second Enquiry are largely consistent. (shrink)

The author presents a reading of Hume’s theory of passionate self-moderation and explore its application to the question of whether Hume accords any practicality to reason. One of Hume’s well-known arguments concludes that reason cannot exercise control over the passions, many of which cause or motivate action. So, it looks as though actions are inevitable results of unruly passions. Hume’s theory of action, however, embodies principles by which certain passions can moderate the effects of other passions. The (...) goal in this paper is two-fold: (1) to show that many of the details of Hume’s theory of passionate self-moderation are verified in contemporary psychological studies of emotion regulation, and (2) to argue that reason, for Hume, has a kind of practicality, given its role in passionate regulation, one that is often overlooked in discussions of Humean practical reason. -/- . (shrink)

Adherents of Ockham’s fundamental razor contend that considerations of ontological parsimony pertain primarily to fundamental objects. Derivative objects, on the other hand, are thought to be quite unobjectionable. One way to understand the fundamental vs. derivative distinction is in terms of the Aristotelian distinction between ontologically independent and dependent objects. In this paper I will defend the thesis that every natural number greater than 0 is an ontologically dependent object thereby exempting the natural numbers from Ockham’s fundamental razor.