I owe thanks to Annemarie Butler, Jonathan Cottrell, and Barry Stroud for their thoughtful criticism of my interpretation in Hume's True Scepticism of David Hume's epistemology and philosophy of mind as presented in A Treatise of Human Nature.1 Butler focuses on my account of the mental mechanisms Hume provides for our everyday beliefs about external objects. She also challenges my appeal to what Hume calls "secondary" ideas in my explanation of Humean introspection. Cottrell raises questions about my interpretation of perceptions (...) generally, both introspective and non-introspective, as well as my understanding of Hume's conflicted statements about... (shrink)

In Hume's True Scepticism, I offer a new interpretation of David Hume's epistemology and philosophy of mind as presented in A Treatise of Human Nature.1 I approach this task by developing what I take to be the first comprehensive2 investigation of Part 4 of Book 1. The arguments Hume offers there have frequently been addressed by the secondary literature in a piecemeal fashion, especially his account of personal identity and of our belief in the external world. But I argue in (...) HTS that they should be read as a sustained investigation of the human temptation to form philosophical systems. Consider its title: "Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy". Hume, I suggest, is... (shrink)

David Hume is famous as a sceptical philosopher but the nature of his scepticism is difficult to pin down. Hume's True Scepticism provides the first sustained interpretation of Part 4 of Book 1 of Hume's Treatise: his deepest engagement with sceptical arguments, in which he notes that, while reason shows that we ought not to believe the verdicts of reason or the senses, we do so nonetheless. Donald C. Ainslie addresses Hume's theory of representation; his criticisms of Locke, (...) Descartes, and other predecessors; his account of the imagination; his understanding of perceptions and sensory belief; and his bundle theory of the mind and his later rejection of it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scepticism About Persons in Book II of Hume’s TreatiseDonald C. AinslieBook ii of Hume’s Treatise—especially its first two Parts on the “indirect passions” of pride, humility, love, and hatred—has mystified many of its interpreters.1 Hume clearly thinks these passions are important: Not only does he devote more space to them than to his treatment of causation, but in the “Abstract” to the Treatise, he tells us that Book II (...) “contains opinions that are altogether as new and extraordinary” (T 659) as those found in Book I. And, he says, these opinions constitute “the foundation” (T 646) for his treatment of morals and politics in Book III.2 The mystery arises, however, because in the actual text of [End Page 469] Book II Hume never spells out what makes his opinions on the passions “new and extraordinary,” nor why they are foundational for his moral theory.Thus some of his interpreters, notably Norman Kemp Smith, conclude that Hume was simply mistaken in his assessment of his treatment of the passions. While his accounts of the will and of motivation (in the early Sections of Part iii of Book II) are significant, Kemp Smith takes the extended analysis of the indirect passions to spring merely from his misplaced enthusiasm for associationist psychology. As such, the philosophical lessons to be learned from the first two Parts of Book II are slim.3 Páll Árdal, in contrast, tries to construct for Hume what he seems to have omitted—a philosophical rationale for his obvious interest in the indirect passions. Árdal starts by drawing attention to the role these passions play in Hume’s moral philosophy, in particular, his repeatedly connecting the indirect passions to the moral sentiments of approval and disapproval. Árdal concludes that Hume means to equate the moral sentiments with particular kinds of indirect passions. The first two Parts of Book II are of interest, on Ardal’s reading, because it is there that he shows us how moral sentimentalism can be founded on something more fully naturalistic than Hutcheson’s somewhat mysterious “moral sense.”4I argue against Árdal’s interpretation in §2. But this reopens the problem of accounting for Hume’s interest in the indirect passions. I offer my view in §§3–5 where, like Árdal, I provide a reconstruction of Hume’s discussion of these passions in order to show how it has an underlying philosophical motivation. My claim is that Hume relies on the indirect passions to explain how we form beliefs about persons as bearers of features that make them into who [End Page 470] they are. It is by feeling an indirect passion towards someone that we think of her as more than accidentally related to some quality, such as her country, her riches, her family, or even her character traits. In support of my interpretation I point to the many parallels Hume draws between the indirect passions and the associative mechanism he offers to explain our forming causal beliefs (I.iii). And I suggest that, just as Hume’s associative explanation of causal beliefs is necessitated by his scepticism about intrinsic “necessary connexions,” so also his associative mechanism for our beliefs about persons—the indirect passions—is necessitated by a certain kind of scepticism about persons. This is not the scepticism about persons that we find in “Of personal identity” (I.iv.6), where Hume argues against the view that our perceptions inhere in a simple soul; it is rather a scepticism about there being intrinsic features of persons that define them as who they are.But, before I explain in more detail what my claim amounts to, it will help to have available a brief description of the mechanism that Hume’s takes to explain the indirect passions.1. THE MECHANISM FOR THE INDIRECT PASSIONSA passion, for Hume, is a simple impression felt in response to various circumstances. Because of their simplicity, we cannot define passions by putting their characteristic feeling into words; instead, Hume thinks, we can only delineate “such circumstances, as attend them” (T 277). Passions are indirect if those circumstances include as an outcome the focusing of attention onto a person... (shrink)

The idea that the self is in need of rethinking, as the title to this collection of essays suggests, presupposes that the self has already been “thought.” And indeed it has—both explicitly, by philosophers, and implicitly, in the practices of everyday life. For philosophers, this thinking about the self has taken place largely in abstract terms; persons have been treated as metaphysical-cum-moral subjects, disembodied minds that could plausibly be split from or melded with other such minds, or as rational agents, (...) capable of choosing a plan in terms of which to live their lives. In everyday life, in contrast, we “think” one another as selves by making assumptions about how the people we encounter fit into the social landscape and about how we ourselves have a place in the world. As the essays in this collection demonstrate, feminists have challenged both ways of thinking of selfhood in various, sometimes contradictory, ways. (shrink)

The article presents a new interpretation of Hume’s treatment of personal identity, and his later rejection of it in the “Appendix” to the Treatise. Hume’s project, on this interpretation, is to explain beliefs about persons that arise primarily within philosophical projects, not in everyday life. The belief in the identity and simplicity of the mind as a bundle of perceptions is an abstruse belief, not one held by the “vulgar” who rarely turn their minds on themselves so as to think (...) of their perceptions. The author suggests that it is this philosophical observation of the mind that creates the problems that Hume finally acknowledges in the “Appendix.” He is unable to explain why we believe that the perceptions by means of which we observe our minds while philosophizing are themselves part of our minds. This suggestion is then tested against seven criteria that any interpretation of the “Appendix” must meet. (shrink)

In the Treatise of Human Nature , Hume argues that, because we have adequate ideas of the smallest parts of space, we can infer that space itself must conform to our representations of it. The paper examines two challenges to this argument based on Descartes's and Locke's treatments of adequate ideas, ideas that fully capture the objects they represent. The first challenge, posed by Arnauld in his Objections to the Meditations , asks how we can know that an idea is (...) adequate. The second challenge, implicit in Locke's Essay , asks how an empiricist can characterize an idea as inadequate, as both picking out an object and yet failing to capture it fully. In showing how Hume responds to these challenges, his theory of perceptual representation is explained and his treatment of space is related to his scepticism. His conclusion is shown not to be a characterization of space as it exists wholly apart from our powers of conception. Instead, in an adumbration of Kant, his claim is restricted to space as it appears to us. (shrink)

The article presents a new interpretation of Hume's treatment of personal identity, and his later rejection of it in the “Appendix” to the Treatise. Hume's project, on this interpretation, is to explain beliefs about persons that arise primarily within philosophical projects, not in everyday life. the belief in the identity and simplicity of the mind as a bundle of perceptions is an abstruse belief, not one held by the “vulgar” who rarely turn their minds on themselves so as to think (...) of their perceptions. the author suggests that it is this philosophical observation of the mind that creates the problems that Hume finally acknowledges in the “Appendix.” He is unable to explain why we believe that the perceptions by means of which we observe our minds while philosophizing are themselves part of our minds. This suggestion is then tested against seven criteria that any interpretation of the “Appendix” must meet. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Locke on Personal Identity Hume's Critique of Locke The Belief in Mental Unity Hume's Second Thoughts Some Interpretations Unity in Reflection References.

The state that we inhabit plays a significant role in shaping our lives. For not only do its institutions constrain the kinds of lives we can lead, but it also claims the right to punish us if our choices take us beyond what it deems to be appropriate limits. Political philosophers have traditionally tried to justify the state's power by appealing to their preferred theories of justice, as articulated in complex and wide-ranging moral theories—utilitarianism, Kantianism, and the like. One of (...) John Rawls's greatest contributions to political philosophy has been his recognition that this is the wrong way for this field to approach its task. He points to what he calls “the fact of reasonable pluralism,” which is the incontestable fact that in a free society people striving to lead their lives ethically will subscribe to conflicting moral and religious doctrines, many of which will be “reasonable” in the special sense of leaving their adherents willing to cooperate with those with whom they have moral disagreements. And this means that political philosophers can no longer rely on any particular “comprehensive” doctrine in their attempts to justify the state. For doing so would be unfair to those who subscribe to a conflicting reasonable doctrine; it would mean that the coercive power of the state would not be justified to them in terms they can accept, even while they were forced to abide by its terms. (shrink)

The state that we inhabit plays a significant role in shaping our lives. For not only do its institutions constrain the kinds of lives we can lead, but it also claims the right to punish us if our choices take us beyond what it deems to be appropriate limits. Political philosophers have traditionally tried to justify the state's power by appealing to their preferred theories of justice, as articulated in complex and wide-ranging moral theories—utilitarianism, Kantianism, and the like. One of (...) John Rawls's greatest contributions to political philosophy has been his recognition that this is the wrong way for this field to approach its task. He points to what he calls “the fact of reasonable pluralism,” which is the incontestable fact that in a free society people striving to lead their lives ethically will subscribe to conflicting moral and religious doctrines, many of which will be “reasonable” in the special sense of leaving their adherents willing to cooperate with those with whom they have moral disagreements. And this means that political philosophers can no longer rely on any particular “comprehensive” doctrine in their attempts to justify the state. For doing so would be unfair to those who subscribe to a conflicting reasonable doctrine; it would mean that the coercive power of the state would not be justified to them in terms they can accept, even while they were forced to abide by its terms. (shrink)

Revered for his contributions to empiricism, skepticism and ethics, David Hume remains one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy. His first and broadest work, A Treatise of Human Nature, comprises three volumes, concerning the understanding, the passions and morals. He develops a naturalist and empiricist program, illustrating that the mind operates through the association of impressions and ideas. This Companion features essays by leading scholars that evaluate the philosophical content of the arguments in Hume's Treatise (...) while considering their historical context. The authors examine Hume's distinctive views on causation, motivation, free will, moral evaluation and the origins of justice, which continue to influence present-day philosophical debate. This collection will prove a valuable resource for students and scholars exploring Hume, British empiricism and modern philosophy. (shrink)

Bioethicists have virtually assumed that Tarasoff generated a duty to warn the sexual partners of an HIV‐positive man that they risked infection. Yet given the views of sex and of AIDS that have evolved in the gay community, in many cases the parallels to Tarasoff do not hold. Bioethicists should at the least attend to the community's views, and indeed should go beyond doing mere “professional ethics” to participate in the moral self‐exploration in which these views are located.

Common-sense holds that morality requirespeople who know that they are infected with theHuman Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) to disclosethis fact to their sexual partners. But manygay men who are HIV-positive do not disclose,and AIDS Service Organizations (ASOs) promotepublic-health policies based on safer sex byall, rather than disclosure by those who knowthat they are infected. The paper shows thatthe common-sense view follows from a minimalsexual morality based on consent. ASOs'seeming rejection of the view follows fromtheir need to take seriously widespreadweakness of will (...) in the realm of sexuality. The author argues that gay men take themselvesto follow the common sense view, but hold thatthe possibility of a partner's HIV infection isbackground information that need not bedisclosed for sexual consent. This suggestionis criticized. The paper concludes with aconsideration of HIV disclosure and sexualethics outside of the gay community and oflegal restrictions on the sexuality of theHIV-positive. (shrink)

Where Terence Penelhum sees a deep continuity between John Locke's theory of ideas and David Hume's theory of perceptions, I argue that the two philosophers disagree over some fundamental issues in the philosophy of mind. While Locke treats ideas as imagistic objects that we recognize as such by a special kind of inner consciousness, Hume thinks that we do not normally recognize the imagistic content of our perceptions, and instead unselfconsciously take ourselves to sense a shared public world. My disagreement (...) with Penelhum over Hume's debt to Locke helps to explain our disagreement over the nature of Hume's scepticism. (shrink)

Agich has identified `watching' – the formal orinformal observation of the medical setting – as oneof the four main roles of the clinical bioethicist. By an analysis of a case study involving a bioethicsstudent who engaged in watching at an HIV/AIDS clinicas part of his training, I raise questions about theethical justification of watching. I argue that theinvasion of privacy that watching entails makes theactivity unacceptable unless the watcher has receivedprior consent from the patients who are beingobserved. I conclude that, (...) even though it isimportant for bioethics students to understand thecomplexities of actual medical practice, watchingshould play a prominent role in bioethics educationonly if the privacy problems in it can be resolved. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of consciousness and personal identity in eighteenth-century philosophy. Locke introduces the concept of persons as subjects of consciousness who also simultaneously recognize themselves as such subjects. Hume, however, argues that minds are nothing but bundles of perceptions, lacking intrinsic unity at a time or across time. Yet Hume thinks our emotional responses to one another mean that persons in everyday life are defined by their virtues, vices, bodily qualities, property, riches, and the like. Rousseau also (...) takes persons to be fundamentally determined by our socially-mediated emotional responses to one another, though unlike Hume or Locke, he has little interest in placing this account of persons alongside a larger discussion of the human mind and its operations. Developing this idea further, Kant argues that our moral commitments require that we must take ourselves to be free. The fundamental equality that Rousseau sought in the political order is, for Kant, a requirement that reason puts on all of us. (shrink)

Among the most serious objections to naturalism in ethics is that it fails to account for human freedom. By investigating morality from a scientific perspective, this objection runs, we lose sight of how we are not merely caused to act by whatever complex of desires happens to be preponderant at a particular moment, of how we are able to determine for ourselves a particular course of action. Moreover, since it is only in virtue of this capacity of self-determination that we (...) can be held responsible for our actions, naturalists cannot adequately account for moral responsibility. (shrink)

Peter Kail’s comprehensive, thoughtful, and challenging book focuses on Hume’s use of projectionFthe appeal to mental phenomena to explain manifest features of the worldFin his treatments of external objects, causation, and morality. Almost all interpreters of Hume acknowledge a role for projection, but Kail is the first to unpack the metaphor, and to show the different ways in which projection works in different domains.

Generally speaking, there are two ways to oppose another philosopher's view. You can argue against it—for example, by finding counterexamples, showing that it entails various unpalatable or absurd conclusions, or by raising objections to the arguments offered in its support. Or you can offer an alternative account of the issue in question. These two sorts of responses are, of course, complementary, and Hume uses both in his attempt to reveal the errors of traditional approaches to ethics. While Hume's negative arguments (...) against rationalist moral theories—including the related attacks on the role of reason in motivation and in our moral judgments —are justly famous, they have been criticized on a number of grounds. Hume has been charged with mischaracterizing the position of his rationalist opponents, with violating some of his own positions on the structure of reason and the passions, and with relying on ad hoc replies to objections he anticipates will be brought against his own arguments. (shrink)

Generally speaking, there are two ways to oppose another philosopher's view. You can argue against it—for example, by finding counterexamples, showing that it entails various unpalatable or absurd conclusions, or by raising objections to the arguments offered in its support. Or you can offer an alternative account of the issue in question. These two sorts of responses are, of course, complementary, and Hume uses both in his attempt to reveal the errors of traditional approaches to ethics. While Hume's negative arguments (...) against rationalist moral theories—including the related attacks on the role of reason in motivation and in our moral judgments —are justly famous, they have been criticized on a number of grounds. Hume has been charged with mischaracterizing the position of his rationalist opponents, with violating some of his own positions on the structure of reason and the passions, and with relying on ad hoc replies to objections he anticipates will be brought against his own arguments. (shrink)

In this rigorous and thorough discussion of David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature 1.4, entitled “Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy,” Donald Ainslie aims both to provide detailed textual exegeses of all seven sections, and to offer a way of understanding them as unified by the recurring theme of the dangers of “false” philosophy and a defense of “true” philosophy or “true scepticism.” To understand the compatibility of Hume’s skeptical conclusions and his philosophical ambitions, and (...) so to be in a position to properly interpret 1.4.7, we must “fully contextualize” it in “what has preceded it, especially elsewhere in Part 4”. Ainslie tells us he will argue “that true scepticism... (shrink)

Donald C. Ainslie's Hume's True Scepticism is a wonderful book—clearly written and forcefully argued—and was deservedly honored with Journal of the History of Philosophy's Book Prize for 2016. The focus of the book is part four of the first Book of Hume's Treatise, "Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy." Ainslie develops an interpretation that takes seriously Hume's psychological claims, using them to solve puzzles in Hume scholarship, including the extent of Hume's scepticism, the nature of (...) his sceptical crisis, and the basis for his second thoughts on personal identity.I would encourage Ainslie to go further in tracing Hume's psychological explanations. In what follows, I will... (shrink)

In Hume's True Scepticism, Donald C. Ainslie offers a highly original, systematic interpretation of Treatise Book 1, part 4, and of much else in the Treatise besides. Along the way, he provides new solutions to two of the main outstanding problems of Hume scholarship: what is the relationship between Hume's skepticism and his commitment to pursuing a naturalistic science of man? And what "very considerable mistake" about personal identity does Hume mean to report in the Appendix? These are (...) fantastic achievements. I congratulate Ainslie on the book, and on the JHP Book Prize, which I am happy to learn he has won.To keep things interesting, these comments will focus on three related topics where I am not yet... (shrink)

Ainslie argues that our responses to the threat of our own inconsistency determine the basic fabric of human culture. He suggests that individuals are more like populations of bargaining agents than like the hierarchical command structures envisaged by cognitive psychologists. The forces that create and constrain these populations help us understand so much that is puzzling in human action and interaction: from addictions and other self-defeating behaviors to the experience of willfulness, from pathological over-control and self-deception to subtler forms (...) of behavior such as altruism, sadism, gambling, and the 'social construction' of belief. This book integrates approaches from experimental psychology, philosophy of mind, microeconomics, and decision science to present one of the most profound and expert accounts of human irrationality available. It will be of great interest to philosophers and an important resource for professionals and students in psychology, economics and political science. (shrink)

D. In doing x an agent acts incontinently if and only if: 1) the agent does x intentionally; 2) the agent believes there is an alternative action y open to him; and 3) the agent judges that, all things considered, it would be better to do y than to do x.

Machine generated contents note: Essay 1.

Problems of Rationality is the eagerly awaited fourth volume of Donald Davidson 's philosophical writings. From the 1960s until his death in August 2003 Davidson was perhaps the most influential figure in English-language philosophy, and his work has had a profound effect upon the discipline. His unified theory of the interpretation of thought, meaning, and action holds that rationality is a necessary condition for both mind and interpretation. Davidson here develops this theory to illuminate value judgements and how we (...) understand them; to investigate what the conditions are for attributing mental states to an object or creature; and to grapple with the problems presented by thoughts and actions which seem to be irrational. Anyone working on knowledge, mind, and language will find these essays essential reading. (shrink)

Science has needed a dispassionate valuation of psychoactive drugs, but a motivational analysis should be conducted with respect to long-term reward rather than reproductive fitness. Because of hyperbolic overvaluation of short-term rewards, an individual's valuation depends on the time she forms it and the times she will revisit it, sometimes making her best long-term interest lie in total abstinence.

Behavioral science has long been puzzled by the experience of temptation, the resulting impulsiveness, and the variably successful control of this impulsiveness. In conventional theories, a governing faculty like the ego evaluates future choices consistently over time, discounting their value for delay exponentially, that is, by a constant rate; impulses arise when this ego is confronted by a conditioned appetite. Breakdown of Will presents evidence that contradicts this model. Both people and nonhuman animals spontaneously discount the value of expected events (...) in a curve where value is divided approximately by expected delay, a hyperbolic form that is more bowed than the rational, exponential curve. With hyperbolic discounting, options that pay off quickly will be temporarily preferred to richer but slower-paying alternatives, a phenomenon that, over periods from minutes to days, can account for impulsive behaviors, and over periods of fractional seconds can account for involuntary behaviors. Contradictory reward-getting processes can in effect bargain with each other, and stable preferences can be established by the perception of recurrent choices as test cases in recurrent intertemporal prisoner's dilemmas. The resulting motivational pattern resembles traditional descriptions of the will, as well as of compulsive phenomena that can now be seen as side-effects of will: over-concern with precedent, intractable but circumscribed failures of self-control, a motivated unconscious, and an inability to exploit emotional rewards. Hyperbolic curves also suggest a means of reducing classical conditioning to motivated choice, the last necessary step for modeling many involuntary processes like emotion and appetite as reward-seeking behaviors; such modeling, in turn, provides a rationale for empathic reward and the “construction” of reality. Key Words: altruism ; appetite; behavioral economics; classical conditioning; compulsions; dynamic inconsistency; emotions; empathy; freedom of will; hyperbolic discounting; impulsiveness; intertemporal bargaining; self-control; social construction; volition; weakness of will. (shrink)