Hume: Metaphysics

Este texto sistematiza e reorganiza uma comunicação apresentada em 06 de novembro de 2020 no evento online comemorativo dos 20 anos do Grupo Hume da UFMG, idealizado pela professora Lívia Guimarães, grande incentivadora dos estudos sobre a filosofia de David Hume no Brasil.

En este capítulo sostengo que la filosofía de Hume tiene elementos literarios y que dichos elementos no sólo ilustran o ejemplifican elementos filosóficos, sino que forman parte de la teoría misma; además, que la literatura es una parte integral de su concepción de la filosofía. Lo anterior nos permite justificar la tesis sobre los aspectos literarios de la filosofía de Hume y entender en qué sentido hay un continuo entre ambas. Primero, se ofrece una noción de literatura a partir de (...) la cual se concibe la filosofía racional o cientificista. En seguida, se clarifica la tesis de la filosofía de Hume como literatura y se proporcionan cuatro argumentos como sus- tento de la misma. En tercer lugar, se presenta la estrategia de Bence Nanay para plantear el continuo entre filosofía y literatura. A continuación, se analizan las secciones 3 y 4 de An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding para ex- traer algunos elementos literarios de la filosofía de Hume. Finalmente, se presenta la tesis de la poesía como filosofía, que es abordada por Gustavo Ortiz Millán para reafirmar la tesis de la filosofía de Hume como literatura y el continuo entre filosofía y literatura. (shrink)

In the Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume mounts a spirited assault on the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of extension, and he defends in its place the contrary claim that extension is everywhere only finitely divisible. Despite this major departure from the more conventional conceptions of space embodied in traditional geometry, Hume does not endorse any radical reform of geometry. Instead Hume espouses a more conservative approach, claiming that geometry fails only “in this single point” – in its purported (...) proofs of infinite divisibility – while “all of its other arguments” remain intact. -/- In this paper, after laying out the prima facie case for Hume’s radical challenge to traditional geometry, I consider five strategies for blocking the arguments for infinite divisibility while conserving most of geometry. I show that each of these interpretive strategies suffers from serious substantive problems, and so none of them delivers an interpretation of Hume’s account that provides him with a way of blocking the geometric arguments for infinite divisibility while sustaining his geometric conservatism. (shrink)

I argue that Hume’s philosophy of time is relationist in the following two senses. 1) Standard definition of relationism. Time is a succession of indivisible moments. Hence there is no time independent of change. Time is a relational, not substantial feature of the world. 2) Rigid relationism. There is no evidence of uniform natural standard for synchronization of clocks. No absolute temporal metric is available. There are countless times, and no time is privileged. Combining 1) and 2) shows that Hume’s (...) ontology of time is thoroughly relationist. (shrink)

Self-consciousness can be understood as the ability to think I-thou-ghts which can be described as thoughts about oneself ‘as oneself’. Self-consciousness possesses two specific correlated features: the first regards the fact that it is grounded on a first-person perspective, whereas the second concerns the fact that it should be considered a consciousness of the self as subject rather than a consciousness of the self as object. The aim of this paper is to analyse a few considerations about Descartes and Hume’s (...) approaches to self-consciousness, as both philosophers introduce a first-personal method of accessing the subjective dimension through an introspective account. Descartes’s view on self-consciousness seems incapable of conceiving and recognizing herself as herself, while Hume’s seems to lack those features assigned to the consciousness of self-as-subject. (shrink)

David Hume’un Doğal Din Üzerine Diyaloglar kitabı, başlığının da ima ettiği gibi, vahiy metinlerine başvurmadan Tanrı’nın varlığına ve niteliklerine ulaşılıp ulaşılamayacağını araştıran bir metindir. Metin boyunca, felsefe tarihinde de gördüğümüz, iki ana yaklaşımı temsil eden iki temel argüman sunulur. Bunlardan ilki, a priori yaklaşımı temsil eden kozmolojik argümandır. Diğeri ise, a posteriori yaklaşımı temsi eden zeki tasarım argümanıdır. Bu yazıda, Hume’un, diyalogdaki Philo karakteri üzerinden ortaya koyduğu, kozmolojik argümana yönelik eleştirileri ele alınıp, böyle bir argümanın neden Tanrı’nın varlığı ve nitelikleri (...) konusunda bizi bir sonuca ulaştırmayacağı ortaya konmuştur. (shrink)

This thesis investigates Hume’s philosophy of external existence in relation to, and within the context of, his philosophy of scepticism. In his two main works on metaphysics – A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) and the first Enquiry (first ed. 1748) – Hume encounters a predicament pertaining to the unreflective, ‘vulgar’ attribution of external existence to mental perceptions and the ‘philosophical’ distinction between perceptions and objects. I argue that we should understand this predicament as follows: the vulgar opinion is our (...) natural and default belief for Hume, but causal reasoning reveals it to be false, and the philosophical alternative is a confabulation that we cannot permanently believe and is devoid of justification. Hume uses the fact that we cannot have a satisfactory account of belief in external existence as a sceptical consideration to motivate his wider philosophical scepticism. Hume’s response to his predicament about external existence is found in the context of his confrontation with other sceptical worries (Treatise 1.4.7 and Enquiry 12), in which Hume also reflects generally on the nature and implications of scepticism. I argue that we should characterise Hume’s position as residually sceptical. This means that, while Hume accepts the unanswerability of some sceptical problems, he denies that it is possible to eradicate all belief as a result (and denies that it is practically useful to even try) and instead uses sceptical problems as a motivation to adopt a moderately sceptical position. While we inevitably return to entertaining the vulgar belief, there is no solution to the sceptical predicament; Hume does not endorse the vulgar belief, or the philosophical system, or indeed any alternative system of the external world that might extinguish the predicament. Sceptical doubt, for Hume, does not derail intellectual pursuits, but rather modifies our attitudes in those very pursuits. (shrink)

The main goal of Kant’s Second Analogy of Experience was to answer Humean objectionsconcerning the aprioricity of the principle of “every-event-some-cause”. This paper intendsto suggest an interpretation of the Kantian argument that, even though cannot show thatHume should be satisfied with the answer, makes clear Kant’s reasons for that anti-Humeangoal. In the first part of this paper, I intend to discuss summarily Hume’s objection againstthe possibility of a demonstration of the principle “every-event-some-cause” and his thesisconcerning its validity. In the second (...) part, it is the turn of the Kantian answer to thesame question concerning the validity of the principle of “every-event-some-cause”. (shrink)

B.A. Thesis --University of Illinois, 1895.

Este trabalho é uma investigação sobre os conceitos de espaço presentes tanto no livro IV da Física de Aristóteles, bem como no Livro 1, parte 2, do Tratado da Natureza Humana de David Hume. Nosso ponto de partida são os paradoxos de Zenão. Sabemos que Aristóteles debate diretamente com Zenão no livro IV da Física, enquanto Hume, no Tratado da Natureza Humana discute com a posição de Zenão acerca do espaço renovada por Bayle. Tendo isto em vista, o principal objetivo (...) deste trabalho é o de expor como Aristóteles enfrenta o paradoxo proposto por Zenão acerca do lugar, e como Hume enfrentou o paradoxo proposto por Bayle sobre a constituição do espaço, através de uma apropriação do método de Zenão. (shrink)

Kant's answer to Hume is seen to comprise the following: agreement with Hume that causal connection cannot be inferred from experience; moving beyond Hume in making causal conceptions presuppositions of experience ; distinguishing causality from other, more basic presuppositions of experience . Not only is causality a Verknuepfung, rather than a Bedingung, thereby relegating it to a lower level of generality, but its presence in the table of categories simply signifies the possibility of its application at any time, not the (...) necessity for a universally valid interpretation of temporal succession as given in the manifold, a specification that is only introduced after the schematism, in the Analogies of experience. Furthermore, unlike e.g. the transcendental unity of apperception, cause involves regulative, not constitutive principles. Failure to recognize all of this has created unnecessary controversy concerning the relative merits of Kant's response to the problem of justifying induction. (shrink)

In this volume--the first, focused study of Hume on time and identity--Baxter focuses on Hume’s treatment of the concept of numerical identity, which is central to Hume's famous discussions of the external world and personal identity. Hume raises a long unappreciated, and still unresolved, difficulty with the concept of identity: how to represent something as "a medium betwixt unity and number." Superficial resemblance to Frege’s famous puzzle has kept the difficulty in the shadows. Hume’s way of addressing it makes sense (...) only in the context of his unorthodox theory of time. Baxter shows the defensibility of that theory against past dismissive interpretations, especially of Hume’s stance on infinite divisibility. Later the author shows how the difficulty underlies Hume’s later worries about his theory of personal identity, in a new reading motivated by Hume’s important appeals to consciousness. Baxter casts Hume throughout as an acute metaphysician, and reconciles this side of Hume with his overarching Pyrrhonian skepticism. (shrink)

In this volume--the first, focused study of Hume on time and identity--Baxter focuses on Hume’s treatment of the concept of numerical identity, which is central to Hume's famous discussions of the external world and personal identity. Hume raises a long unappreciated, and still unresolved, difficulty with the concept of identity: how to represent something as "a medium betwixt unity and number." Superficial resemblance to Frege’s famous puzzle has kept the difficulty in the shadows. Hume’s way of addressing it makes sense (...) only in the context of his unorthodox theory of time. Baxter shows the defensibility of that theory against past dismissive interpretations, especially of Hume’s stance on infinite divisibility. Later the author shows how the difficulty underlies Hume’s later worries about his theory of personal identity, in a new reading motivated by Hume’s important appeals to consciousness. Baxter casts Hume throughout as an acute metaphysician, and reconciles this side of Hume with his overarching Pyrrhonian skepticism. (shrink)

This paper sets up and then solves a puzzle for the sceptical realist interpretation of Hume. The puzzle takes off when the sceptical realist attributes to Hume the following metaphysical theses: Causal powers grounding necessary connections in nature exist. Causal powers grounding necessary connections in nature are what make things happen.It then attributes an epistemological thesis to him: We have no knowledge of causal powers in nature nor of the necessary connections in nature which these powers ground.But putting these three (...) theses together seems to yield a problematic result. The epistemological thesis seems to have two corollaries as its upshot. We cannot know that causal powers grounding necessary connections in nature exist. We cannot know that causal powers grounding necessary connections in nature are what make things happen.That is, we cannot know and. New Hume’s position, the sceptical realist interpretation, seems to make Hume out to be arguing for a view that is self-undermining or dialectically unstable by his own empiricist lights. I argue that there is an overlooked externalist dimension to Hume’s epistemology and draw on this to solve the puzzle. (shrink)

Acceptance of Humean Supervenience and the reductive Humean analyses that entail it leads to a litany of inadequately explained conflicts with our intuitions regarding laws and possibilities. However, the non-reductive Humeanism developed here, on which law claims are understood as normative rather than fact stating, can accommodate those intuitions. Rational constraints on such norms provide a set of consistency relations that ground a semantics formulated in terms of factual-normative worlds, solving the Frege-Geach problem of construing unasserted contexts. This set of (...) factual-normative worlds includes exactly the intuitive sets of nomologically possible worlds associated with each possible set of laws. The extension of the semantics to counterfactual and subjunctive conditionals is sketched. Potential objections involving subjectivity, mind-dependence, and non-factuality are discussed. (shrink)

It has been argued that Hume’s denial of infinite divisibility entails the falsity of most of the familiar theorems of Euclidean geometry, including the Pythagorean theorem and the bisection theorem. I argue that Hume’s thesis that there are indivisibles is not incompatible with the Pythagorean theorem and other central theorems of Euclidean geometry, but only with those theorems that deal with matters of minuteness. The key to understanding Hume’s view of geometry is the distinction he draws between a precise and (...) an imprecise standard of equality in extension. Hume’s project is different from the attempt made by Berkeley in some of his later writings to save Euclidean geometry. Unlike Berkeley, who interprets the theorems of Euclidean geometry as false albeit useful approximations of geometrical facts, Hume is able to save most of the central theorems as true. (shrink)

David Hume has traditionally been assumed to be a soft determinist or compatibilist, at least in the ‘reconciling project’ that he presents in Section 8 of the first Enquiry, entitled ‘Of liberty and necessity.’ Indeed, in encyclopedias and textbooks of Philosophy he is standardly taken to be one of the paradigm compatibilists, rivalled in significance only by Hobbes within the tradition passed down through Locke, Mill, Schlick and Ayer to recent writers such as Dennett and Frankfurt. Many Hume scholars also (...) concur in viewing him as a determinist, for example Norman Kemp Smith, Barry Stroud, A. J. Ayer, Paul Russell Don Garrett, Terence Penelhum, George Botterill, John Bricke, and John Wright. My main purpose in this paper will be to provide the evidence to substantiate this traditional interpretation, which has hitherto been widely assumed rather than defended. In the absence of such a defence, the consensus has been left open to challenge, most notably in a recent paper and a subsequent book by James Harris, who boldly claims that Hume ‘does not subscribe to determinism of any kind, whether Hobbesian or merely nomological.’. (shrink)

This book addresses one of the fundamental topics in philosophy: the relation between appearance and reality. John Yolton draws on a rich combination of historical and contemporary material, ranging from the early modern period to present-day debates, to examine this central philosophical preoccupation, which he presents in terms of distinctions between phenomena and causes, causes and meaning, and persons and man. He explores in detail how Locke, Berkeley and Hume talk of appearances and their relation to reality, and offers illuminating (...) connections and comparisons with the work of contemporary philosophers such as Paul Churchland and John McDowell. He concludes by offering his own proposal for a 'realism of appearances', which incorporates elements of both Humean and Kantian thinking. His important study will be of interest to a wide range of readers in the history of philosophy, the history of ideas, and contemporary philosophy of mind, epistemology and metaphysics. (shrink)

Hume is traditionally credited with inventing the ‘regularity theory’ of causation, according to which the causal relation between two events consists merely in the fact that events of the first kind are always followed by events of the second kind. Hume is also traditionally credited with two other, hugely influential positions: the view that the world appears to us as a world of unconnected events, and inductive scepticism: the view that the ‘problem of induction’, the problem of providing a justification (...) for inference from observed to unobserved regularities, is insoluble. Hume on Causation is the first major work dedicated to Hume’s views on causation in over fifteen years, and it argues that Hume does not subscribe to any of these three views. It places Hume’s interest in causation within the context of his theory of the mind and his theory of causal reasoning, arguing that Hume’s conception of causation derives from his conception of the nature of the inference from causes to effects. (shrink)

In the 'Appendix' to the Treatise of Human Nature David Hume asserts that he has been unable to explain the principles which can adequately account for the unity and the identity of the self. There exists in Book I of the Treatise, a principle, which can in fact account for the unity and identity of the self. Hume utilizes the principle in his explication of our belief in the continued and independent existence of a material world. He did not, however, (...) utilize the principle in his explanation of the unity and identity of the self. In the Introduction I indicate what the principle asserts and precisely how Hume utilizes it. In chapter one I examine Hume's concept of identity with a view towards clarifying some puzzles which arise in his account. Also in this chapter I point out how his explanation of the manner in which identity is predicated of a multiplicity can be improved. Both the Introduction and chapter one prepare the way for a clear statement of the manner in which identity is predicated of the self in chapter two. I show furthermore, how an impression of the self is possible upon the principles of Book I. All references to the Treatise are to the L.A. Selby-Bigge edition, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1955. (shrink)

Hume had two principal arguments for denying that we can have an idea of a vacuum, an argument from the non-entity of unqualified points and an argument from the impossibility of forming abstract ideas of manners of disposition. He also made two serious concessions to the opposed view that we can indeed form ideas of vacua, namely, that bodies that have nothing sensible disposed between them may permit the interposition of other bodies without any apparent motion or occlusion and that (...) it is possible to conceive the contents of a room to be evacuated without being compelled to conceive the walls moving into contact. To reconcile these concessions with his arguments and show why we only “falsely imagine” that we can form the idea of a vacuum, Hume developed a psychological theory of the perception of “invisible and intangible distance” that has something in common with Berkeley’s account of the perception of outward distance. This paper argues that this theory is both untenable and inconsistent with fundamental Humean principles. It explains why Hume should have rejected the two arguments against the idea of a vacuum and why accepting ideas of vacua would have been more in line with the rest of his thought than attempting to deny that we have any such ideas. (shrink)

Despite the widely recognized importance of Hume's theory of causation, there is no agreement amongst commentators about the upshot of that theory. Causal realists interpret Hume as believing that causal statements are true or false due to the existence in the universe of a power linking causes to effects, while causal anti-realists read him as denying that the existence of powers makes causal statements true or false, and as holding instead either that causal statements can be reduced to statements about (...) regularities in nature or that causal statements express feelings and cannot be genuine propositions, susceptible of truth or falsity. There appears to be considerable textual evidence for, and also against, each interpretation. The explanation for this contradictory appearance, I argue, is that Hume maintains a position that is intermediate between realism and anti-realism. On my interpretation, Hume indeed traces the impression of power between causes and effects to a feeling in the mind and denies that our causal discourse implicates the existence of powers in nature. At the same time, however, he recognizes causal judgments as genuine propositions that are not equivalent to statements of regularities. Hence, anti-realist interpretations are right to emphasize that Hume rejects an account of causation in terms of powers, but wrong to suppose that this leads him either to reductionism or emotivism. Causal realist interpretations are right to suppose that Hume attributes a non-reductionistic truth-value to causal statements, but wrong to think that the truth or falsity of these statements results from correspondence with powers. The intermediate position attributed to Hume is a version of quasi-realism about causation. It is sometimes argued that quasi-realism collapses into a version of either realism or anti-realism, but I outline a topic-independent conception of quasi-realism that allows it to stand as a consistent third alternative. (shrink)

La question de Hume, au regard de l'identite, n'est pas de savoir en quoi consiste l'identite ou s'il y a une identite, mais comment il est possible de l'affirmer. Elle concerne en fait, la question du fondement de l'identite. Il s'agit de prouver comment, a partir de la definition d'un soi envisage comme faisceau de perceptions, les perceptions du soi peuvent etre unifiees entre elles. ;Les conclusions auxquelles Hume parvient, dans le Livre I du Traite de la nature humaine, sont (...) l'admission d'un echec: sa theorie de la connaissance ne permet pas de fournir ce principe unificateur des perceptions. ;Dans la presente recherche, nous examinons l'hypothese a partir de laquelle la doctrine des relations de Hume, plus precisement celle de contiguite temporelle, jette une lumiere nouvelle sur la question de l'identite et represente une voie possible pour en elucider l'enigme. (shrink)

This dissertation attempts to develop and defend a Pragmatic Theory of Causation. I begin by arguing that David Hume's classic discussion of causation has been widely misconstrued. His strategy is to argue that the meaning of our causal language can only appeal to distinctions that we ourselves are able to draw in our experience of the world, and this leads him to regard attributions of necessity or causal power to objects themselves not as false, but instead as incoherent. I go (...) on to argue that many contemporary theorists of causation have failed to appreciate the significance of Hume's insight, to the ultimate peril of the accounts of causation they offer: their theories posit 'metaphysically extravagant' entities or relations in an attempt to explain why regularities of succession occur, but we cannot comprehend the posits of any of these accounts in a way that will enable them to fulfill this explanatory ambition. Contemporary critiques of Hume's own approach, I suggest, effectively demonstrate that his constant conjunction criterion of causation is too simple, but not that his general metaphysical strategy of seeking an empirically accessible criterion of causal relation is either misguided or hopeless. I proceed to offer such a criterion, and to argue that it overcomes the most important problems for Hume's own account, as well as grounding satisfying analyses of causal directionality and probabilistic causation. The criterion I propose is that a succession of events is a causal one just in case it occurs in accordance with the Pragmatic Corpus: the single most efficient of the various maximally effective sets of rules we could use for prediction and intervention with respect to events throughout the entire course of our collective history. I conclude by arguing that this Pragmatic Theory can make good sense of our most sophisticated practices of scientific causal epistemology; I make this case by showing that the Theory can accommodate the argumentation and evidence presented in formal scientific settings by both sides of the recent controversy over whether or not HIV is the cause of AIDS. (shrink)

Up until the time of John Locke, who founded the empiricist tradition, many philosophers adhered to the Aristotelian notion that causes produce their effects in virtue of their power or efficacy to do so. Causal couplings between things were said to be the manifestation of particular kinds of efficacy . Efficacy qua power was viewed as either a particular kind of primitive thing mysteriously associated with physical objects or as a unique, irreducible property had by physical objects. In either case, (...) efficacy was supposed to be the ultimate source of physical change; the efficacy associated with an object--the so-called "efficient" cause--was said to manifest itself in the changing of another object. ;With the rise of empiricism, philosophers became more and more concerned about this notion of efficacy. For it is not at all evident that we can derive it from sensory experience. This skepticism culminated in the publication of David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, where it was proposed that the concept of efficacy be purged from our notions about causation. ;In part I of this dissertation, I first establish that the reasons Hume gives for expunging the notions of efficacy, and causal necessity, from our talk about causation are not nearly as compelling as Humeans have frequently said that they are. Then I argue that Hume's account falls miserably short in living up to its promise of properly classifying our preanalytic notions about causation and attempts to improve upon Hume's account have been singularly unsuccessful. While other philosophers have pointed many of these problems out before, one still frequently hears neo-Humean philosophers referring to Hume's "proofs" that there is no efficacy or causal necessity. Indeed, these so-called proofs are most often advanced as rebuttals to non-Humean accounts of causation. Similarly, one still hears about the success of various neo-Humean theories. ;In part II, I argue that Hume's treatment of causation reflects a particular view of the metaphysical possibilities for accounting for causal efficacy. More specifically, all the evidence presented by Hume against the perceivability of efficacy appears to rest upon an underlying ontological assumption to the effect that efficacy must, if it exists, be a kind of nonrelational attribute had by particular material things. It is my contention that Hume was wrong about the metaphysical possibilities for accounting for the notion of efficacy. ;Accordingly, in part II, I develop a metaphysical account of the nature of efficacy which does not construe it as a property had separately by individual material things. Rather I argue that efficacy, or power, is correctly viewed as a physically real, irreducible, relational attribute shared jointly by material things. To make a long story short, on my account, causal occurrences are produced by the joint having by material things of a special kind of attribute, viz., a productive relation. The attribute is, by its very nature, a causal link between material things; it can only be exemplified by more than one thing and, in exemplifying it, materials things simply are causally connected. (shrink)

In Husserl's view of time, he offers a solution to the dilemma of the past and to its relation to the present and the future. The experience of the past exerts no influence causally. The body of past experience is not, in that sense, an entity at all. Husserl tells us that neither past is ever altogether absented from the present, for they form an integral whole. Temporal moments are conjointly experienced and conserved in the form of a series of (...) reverberating profiles, retaining and advancing one another in one continuous schema. They are related directly and immediately by what Husserl calls a "passive synthesis." ;It is characteristic of temporal phases to unify and separate internally within the act, without interrupting its progression or being separable from it. Each phase is intrinsic and essential to the performance of the others and is, thus, never an 'object' for them. Unlike Hume, and Brentano, too, insofar as he was an associationist, Husserl argues for a direct awareness of co-existent temporal segments, and of both identity and difference. The differing or negative status, attributed both to past and future, has an important role in defining and shaping the present. Husserl discovers a way to preserve the distinctions between the, differing temporal modes without denying their unity or the reality of the past . ;Husserl must address whether what he describes as a fully realized present can avoid being a substantive link between temporally distinct experiences instead of a principle of their association. That he understands and appreciates the difficulty is clear. Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and Derrida believe that Husserl emphasizes identity at the expense of difference. I shall assess these objections. What I shall claim is at issue in Husserl's view is as much the logic of difference as that of identity. Any solution, as he fully understands, which assumes that difference is inherently contradictory will never unify the series. (shrink)

Through close critical analyses of Hume's texts I have attempted to develop a new interpretative framework that makes Hume's arguments and positions more accessible, if not more plausible. More positively, The Reluctant Revolutionary is an attempt to defend what may be called a subjectivist interpretation of Hume's views on necessary connection. My central thesis is the suggestion that Hume identifies necessary connection or power with a specific psychological disposition of the mind--as he puts it in the Treatise: necessary connection 'is (...) a determination of the mind to carry our thoughts from one object to another.' ;But why would Hume subscribe to this radical thesis, one may wonder? A large part of my discussion is an attempt to answer this vital question. The book consists of four components. In Chapter One I begin with the argument that Hume views his discussion of necessary connection as central to the Treatise--if not as its centerpiece, and then go on to try to place this discussion in its immediate philosophical context which is the discussion on causality. ;After further deliberations on these two issues, in Chapter Three I proceed to outline, and critically evaluate the immediate arguments relied on by Hume to establish his view of necessary connection. For the most part, these do not strike me as convincing arguments. ;Finally, in Chapter Four I broaden my analysis of Hume's view of necessary connection, and try to develop an account of Hume's conception of the problem that motivates his radical view of necessary connection. As I try to point out, Hume is driven by an irrepressible urge for clarity and rigour in metaphysics--an urge that manifests itself, as I attempt to show, both in the radical nature of Hume's proposals, and in his depiction of the problem of necessary connection. For Hume depicts the problem of necessary connection as a dilemma, according to which metaphysicians either concede that the term 'necessary connection' is meaningless or accept that this term actually refers to a particular subjective psychological disposition, and not, for instance, to some external phenomenon. This chapter closes with a consideration of this dilemma, and its role in Hume's postulation of a radical view of necessary connection. (shrink)

At the close of his account of causality in the Treatise, Hume acknowledges that he had to adopt the “seemingly preposterous method” of examining the causal inference prior to analyzing the causal relation since the relation “depends so much on the inference” . This dependence emerges in his two definitions of ‘cause’ which, he concedes, seem “extraneous” to the causal relation. In this paper, I try to do what Hume did not do but could have done: fully describe the causal (...) relation so as to reach its core. That core is what I call “existential dependence,” the fact that one “object” exists because another exists. It turns out that Hume’s “preposterous method” is correct since existential dependence is what I call a “distributive” relation, a kind of conjunction that can be represented only by means of certain inferences. This makes existential dependence seem mysterious, but the mystery disappears if we interpret this dependence as probability, something that is comprehensible only through inferences. The key consequence of all of this is that we need to distinguish between the kind of causality that conforms to Hume’s two definitions of ‘cause’ and the kind of causality our causal inferences designate. (shrink)

The paper investigates whether causation is extrinsic in Humean Supervenience in the sense that being caused by is an intrinsic relation between token causes and effects. The underlying goal is to test whether causality is extrinsic for Humeans and intrinsic for anti-Humeans in this sense. I argue that causation is typically extrinsic in HS, but it is intrinsic to event pairs that collectively exhaust almost the whole of history.

This paper takes off from Allison and argues that our ability to distinguish events from objects shifts the burden (or “challenge”) back to Hume as regards our concept of causation.

Hume’s account of virtue (and beauty) entails that distinct things--a quality in the contemplated and a perception in the contemplator--are the same thing--a given virtue. I show this inconsistency is consistent with his intent. A virtue is a composite of quality and perception, and for Hume a composite is distinct things--the parts--falsely supposed to be a single thing. False or unsubstantiated supposition is for Hume the basis of most of our beliefs. I end with an argument that for Hume secondary (...) qualities are composites, not powers. (shrink)