Hume: Skepticism

Where does the necessity that seems to accompany causal inferences come from? “Why [do] we conclude that … particular causes must necessarily have such particular effects?” In 1.3.6 of the Treatise, Hume entertains the possibility that this necessity is a function of reason. However, he eventually dismisses this possibility, where this dismissal consists of Hume’s “negative” argument concerning induction. This argument has received, and continues to receive, a tremendous amount of attention. How could causal inferences be justified if they are (...) not justified by reason? If we believe that p causes q, isn’t it reason that allows us to conclude q when we see p with some assurance, i.e. with some necessity? (shrink)

Response to Don Baxter, Don Garrett and Jennifer Marusic regarding my book Imagined Causes: Hume's Conception of Objects; initially delivered at the 2016 Hume Conference in Sydney, Australia as part of the Author Meets Critics session.

In this book, Schmitt claims that Hume, however implicitly, employs a fully-developed epistemology in the Treatise. In particular, Hume employs a “veritistic” epistemology, i.e. one that is grounded in truth, particularly, true beliefs. In some cases, these true beliefs are “certain,” are “infallible” (78) and are justified, as in the case of knowledge, i.e. demonstrations. In other cases, we acquire these beliefs through a reliable method, i.e. when they are produced by causal proofs. Such beliefs are also “certain” (69, 81) (...) and are (defeasibly) justified. Thus, although demonstrative knowledge and beliefs produced by causal proofs are produced by different psychological processes, and so, admit of specific kinds of “certainty,” they are nevertheless, both certain, and so, they share the same “epistemic status” (68-69). As a result, although it is clear that Hume makes a psychological distinction between demonstrations and causally produced beliefs (proofs) it may be argued that Hume does not make an epistemological distinction between knowledge (demonstrations) and causally produced beliefs (proofs). Thus, in regard to epistemic status, the latter are not necessarily inferior to the former. This has larger implications for Hume’s method; if we can say that he employs a method that invokes knowledge, or at least, beliefs that share the same epistemic status as knowledge, then Hume need not be entirely skeptical about the results of his method. Rather, the possession of true belief is Hume's ultimate goal. (380). (shrink)

This article shows that in 1.4.2.15-24 of the Treatise of Human Nature, Hume presents his own position on objects, which is to be distinguished from both the vulgar and philosophical conception of objects. Here, Hume argues that objects that are effectively imagined to have a “perfect identity” are imagined due to the constancy and coherence of our perceptions (what we may call ‘level 1 constancy and coherence’). In particular, we imagine that objects cause such perceptions, via what I call ‘indirect (...) causation.’ In virtue of imagining ideas of objects that have a perfect identity, our perceptions seem to be even more constant and coherent (what we may call ‘level 2 constancy and coherence’). Thus, in addition to seeing that Hume is presenting his own position on objects in this section of the Treatise, we see that he is working with a previously unrecognized kind of causation, i.e., indirect causation, and that he has two kinds of constancy and coherence in mind: level 1 and level 2. (shrink)

In Book I, III §9 of the Treatise, Hume makes the claim that “[all general] belief arises only from causation” (T 107). Following, he makes the even stronger claim that all general beliefs are to be thought of as beliefs in reality, and thus, all belief in reality is dependent on pre-established beliefs in both specific causal relations and the causal relation in general (T 108). In the first part of this paper, I explain Hume’s motivation behind both claims, while (...) in the second part, I argue that to some extent, Hume is correct; our belief in “reality”—a notion to be defined—is fundamentally dependent on a pre-established belief in the general notion of cause and effect and a cache of specific causal relations. Thus, epistemologically speaking, we must conclude that our notion of “reality” is intrinsically causal (note that this reading has been corrected/augmented in Rocknak 2013). (shrink)

This paper argues that Husserl’s method is partially driven by an attempt to avoid certain absurdities inherent in Hume’s epistemology. In this limited respect, we may say that Hume opened the door to phenomenology, but as a sacrificial lamb. However, Hume was well aware of his self-defeating position, and perhaps, in some respects, the need for an alternative. Moreover, Hume’s “mistakes” may have incited Husserl’s discovery of the epoche, and thus, transcendental phenomenology.

The extreme skepticism that Hume’s dangerous dilemma introduces at the end of the first Book of the Treatise is deeply unsettling, in part because it seems to undermine Hume’s commitments to common life and philosophy, but also because Hume seems not to take its sweeping doubts seriously. He refuses to abandon his daily activities and philosophical pursuits, and he offers no clear account of what entitles him to sustain them. This paper explores a variety of tactics for addressing these opposing (...) elements of his thought. The most radical approach has Hume endorse nothing whatsoever in the Treatise, a maneuver that prevents any conflict between his doubts and his commitments from arising, though at a tremendous cost. A more charitable strategy allows Hume to speak with one consistent voice throughout the text by rejecting, repurposing, or restricting either his doubts or his commitments in a way that resolves the tension between them. Yet a third approach takes Hume to advance incompatible and irreconcilable positions but holds that the inconsistency in his thinking is not as destructive as it initially appears. None of the most promising ways of developing these proposals eliminates or satisfactorily eases the conflict in Hume’s work, and the enormous obstacles that they face give us little reason to hope for something better. (shrink)

La intención del presente artículo es mostrar que Hume distingue dos tipos de argumentos escépticos. El tipo antiguo, basado en el método de antinomias, es considerado muy débil por Hume. Él desarrolla un tipo nuevo de argumento escéptico a partir de su ciencia empírica de la naturaleza humana. Del otro lado, Hume distingue entre dos usos de los argumentos escépticos: el primero, que él llama pirrónico, tiene como finalidad la suspensión del juicio, lo que es imposible, porque la naturaleza nos (...) obliga a creer; el segundo, el uso académico, pone límites a nuestro conocimiento, aceptando las creencias naturales, la ciencia empírica y las matemáticas.“Types and Uses of Sceptical Arguments in Hume”. This paper intends to show that Hume distinguishes between different kinds of sceptical arguments. The ancient kind of argument, which is based on antinomies between perceptions and beliefs, is considered very weak by Hume. Hume develops a new, stronger kind of sceptical argument based on his empirical science of human nature. Moreover, Hume distinguishes between two different uses of sceptical arguments: the first one, which he calls Pyrrhonian, is meant to suspend judgment, but this is impossible, because nature obliges us to believe; the second one, the Academical, puts limits on our cognition, accepting natural beliefs, empirical science and mathematics. (shrink)

Despite their divergences, I argue that Sextus, Montaigne, and Hume are committed to several substantive points of commonality and that these commonalities justify us in speaking of them as belonging to a unitary Pyrrhonist tradition. In this tradition, Pyrrhonizing doubt serves to chart the boundary of that-which-resists-doubt, thereby simultaneously charting the shape of that complex of nature and custom which constitutes the bedrock of human life — the life that remains after doubt has done its worst.

At the end of T 1.4.2, after examining the skeptical arguments against the claims of both reason and sense perception and affirming the futility of the familiar philosophical responses to them, Hume reflects that.

The year before his death, Hume asked his publisher to affix an advertisement to all existing and future editions of his works. In this advertisement, Hume disavows the Treatise and directs all criticism to his later work. Hume himself is relatively clear as to why he preferred this later work. In his autobiography, when discussing the poor public reception given his Treatise, Hume says, ‘I had always entertained a Notion, that my want of Success in publishing the Treatise of human (...) nature, had proceeded more from the manner than the matter; and that I had been guilty of a very usual Indiscretion, in going to the Press too early.’ In a letter to Gilbert Elliot, written in 1751, Hume says that ‘The philosophical Principles are the same in both’ the Treatise and the first Enquiry. (shrink)

This paper explores two aspects of Hume's skeptical crisis in the conclusion to _Treatise<D> Book I: his involved personal experience of the crisis, and his detached naturalistic reflection on it. I discuss several distinct states of mind reported in the text, ranging from extreme skepticism that rejects all belief, to natural dogmatism that rejects all reflection, to mitigated skepticism that tries to reconcile reflection and belief. I argue against interpretations according to which Hume's skepticism supports his naturalism, and I suggest (...) that Hume's extreme skepticism ultimately depends on a predisposition to think of the crucial elements of human cognition as "trivial", as epistemically disabling rather than enabling. (shrink)

A philosopher once wrote the following words:If I examine the PTOLOMAIC and COPERNICAN systems, I endeavour only, by my enquiries, to know the real situation of the planets; that is, in other words, I endeavour to give them, in my conception, the same relations, that they bear towards each other in the heavens. To this operation of the mind, therefore, there seems to be always a real, though often an unknown standard, in the nature of things; nor is truth or (...) falsehood variable by the various apprehensions of mankind. Though all human race should for ever conclude, that the sun moves, and the earth remains at rest, the sun stirs not an inch from his place for all these reasonings; and such conclusions are eternally false and erroneous. (shrink)

Hume is famous for having introduced a radical theory of the nature of causation. To say that A causes B is just to say that A is constantly conjoined with B and that experience of the conjunction determines the mind to expect the one on the appearance of the other. It was this theory that awoke Kant from his dogmatic slumbers and established Hume as a founding figure of the various forms of positivism that emerged from the nineteenth century. A. (...) J. Ayer, for instance, records how the Vienna Circle in its manifesto of 1929 officially included Hume as a precursor of the movement: “Those who stand closest to the Vienna Circle in their general outlook are Hume and Mach. It is remarkable how much of the doctrine that is now thought to be especially characteristic of logical positivism was already stated, or at least foreshadowed by Hume.” But this interpretation is mistaken. Hume’s conception of causation is not positivistic but skeptical. Hume did present the above constant conjunction account of causation, but what is generally ignored is that he was dissatisfied and skeptical about it. In what follows I wish to explore the rationale of Hume’s skepticism about causation. I shall show that Hume understood the constant conjunction account to operate against the conceptual background of a theistic vision of the world. Hume does not think that any constant conjunction causal explanation is adequate because we do not and cannot understand the mind of God. (shrink)

According to Hume, determinations of necessary causal connection are without empirical warrant, but, as he maintains, the concept of causality qua necessary connection is indispensable to human beings, having survival value for them, a claim which points to the biological significance of this concept. In contrast to Hume, Kant argues that the causal principle qua necessary connection belongs to the a priori conceptual framework by which rational beings constitute their experience and render the world intelligible. In “Kant’s Doctrine of the (...) A Priori in Light of Contemporary Biology” evolutionary epistemologist Konrad Lorenz sought to adapt Kant’s philosophy to contemporary biology by arguing that the a priori concepts of the understanding can be interpreted as comprising a biologically inherited framework, yet one that is provisional and in flux. Such an evolutionary interpretation of both Hume and Kant’s perspectives of the lacuna concerning causality brings the ideas of these thinkers closer together. Kant himself used suggestive analogies between the major epistemological positions concerning the origin of the a priori concepts of the understanding and the major biological theories of his time concerning the generation and development of organisms. Nevertheless, Kant would probably be reluctant to embrace such an evolutionarily-oriented conception of the categories, given his descriptions of them as self-thought, a priori first principles having a purely intellectual origin, belonging as a very condition for the possibility of the experience of rational beings in general, and as neither the product of a process of development, nor subject to one. This paper shows how Hegel’s emphasis on the dialectical progression of the logical Concept can help to ground Lorenz’s evolutionary neo-Kantianism. Toward the end of the paper, I discuss the evolutionary relevance of skepticism and critical thinking in this process via the notion of “Intellectual Selection.”. (shrink)

Meu objetivo neste artigo é destacar algumas das ideias centrais defendidas por Hume e, a fim de caracterizar a natureza de sua filosofia, contrapor duas interpretações frequentes de sua obra: a interpretação cética e interpretação naturalista. A fim de apontar as principais razões que estão por trás dessas duas interpretações que tentam apreender a natureza da filosofia de Hume, procuro abordar inicialmente alguns dos princípios centrais da teoria humeana e, em seguida, especialmente sua análise das inferências causais. No final, argumento (...) que o ceticismo e o naturalismo de Hume não são incompatíveis. Ao contrário, devem ser entendidos como duas faces de uma mesma filosofia. (shrink)

This paper explains what’s wrong with a Hume-inspired argument for skepticism about induction. Hume’s argument takes as a premise that inductive reasoning presupposes that the future will resemble the past. I explain why that claim is not plausible. The most plausible premise in the vicinity is that inductive reasoning from E to H presupposes that if E then H. I formulate and then refute a skeptical argument based on that premise. Central to my response is a psychological explanation for how (...) people judge that if E then H without realizing that they thereby settled the matter rationally. (shrink)

Interpreters of Hume on causation consider that an advantage of the ‘quasi-realist’ reading is that it does not commit him to scepticism or to an error theory about causal reasoning. It is unique to quasi-realism that it maintains this positive epistemic result together with a rejection of metaphysical realism about causation: the quasi-realist supplies an appropriate semantic theory in order to justify the practice of talking ‘as if’ there were causal powers in the world. In this paper, I problematise the (...) quasi-realist reading of Hume on causation by showing how quasi-realism does not speak to inductive scepticism. I also offer evidence that Hume takes inductive scepticism to result from his theory of causation, and that his scepticism is tied to his rejection of metaphysical causal realism. (shrink)

David Hume's political thought is shaped by an expansively conceived skepticism. For Hume, "mitigated skepticism" is a way of life rather than a mere philosophical conclusion. It entails not only philosophical doubt, but also a variety of practical, methodological, ethical, and political commitments. Skeptics acquire these commitments by living a life devoted to philosophy, reading, learned conversation, and ordinary business in a modern society. They in turn may profoundly influence political practice in their societies, though in severely restricted ways. Hume's (...) mitigated skeptics may discover practical political maxims, but they will be loath to act on them. They will tell politicians what to do, but only in order to diminish political conflict. And they will prefer to live in liberal commercial republics, while only defending them obliquely. Despite these limitations, however, Hume thinks mitigated skepticism holds an important place in modern moral and political life. (shrink)

U ovom radu istražujem kako su se Hjumova gledišta o odnosu između skepticizma i filozofije razvijala i kako su sazrevala tokom njegovog filozofskog rada. Hjumovo prvo delo, Rasprava o ljudskoj prirodi, ostavlja otvoreno pitanje zašto bi se iko bavio filozofijom u svetlu otkrića da su skeptički argumenti neoborivi. Cilj mi je da pokažem da, iako se Hjumov stav o skepticizmu i njegova skeptička pozicija nisu suštinski menjali tokom godina, Istraživanje o ljudskom razumu i Dijalozi o prirodnoj religiji, kao i nekoliko (...) njegovih kraćih spisa sadrže interesantne promene, dodatke i poboljšanja kada je reč o njegovom shvatanju toga na koji način skepticizam može da utiče na filozofiju. Tek u svom poslednjem delu Hjum nedvosmisleno tvrdi da skepticizam ostvaruje trajan i pozitivan uticaj na naše bavljenje filozofijom, a ovaj uticaj se pre svega ogleda u intelektualnoj skromnosti i ograničavanju predmeta filozofskog istraživanja. (shrink)

This chapter outlines an alternative interpretation of Hume’s philosophy, one that aims, among other things, to explain some of the most perplexing puzzles concerning the relationship between Hume’s skepticism and his naturalism. The key to solving these puzzles, it is argued, rests with recognizing Hume’s fundamental irreligious aims and objectives, beginning with his first and greatest work, A Treatise of Human Nature. The irreligious interpretation not only reconfigures our understanding of the unity and structure of Hume’s thought, it also provides (...) a radically different picture of the way in which Hume’s philosophy is rooted in its historical context. By altering our understanding of the fundamentals of Hume’s philosophy in this way, the irreligious interpretation also challenges the adequacy of the familiar and entrenched framework of “British Empiricism.”. (shrink)

David Hume’s views on the subject of free will are among the most influential contributions to this long-disputed topic. Throughout the twentieth century, and into this century, Hume has been widely regarded as having presented the classic defense of the compatibilist position, the view that freedom and responsibility are consistent with determinism. Most of Hume’s core arguments on this issue are found in the sections entitled “Of liberty and necessity,” first presented in Book 2 of A Treatise of Human Nature (...) (1739) and then in his An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748). Although the general position in both these works is much the same, there are some significant points of difference relating to the way in which the core position is presented and also in the specific range of arguments covered. The focus of my concerns in this essay will not, however, lie with the relationship between the Treatise and the first Enquiry versions of “Of liberty and necessity.” My discussion will center on the contrast between two alternative interpretations of Hume’s views on this subject, with particular reference to the version presented in the Treatise. It will be my particular concern to explain and defend the naturalistic as against the classical compatibilist account and to explain the general significance of the naturalistic account for the contemporary debate. (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)

Teaching Kant’s metaphysics to undergraduates in a survey course can be quite challenging. Specifically, it can be daunting to motivate interest in Kant’s project and present his system in an accessible way in a short amount of time. Furthermore, comprehending some of the important features of his requires some understanding of Hume’s skepticism. Unfortunately, students often misunderstand the extent and relevance of Hume’s skepticism. Here, I offer three strategies for presenting Kant’s metaphysics as a response to Hume. First, I describe (...) an exercise for presenting the problem of induction in a way that resonates with many students. Next, I provide a way of generating interest in Kant’s project so students are motivated to understand his position. Finally, I explain a game I use to bolster interest in Kant’s project and explain some of the more challenging aspects of the First Analogy. (shrink)

There is a tradition perhaps as old as philosophy itself which sees the rationality of man – and in particular, the rationality of the philosopher - as both his essential and his redeeming characteristic; it can not unfairly be said that the discipline of philosophy at least is characterised by its dependence on reason. In this context, the philosophy of David Hume presents something of a stark challenge: Although interpretations vary as to the extent and nature of his scepticism, one (...) of the themes of his work is the limits and imperfections of human reason and the sceptical concerns this engenders. On Hume's system, reason is not the overlord of the imagination but at least in part subordinate to it, and can discover little or nothing without recourse to experience. -/- My aim here is to pinpoint the true nature of Hume's scepticism regarding reason, drawing chiefly on the Treatise but also to a lesser extent the Enquiry. After a brief overview of his project in the Treatise in section 1, I go on to give an account of Hume's conception of reason or the understanding, and the epistemological distinction between demonstrative and probable reasoning, in section 2. In section 3 I examine Hume's famous argument concerning induction, arguing that to read Hume as a sceptic regarding inference is a mistake and that to say induction is grounded in principles of the imagination is not to say that it is therefore irrational. In section 4 I examine the argument of Treatise 1.4.1, 'Of scepticism with regard to reason', and in section 5 the 'dangerous dilemma' to which it leads Hume in 1.4.7, arguing that whilst his treatment of the issues it raises is somewhat unsatisfactory in this section of the Treatise a better solution can be fashioned by appealing to a distinction between the general and the trivial properties of the imagination drawn elsewhere in both the Treatise and the Enquiry. Then in section 6 I conclude by offering my own attempt at characterising the extent of Hume's scepticism regarding reason, arguing that his “mitigated” scepticism is a scepticism about knowledge but not about belief, and that its chief aim is to ensure that we philosophise only on those subjects which are suitable for enquiry given the limits and frailties of our faculties; the “reflections of common life, methodized and corrected” (Enquiry 12.25, p.208) rather than “divinity” or “school metaphysics” (Enquiry 12.34, p.211). (shrink)

Review of Bredo Johnsen's "Righting Epistemology: Hume's Revolution" (OUP, 2017).

Much has been written about Kemp Smith's famous problem regarding the tension between Hume's naturalism and his scepticism. However, most commentators have focused their attention on the Treatise; those who address the Enquiry often take it to express essentially the same message as the Treatise. When Hume's scepticism in the Enquiry has been investigated in its own right, commentators have tended to focus on Hume's inductive scepticism in Sections 4 and 5. All in all, it seems that Section 12 has (...) been unduly neglected. This paper seeks to address Kemp Smith's problem from the standpoint of Hume's treatment of scepticism in EHU 12, and finds an interesting internalist account that makes sense both of Hume's discussion in EHU 12, and his aims in the Enquiry as a whole. Moreover, it is one that is of substantive philosophical interest, having intriguing parallels to contemporary epistemological accounts. (shrink)

Title in English: Hume's Denial of Pyrrhonism.

In this paper, I argue that in the sense of greatest epistemological concern for Kant, empirical cognition is “rational sensory discrimination”: the identification or differentiation of sensory objects from each other, occurring through a capacity to become aware of and express judgments. With this account of empirical cognition, I show how the transcendental deduction of the first Critique is most plausibly read as having as its fundamental assumption the thesis that we have empirical cognition, and I provide evidence that Kant (...) understood Hume as granting this assumption. (shrink)

The author argues that the core of Hume’s Academic skepticism lies in his commitment to an external world and objective causal powers that are cognitively opaque to human understanding. Three central topics of Hume’s theory of the understanding are discussed —the existence of absolute space, the existence of a world external to our senses, and the existence of objective causal powers. In each case, Hume draws a Pyrrhonian opposition between judgments based on his “Copy Principle” and the “fictions” or “illusions” (...) formed through association of ideas. While he suspends judgment concerning the existence of absolute space, he argues that the association-based beliefs in an external world and objective causal powers are necessary for human life and indispensible in science. In adopting such beliefs about external reality, while at the same time denying their intelligibility, Hume was following ancient Academic skepticism. (shrink)

The main problem of this study is David Hume’s (1711-76) view on Metaphysical Realism (there are mind-independent, external, and continuous entities). This specific problem is part of two more general questions in Hume scholarship: his attitude to scepticism and the relation between naturalism and skepticism in his thinking. A novel interpretation of these problems is defended in this work. The chief thesis is that Hume is both a sceptic and a Metaphysical Realist. His philosophical attitude is to suspend his judgment (...) on Metaphysical Realism, whereas as a common man he firmly believes in the existence of mind-independent, external, and continuous entities. Therefore Hume does not have any one position; accordingly, a form of “no one Hume” interpretation (Richard Popkin, Robert J. Fogelin, Donald L.M. Baxter) is argued for in the book. The key point in this distinction is the temporal difference between Hume’s philosophical and everyday views. It is introduced in order to avoid attributing a conscious contradiction to him (a problem which has not attracted enough attention in the literature). The method of the work is modelled on Peter Millican’s work on Hume and induction. The approach to the main problem is to study the two “profound” arguments against the senses that Hume presents in the Section 12 of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748). These arguments are first reconstructed in detail resulting in Millican-type diagrams of them and then Hume’s endorsement of them is established on the basis of the diagrams. The first profound argument concludes that Metaphysical Realism and thus any Realistic theory of perception is unjustified as well as the existence of God and the soul. The second argument goes further having first conceptual conclusion: the very notions of Real entitity, material substance, and bodies are completely out of the reach of the faculty of understanding. Therefore they ought to be rejected according to Hume. This is a consequence of the consistent use of the Humean faculty of reason: idea-analysis and inductive inference. The second profound argument thus concludes that believing in Metaphysical Realism is inconsistent with the rational attitude that is to refrain from this belief. Hence, if we attributed both of them to Hume, we would end up with a great philosopher who embraces a manifest contradiction. The study is finished by arguing that this sceptical and Metaphysically Realistic interpretation concurs well with (1) Hume’s professed Academical philosophy and (2) project of the science of human nature. (1) According to Hume, Academical philosophy is in the first place diffidence, modesty, and uncertainty including suspension on certain issues. Secondly, it is restriction of the range of topics for which experience can provide a standard of truth. This kind of empiricist epistemological realism is coherent with the sceptical attitude on Metaphysical Realism because the latter does not rule out inter-subjective consensus on what we experience. (2) Suspension of judgment on Metaphysical Realism coheres with the mind-dependency of the objects of Hume’s science of human nature: the understanding, passions, morals, aesthetics, politics, and the human culture in all of its manifestations. Although the study takes the first Enquiry to be Hume’s authorised word on the understanding, his juvenile work A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) is argued to support this “no one Hume” interpretation. Hume’s other works are also discussed when needed. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Hume has an insight into the heart of most of “new philosophy” when he claims that according to it, proper sensibles are not Real properties of material substance and Real bodies. I call this tenet “the Proper Sensibles Principle” (PSP). In the second part of the paper, I defend the interpretation - mainly against Don Garrett’s doubts - that the PSP is a rational tenet in Hume’s view and he thus endorses it. Its rationality (...) means that the PSP has a firm foundation in inductive-causal reasoning. (shrink)

No Tratado da natureza humana, David Hume dedica uma longa seção à problemática sobre a possibilidade da existência do mundo externo intitulada “Do ceticismo quanto aos sentidos”. A seção traz idas e vindas do autor no que diz respeito à resposta para o problema. Inicialmente, Hume dá como certa a existência externa dos corpos, i.e., independente das percepções, e avisa que sua investigação se limitará, apenas, às causas que levam a crer nisso. Sua pretensão inicial não é cumprida e logo (...) dá espaço a uma rede de complexos argumentos céticos, os quais colocam em dúvida as realidades independentes das percepções. No último parágrafo, porém, Hume parece retroceder em sua posição e parece tomar como certa a existência independente dos corpos, mais uma vez, tal como fez no começo da seção. O objetivo desse trabalho foi, pois, evidenciar que há dois pontos bem diferentes que caracterizam sua argumentação sobre esse assunto: I) A existência do mundo externo; II) a possibilidade de conhecê-lo. Ao primeiro, a resposta de Hume será positiva, ao segundo ponto, negativa. O ceticismo, portanto, sempre decorreria de qualquer tentativa em conhecer tais realidades independentes, pois, através da argumentação filosófica, da razão, sempre se esbarraria na impossibilidade de sua existência. Ao mesmo tempo, sua realidade ontológica parece se impor pela própria natureza e, com isso, desativa os argumentos céticos, os quais sempre demonstram a impossibilidade de conhecê-lo, i.e., acessá-lo pela razão. Assim, o que se tem sobre o mundo externo são, apenas, impressões geradas através da experiência para com o mesmo. Em vista dos fins supracitados, foram utilizados, além do Tratado, a Investigação sobre o entendimento humano e outros textos do filósofo escocês. (shrink)