Abstract

Ward concludes that either the natural-agency account is not a genuine alternative to Hume, because it tacitly accepts or presupposes what Hume said, or, if it is an alternative, it is not a viable one, because at the very point where it departs from Hume’s account, it asserts something “mysterious.” The gist of my reply will be to assert, first, that the position I wish to defend flatly contradicts some of Hume’s key claims, so there can be no question of my having tacitly accepted them; and second, that, where Ward finds the position unacceptable, it is apparently because he has so thoroughly absorbed certain basic Humean assumptions that his arguments beg the question against any alternative to Hume.