From the time of Reid through Coleridge to T. H. Green, Hume was interpreted as a sceptic and as a wholly negative philosopher. And from their perspective such an interpretation no doubt makes some sense, given the vested interest in religion and the absolute of the idealists: from that perspective it is an essential part of a positive position that it take one beyond the realm of ordinary objects known by sense experience to a realm of entities that transcend that (...) world of everyday life. That interpretation lingers on, like bad jokes, to retail in Philosophy 100 classes. On the other hand, in an age where the demand that one have access to a transcendent entity is less insistent, it has become possible to challenge the orthodox reading of Hume. The first to do this was Norman Kemp Smith, who argued that, while Hume was a sceptic, he in fact also had a positive view, not to be sure that of Reid & Co., but that of anaturalist, that is, one who holds that our beliefs, and our moral commitments, are none of them rational, none of them products of reason, but rather are products of our instinctive and passionate natures. This interpretation continues to have important defenders such as Popkin and Stroud. More recently, however, some scholars have gone further and argued that there are good senses in which Hume is not a sceptic, and that he constructs a case that our instinctual beliefs are not only natural but also rational. Major works defending this reading of Hume as a naturalized epistemologist are those of Livingston and Jones. The Kemp Smith interpretation has, however, found a major new defender in John Wright'sThe Sceptical Realism of David Hume. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct the birth, blossoming and decline of an eighteenth century program, namely “Moral Newtonianism”. I reconstruct the interaction, or co-existence, of different levels: positive theories, methodology, worldviews and trace the presence of scattered items of the various levels in the work of Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Dugald Stewart. I highlight how Mirowski’s reconstruction of the interaction between physics and economics may be extended to the eighteenth century in an interesting way once the outdated reconstruction of (...) Adam Smith that has been adopted by Mirowski is updated. I show how general methodological ideas, such as the distinction between ultimate causes or essences and intermediate principles, that originated in a context where the issue was the interaction between natural science and theology, proved useful when transferred to social theory in encouraging a kind of “experimental” approach to social phenomena. I discuss finally the genesis of frozen metaphors such as equilibrium, circulation, and value, arguing that Canguilhem’s lesson – namely that scientific change is produced not only by similarity but also by opposition – may be applied also to the history of economic thought. I take as an example Adam Smith’s ‘discovery’ of social mechanisms vis-à-vis his sceptical mistrust of neo-Stoic and Platonic views of a world-order. (shrink)

As is well known, the Humean account of causal inference gives a central location to inference habits. Some of these habits one can discipline. Thus, one can so discipline oneself as to reason in accordance with the “rules by which to judge of causes and effects”, that is, one can discipline oneself to think scientifically, rather than, say, in accordance with the rules of prejudice, or of superstition. All such judgments, even those of science, are, however, upon the Humean account (...) fallible. Some, or rather very many, have raised the issue about how any such causal judgment or inference is justified. That is, how can such inference habits be justified, shown to be reasonable. Hume meets this challenge by arguing that there are some habits all men do and must have. Because we must have them we ought to have them. They are, therefore, justified. (shrink)

For the last forty years, Hume's Newtonianism has been a debated topic in Hume scholarship. The crux of the matter can be formulated by the following question: Is Hume a Newtonian philosopher? Debates concerning this question have produced two lines of interpretation. I shall call them ‘traditional’ and ‘critical’ interpretations. The traditional interpretation asserts that there are many Newtonian elements in Hume, whereas the critical interpretation seriously questions this. In this article, I consider the main points made by both lines (...) of interpretations and offer further arguments that contribute to this debate. I shall first argue, in favor of the traditional interpretation, that Hume is sympathetic to many prominently Newtonian themes in natural philosophy such as experimentalism, criticality of hypotheses, inductive proof, and criticality of Leibnizian principles of sufficient reason and intelligibility. Second, I shall argue, in accordance with the critical interpretation, that in many cases Hume... (shrink)

In a 2004 paper, “Hume’s Missing Shade of Blue Reconsidered from a Newtonian Perspective,” Eric Schliesser argues that Hume’s well-known discussion of the missing shade of blue “reveals considerable ignorance of Newton’s achievement in optics,” and that Hume has failed to assimilate the lessons taught by Newton’s optical experiments. I argue in this paper, contrary to Schliesser, that Hume’s views on color are logically and evidentially independent of Newton’s results. In developing my reading, I will argue that Schliesser accepts an (...) overly broad interpretation of the implications of Newton’s experimental results, and takes inadequate account of Hume’s disciplined methodological restrictions on the kinds of experiential evidence that are to be admitted in building the foundations of his science of human nature. (shrink)

This paper advances an interpretation of what Hume called ‘the general rules’: natural principles of belief-formation that nevertheless can be augmented via reflection. According to Hume, reflection is, in part, what separates the wise from the vulgar. In this paper, I argue that for Hume being wise must therefore be, to some degree, voluntary. Hume faced a significant problem in attempting to reconcile his epistemic normativity, i.e. his claims about what we ought to believe, with his largely involuntarist theory of (...) the mind. Reflection on the General Rules, and an interpretation of that reflection as voluntary, helps explain not only Hume's theory of belief, but also how he hoped to reconcile epistemic normativity with naturalism about the mental. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the context and significance of the first instalment of Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature , Books One and Two, on the understanding and on the passions, published in 1739 without Book Three. I argue that Books One and Two taken together should be read as addressing the question of the relation between reason and passion, and place Hume's discussion in the context of a large early modern philosophical literature on the topic. Hume's goal is (...) to show that the passions do not require government by reason, and to illustrate various ways in which the passions of social beings regulate themselves. The underlying theme of the first Treatise is thus a new theory of sociability: sympathetic sociability. (shrink)

In a celebrated passage in ‘Of the Standard of Taste’, Hume tells us that those readers who prefer Bunyan's writings to Addison's are merely ‘pretended critics’ whose judgment is ‘absurd and ridiculous’; this is ‘no less an extravagance, than if he had maintained a mole-hill to be as high as TENERIFFE, or a pond as extensive as the ocean’. Hume shows a decisiveness and vehemence in his judgment against Bunyan that has greater significance than that of being a mere reflection (...) of his aesthetic principles. Hume does, after all, wish to make ‘durable admiration’ the foundation of his standard of taste, and both the number of eighteenth-century reprints of The Pilgrim's Progress and Johnson's comment that this work has as ‘the best evidence of its merit, the general and continued approbation of mankind’ testify to the lasting popularity of Bunyan's work. Hume's critical judgment on Bunyan is not merely a consequence of a mechanical application of his standard of taste, but is rather a reflection of what I will term Hume's ‘epistemology of ease’. (shrink)

In this essay, I investigate the dynamic foundations of Hume’s philosophy which is so heavily dependent upon Newton’s physics. Hume’s ubiquitous phrase „force and vivacity” is symptomatic of his dynamic, rather than voluntaristic, position that dominates his interpretation of impressions, ideas, and causality in particular. After pointing out some inconsistencies of Hume’s Newtonism, I concentrate on Hume’s treatment of power. It is a well-known fact that Hume rejected natural powers, in fear of their occult character, but accepted human powers giving (...) them an actualist interpretation. I suggest that there is a dispositional treatment hidden in Hume’s statements which puts Hume in line with other philosophers of power. (shrink)

Ziel der Arbeit ist zu zeigen, dass sich in der theoretischen Philosophie David Humes Ansätze zu einer therapeutischen Methode finden, wie sie von Ludwig Wittgenstein angewandt und beschrieben wurde. Im ersten Teil wird Wittgensteins Konzeption der Philosophie und ihre Anwendung anhand einer genauen Textexegese dargestellt. Der zweite Teil untersucht primär die Humeschen Überlegungen zu Kausalität und Induktion, seine methodologischen Aussagen sowie seine Perzeptionstheorie und argumentiert für die These, dass Hume ebenfalls, wenn auch mit Einschränkungen, Elemente einer therapeutischen Methode und eine (...) entsprechende Konzeption der Philosophie zugeschrieben werden können. (shrink)