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)

I show how the two great Humean ways of understanding laws of nature, projectivism and systems theory, have unwittingly reprised developments in metaethics over the past century. This demonstration helps us explain and understand trends in both literatures. It also allows work on laws to “leap- frog” over the birth of many new positions, the nomic counterparts of new theories in metaethics. However, like leap-frogging from agriculture to the internet age, it’s hardly clear that we’ve landed in a good place. (...) My reactionary advice is to return to Hume and work on the central insights that motivated Humeanism about modality in the first place. When updated with contemporary insights, there we will find an attractive naturalistic theory of laws, or so I’ll argue, and along the way we’ll see how projectivism and systems theory both get something right about this overall theory. (shrink)

This article investigates the role of instinct in Hume's understanding of human reason. It is shown that while in the Treatise Hume makes the strong reductive assertion that reason is ‘nothing but’ an instinct, in the First Enquiry the corresponding statement has been modified in several ways, rendering the relation between instinct and reason more complex. Most importantly, Hume now explicitly recognises that alongside instinctive experimental reasoning, there is a uniquely human intellectual power of intuitive and demonstrative reason that is (...) not itself an instinct. At first sight it may look as if this intellectual reason, that is capable of grasping ‘relations of ideas’, is not even grounded in instinct but is a thoroughly non-natural element in human nature. On closer analysis, however, it is shown that intellectual reason, in its apprehension of ‘abstract’ and general relations, is dependent on language – the use of ‘terms’ – and that language itself is grounded in instinctive associations of ideas. Thus, Hume's overall view is that even the intellect is an outgrowth of instinct and his conception of human nature is, therefore, shown to be fully naturalistic. Yet this naturalism can still make room for the ‘exceptionalism’ of human mathematical thought, which has no counterpart in the animal kingdom where language is lacking. (shrink)

Na seção 1.4.1 Do ceticismo quanto à razão do Tratado da Natureza Humana, David Hume apresenta o argumento cético, conhecido pelos intérpretes como o “argumento da diminuição”, que pode ser divido em duas partes: 1) dado o caráter falível de nossas operações cognitivas, todo o “conhecimento degenera em probabilidade”; e 2) dada a incerteza e a dúvida que comumente acompanham os nossos raciocínios probabilísticos, todo raciocínio é, no fim das contas, reduzido a nada e, consequentemente, somos levados à “extinção total (...) da crença e da evidência”. Apontaremos, em primeiro lugar, que o argumento cético contra a razão baseia-se no argumento cartesiano do “deus enganador” e, em segundo, que Hume rejeita que podemos endossar seriamente a “extinção total da crença e da evidência”. O que nos leva a propor a seguinte questão: em que consiste, para Hume, o status dos argumentos céticos? Responder tal pergunta implica em esclarecer outros dois problemas, pois, se não podemos atingir o “ceticismo total”, podemos, então, confiar em nossa faculdade de raciocínio? Se sim, sob quais condições podemos? Vê-se, afinal, que a solução de Hume consiste claramente em conferir limites à nossa faculdade de raciocínio, a fim de evitar sua autodestruição. (shrink)

Hume is an experimental philosopher who attempts to understand why we think, feel, and act as we do. But how should we evaluate the adequacy of his proposals? This chapter examines Hume’s account from the perspective of interdisciplinary work in cognitive science.

Does the self exist? If so, what is its nature? How long do selves last? Galen Strawson draws on literature and psychology as well as philosophy to discuss various ways we experience having or being a self. He argues that it is legitimate to say that there is such a thing as the self, distinct from the human being.

The subject of this essay-based dissertation is Hume’s natural philosophy. The dissertation consists of four separate essays and an introduction. These essays do not only treat Hume’s views on the topic of natural philosophy, but his views are placed into a broader context of history of philosophy and science, physics in particular. The introductory section outlines the historical context, shows how the individual essays are connected, expounds what kind of research methodology has been used, and encapsulates the research contributions of (...) the essays. The first essay treats Newton’s experimentalist methodology in gravity research and its relation to Hume’s causal philosophy. It is argued that Hume does not see the relation of cause and effect as being founded on a priori reasoning, similar to the way in which Newton criticized non-empirical hypotheses about the causal properties of gravity. Contrary to Hume’s rules of causation, the universal law does not include a reference either to contiguity or succession, but Hume accepts it in interpreting the force and the law of gravity instrumentally. The second article considers Newtonian and non-Newtonian elements in Hume more broadly. He is sympathetic to many prominently Newtonian themes in natural philosophy, such as experimentalism, critique of hypotheses, inductive proof, and the critique of Leibnizian principles of sufficient reason and intelligibility. However, Hume is not a Newtonian philosopher in many respects: his conceptions regarding space and time, the vacuum, the specifics of causation, the status of mechanism, and the reality of forces differ markedly from Newton’s related conceptions. The third article focuses on Hume’s Fork and the proper epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics. It is shown that the epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics, such as those concerning laws of nature, is that of matters of fact. The reason for this is that the propositions of mixed mathematics are dependent on the Uniformity Principle. The fourth article analyzes Einstein’s acknowledgement of Hume regarding special relativity. The views of the scientist and the philosopher are juxtaposed, and it is argued that there are two common points to be found in their writings, namely an empiricist theory of ideas and concepts and a relationist ontology regarding space and time. (shrink)

The Title Principle is seen by a number of commentators as crucial to Hume’s resolution of skeptical doubts in THN 1.4.7, thus providing an answer to Kemp Smith’s (1941) famous worry regarding the tension between Hume’s skepticism and his naturalism. However, I will argue that in the Enquiry, Hume rejects both the Title Principle and the role of the passions in his epistemology. Those who think that neither the Title Principle nor the passions play a significant role in THN 1.4.7 (...) will likely take this as grist for their mills. But for those who endorse such interpretations, my argument presents an interpretive burden to provide some explanation as to why Hume might have become dissatisfied with this epistemic framework, abandoning it in his later work. Having raised this interpretive burden, my paper also seeks to bear it by providing such an explanation. (shrink)

Is Hume a naturalist? Does he regard all or nearly all beliefs and actions as rationally unjustified? In order to settle these questions, it is necessary to examine their key terms and to understand the character-especially the normative character-of Hume's philosophical project. This paper argues that Hume is a naturalist-and, in particular, both a moral and an epistemic naturalist-in quite robust ways; and that Hume can properly regard many actions and beliefs as "rationally justified" in several different senses of that (...) term. (shrink)

Hume frequently states that we are ignorant of genuine power. There is a well-known internal difficulty concerning this claim concerning ignorance. According to Hume, we do not have an impression-based idea of genuine power; on the other hand, every noun needs a corresponding idea to be meaningful. Is his claim concerning ignorance, which makes use of the noun ‘power’, meaningless in light of his own criterion of meaningfulness? I focus on two exegetical approaches to this difficulty proposed in the literature (...) of the ‘New Hume Debate’: 1) we may read Hume's own positive definitions of power back into his claim of ignorance to ensure the meaningfulness of ‘power’; and 2) ‘power’ may correspond to a relative idea of genuine power and derive its meaning from this relative idea. I argue against both of these solutions and offer my own solution that is quite close to the text. However, adopting my proposal demands a price: a considerable part of Hume's argumentative undert.. (shrink)

Interpreters have found it exceedingly difficult to understand how Hume could be right in claiming that his two definitions of ‘cause’ are essentially the same. As J. A. Robinson points out, the definitions do not even seem to be extensionally equivalent. Don Garrett offers an influential solution to this interpretative problem, one that attributes to Hume the reliance on an ideal observer. I argue that the theoretical need for an ideal observer stems from an idealized concept of definition, which many (...) interpreters, including Garrett, attribute to Hume. I argue that this idealized concept of definition indeed demands an unlimited or infinite ideal observer. But there is substantial textual evidence indicating that Hume disallows the employment of idealizations in general in the sciences. Thus Hume would reject the idealized concept of definition and its corresponding ideal observer. I then put forward an expert-relative reading of Hume’s definitions of ‘cause’, which also renders both definitions extensionally equivalent. On the expert-relative reading, the meaning of ‘cause’ changes with better observations and experiments, but it also allows Humean definitions to play important roles within our normative practices. Finally, I consider and reject Henry Allison’s argument that idealized definitions and their corresponding infinite minds are necessary for expert reflection on the limitations of current science. (shrink)

Time is one of the most enigmatic notions philosophers have ever dealt with. Once subjected to close examination, almost any feature usually ascribed to time, leads to a plethora of fundamental and hard to resolve questions. Just as philosophers of the eighteenth-century attempted to take account of revolutionary developments in the physical sciences in understanding space, life, and a host of other fundamental aspects of nature (see Jones, Gaukroger, and Smith in this volume) they also engaged in fundamental and fruitful (...) controversies about the nature of time spurred by Newton and others (see Schliesser and Schabas in this volume). In this article, I will attempt to trace the general outlines of these controversies. Special attention will be given to a question that was central for many eighteenth century philosophers and is somewhat less prominent in contemporary, twenty-first century, debates on the nature of time, i.e., whether time can be reduced to, grounded by, or explained through other more basic elements. The concept of time is commonly discussed – both in eighteenth and twenty first century philosophy – in analogy to space. Here I will attempt to focus on time and address the analogies to space only when relevant. This attitude is motivated both by the need to provide as detailed an account as possible of time in the allocated textual space, and by the various dissimilarities between space and time. While space and time can be fruitfully compared and contrasted, the use of metaphors taken from one domain to clarify features belonging to the other domain has the real potential of leading us astray by unconsciously and seamlessly taking metaphorical language in a literal sense. In the first part of this essay, I will discuss the famous debate between Newton, Leibniz and Clarke on the nature of space and time. The second part will address Hume’s understanding of time and the relation between time and causation. In the third and final part, I will discuss Kant’s views on the relation between time and causality, place them in the context of his predecessors, and then examine Salomon Maimon’s attempt to revive the Leibnizian program of reducing time to concepts, within the framework of Kantian philosophy, broadly conceived. (shrink)

Discussion on whether Hume's treatment of induction is descriptive or normative has usually centred on Hume's negative argument, somewhat neglecting the positive argument. In this paper, I will buck this trend, focusing on the positive argument. First, I argue that Hume's positive and negative arguments should be read as addressing the same issues . I then argue that Hume's positive argument in the Enquiry is normative in nature; drawing on his discussion of scepticism in Section 12 of the Enquiry, I (...) explain a framework by which he provides what I call consequent justification for our inductive practices in his positive argument. Based on this, I argue that his negative argument in the Enquiry should similarly be read as normative in nature. (shrink)

In the appendix to his Treatise Hume admits that his philosophy of mind is defective. Reluctantly he asserts that his thought has ensnared him in a labyrinth. Referring specifically to the section in the Treatise on personal identity and the self, the young Scot admits that he is “involv’d in such a labyrinth, that, I must confess, I neither know how to correct my former opinions, nor how to render them consistent.” (Treatise 633) My paper is a critical investigation of (...) this characterization of Hume’s predicament. I argue (1) that at best Hume is facing a dilemma, not a labyrinth, and (2) that the dilemma can be solved, and (3) that the resolution to Hume’s problem can be found in his conception of intelligibility. (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)

Various Scottish Enlightenment thinkers raised substantial challenges to the British imperial policy over the course of the eighteenth century. They were largely concerned about the global competit...

This paper will make the case that we can find in Kant’s Second Analogy a substantive response to Hume’s argument on induction. This response is substantive insofar as it does not merely consist in independently arguing for the opposite conclusion, but rather, it identifies and exploits a gap in this argument. More specifically, Hume misses the possibility of justifying the uniformity of nature as a synthetic a priori proposition, which Kant looks to establish in the Second Analogy. Note that the (...) focus on the paper is on Kant’s identification of the form that a solution to Hume’s inductive scepticism must take. In making this point, my paper will look to establish two lemmas: Kant identifies synthetic a priori judgments as a means of justifying metaphysical knowledge in a way that circumvents Hume’s dichotomy between matters of fact and relations of ideas; the Second Analogy looks to establish the uniformity of nature of as a synthetic a priori proposition. However, my paper generally abstains from the question of the tenability of Kant’s argument in the Second Analogy. Doing justice to this latter discussion would require more space than I am able to offer here. My paper therefore has a conditional bearing on the philosophical issue of inductive scepticism. If one believes Kant’s Second Analogy to be philosophically cogent, then Kant offers a successful justification of induction against Hume’s scepticism. If not, then at least one can still admire Kant’s identification of the gap in Hume’s argument, which, to a degree, can be exploited independently of Kant’s system. (shrink)

In the conclusion to the first book of the Treatise, Hume's skeptical reflections have plunged him into melancholy. He then proceeds through a complex series of stages, resulting in renewed interest in philosophy. Interpreters have struggled to explain the connection between the stages. I argue that Hume's repeated invocation of the four humors of ancient and medieval medicine explains the succession, and sheds a new light on the significance of skepticism. The humoral context not only reveals that Hume conceives of (...) skepticism primarily as a temperament, not a philosophical view or system. It also resolves a puzzle about how Hume can view skepticism as both an illness and a cure. The skeptical temperament can, depending on its degree of predominance, either contribute to or upset the balance of temperaments required for proper mental functioning. (shrink)

In A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume presents an argument according to which all knowledge reduces to probability, and all probability reduces to nothing. Many have criticized this argument, while others find nothing wrong with it. In this paper we explain that the argument is invalid as it stands, but for different reasons than have been hitherto acknowledged. Once the argument is repaired, it becomes clear that there is indeed something that reduces to nothing, but it is something other (...) than what, according to many, Hume had in mind. Thus two views emerge of what exactly it is that reduces. We surmise that Hume failed to distinguish the two, because he lacked the formal means to differentiate between a rendering of his argument that is in accordance with the probability calculus, and one that is not. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is show how an initially appealing objection to David Hume's account of judgment can only be put forward by philosophers who accept an account of judgment that has its own sizable share of problems. To demonstrate this, I situate the views of John Locke, David Hume, and Thomas Reid with respect to each other, so as to illustrate how the appealing objection is linked to unappealing features of Locke's account of judgment.

According to the received view, Hume is a much more rigorous and consistent concept-empiricist than Locke. Hume is supposed to have taken as a starting point Locke's meaning-empiricism, and worked out its full radical implications. Locke, by way of contrast, cowered from drawing his theory's strange consequences. The received view about Locke's and Hume's concept-empiricism is mistaken, I shall argue. Hume may be more uncompromising (although he too falters), but he is not more rigorous than Locke. It is not because (...) of (intellectual) timidity that Locke does not draw Hume's conclusions from his empiricism. It is, rather, because of his much sounder method. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider some ways in which the Copy Principle and Hume’s nominalism impinge on one another, concluding that the marriage is not a happy one. I argue for the following claims. First, Hume’s argument against indeterminate ideas isn’t cogent even if the Copy Principle is accepted. But this does not vindicate Locke: the imagistic conception of ideas, presupposed by the Copy Principle, will force Locke to accept something like Hume’s view of the way general terms function, the (...) availability of abstract ideas notwithstanding. Second, Hume’s discussion of nominalism provides support for the “old Hume” interpretation, which takes the Copy Principle to be a criterion of meaningfulness, as against the “new Hume” reading, according to which it constrains what we can know. Finally, nominalism forces Hume to adopt a more complicated theory of ideas. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Hume's solution to a problem that contemporary metaphysicians call “the problem of universals” would be rather trope-theoretical than some other type of nominalism. The basic idea in different trope theories is that particular properties, i.e., tropes are postulated to account for the fact that there are particular beings resembling each other. I show that Hume's simple sensible perceptions are tropes: simple qualities. Accordingly, their similarities are explained by these tropes themselves and their resemblance. Reading (...) Hume as a trope nominalist sheds light on his account of general ideas, perceptions, relations and nominalism. (shrink)

En este trabajo se explora el "problema de las otras mentes" desde una perspectiva humeana, con la intención de concebir una alternativa anticartesiana tanto en el nivel teórico como en el metateórico. Para ello, se examinan brevemente algunas de las características más importantes de la teoría humeana de la subjetividad, sistemáticamente desatendidas por la mayoría de los intérpretes: la preponderancia de la dimensión pasional en la formación gradual de la subjetividad y el papel de la simpatía en ese proceso. Además, (...) se sostiene la posibilidad de elaborar una perspectiva anticartesiana sobre la base de una inversión metateórica ineludible, un verdadero giro práctico que tiene lugar dentro de la propuesta humeana, el cual implica hacer un marcado hincapié en la primacía del aspecto práctico-intersubjetivo de la subjetividad por encima del aspecto teórico-individualista. This paper explores the "other minds problem" from a Humean perspective, with the objective of devising an anti-Cartesian alternative, both theoretical and meta-theoretical. In order to do this, the paper briefly examines some of the most important features of the Humean theory of the self systematically neglected by most interpreters: the prevalence of the passional dimension in the gradual formation of the self, and the role of sympathy in that process. We hold the possibility of developing an anti-Cartesian perspective on the basis of an unavoidable meta-theoretical reversal, a genuine practical turn that takes place within the Humean proposal, and which involves a greater emphasis on the primacy of the practical-intersubjective aspect of the self over the theoretical-individualistic one. (shrink)

Recent work on Hume's Theory of Perception has shown that Hume takes the appearance of impressions to vary according to the ideas under which they are subsumed. In this paper, I argue that the vulgar position in the section where he discusses the Inference from Constancy is characterised by an ideal primordial state of mind where impressions are directly encountered without being subsumed under any idea. In particular, impressions which are not subsumed under the idea of a perception do not (...) appear to the mind as impressions. Read in this light, Hume's Inference from Constancy is immune to the difficulties which have commonly been raised against it. (shrink)

Abstract At stake in the dispute between Campbell and Hume is the basis for our acceptance of testimony. Campbell argues that, contrary to Hume, our acceptance of testimony is prior to experience, while Hume continues to maintain that the appropriation through testimony of the experience of others depends ultimately on one's own experience. I argue that Hume's remarks about testimony provide a non-circular account of the process by which the experience of others may become one's own; and I suggest that (...) the view of Campbell and Hume as proponents of two radically opposed positions on the epistemology of testimony represents a considerable over-simplification. (shrink)

In A Treatise of Human Nature 1.4.2, entitled ‘Of Scepticism with Regard to the Senses’, Hume discussed the causes of belief in the existence of external objects. Philosophers, correcting the false...

The ‘New Hume’ interpretation, which sees Hume as a realist about ‘thick’ Causal powers, has been largely motivated by his evident commitment to causal language and causal science. In this, however, it is fundamentally misguided, failing to recognise how Hume exploits his anti-realist conclusions about (upper-case) Causation precisely to support (lower-case) causal science. When critically examined, none of the standard New Humean arguments — familiar from the work of Wright, Craig, Strawson, Buckle, Kail, and others — retains any significant force (...) against the plain evidence of Hume's; texts. But the most devastating objection comes from Hume's own applications of his analysis of causation, to the questions of ‘the immateriality of the soul’ and ‘liberty and necessity’. These show that the New Hume interpretation has misunderstood the entire purpose of his ‘Chief Argument’, and presented him as advocating some of the very positions he is arguing most strongly against. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that a number of Hume’s claims generate a putative inconsistency with regard to complex ideas and independent existence. I first provide a prima facie argument for the existence of this inconsistency. Then, I examine a number of attempts to rescue Hume from this problem, and argue that each of them fails, before proposing my own solution.

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)

Hume regards the ‘absolute’ necessity attending demonstrable propositions as an expression of the limitations of human imagination. When we register our modal commitments in ordinary descriptive language, affirming that there are such-and-such absolute necessities, possibilities, and impossibilities, we are projecting our sense of what the human mind can and cannot conceive. In some ways the account parallels Hume’s famous treatment of the necessity of causes, and in some respects it anticipates recent expressivist theories of absolute modality. I marshal the evidence (...) for this interpretation, show how it can explain a number of otherwise puzzling features of Hume’s modal epistemology and metaphysics, and situate this account of our modal discourse in Hume’s wider programme for a science of human nature. (shrink)

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By investigating one of the major inconsistencies that Hume's parallel treatment of the identity of persons and objects issues, this essay offers an unconventional account of what it needs to avoid a dualist picture of mind and world. It will be argued that much hinges on the question of whether or not one is willing to allow the principally unperceivable to enter into one's concept of reality. Hume, as will be shown, rejects this approach: he denies that we have reason (...) to think that there are substances that divide the world into two separate realms. The strategic value of this move is that it enables us to think of minds in terms similar to those underlying our conception of physical objects without urging us to engage in reductionist or eliminativist projects. (shrink)

In this article I try to articulate a defensible argumentation against the idea of an ontology of infinity. My position is phenomenologically motivated and in this virtue strongly influenced by the Husserlian reduction of the ontological being to a process of subjective constitution within the immanence of consciousness. However taking into account the historical charge and the depth of the question of infinity over the centuries I also include a brief review of the platonic and aristotelian views and also those (...) of Locke and Hume on the concept to the extent that they are relevant to my own discussion of infinity both in a purely philosophical and epistemological context. Concerning the latter context, I argue against Kanamori’s position, in The Infinite as Method in Set Theory and Mathematics, that the mathematical infinite can be accounted for solely in terms of epistemological articulation, that is, in the way it is approached, assimilated, and applied in the course of the construction of mathematical hierarchies. Instead I point to a subjectively constituted immanent ‘infinity’ in virtue of the a priori as well as factual characteristics of subjective constitution, underlying and conditioning any talk of infinity in an epistemological sense. From this viewpoint I also address some other positions on the question of a possible ontology of the mathematical infinite. My whole approach to the question of the infinite in an epistemological sense hinges on the assumption that the mathematical infinite subsumes the infinite of physical theories to the extent that physics and science in general deal with the infinite in terms of the corresponding mathematical language and the specific techniques involved. (shrink)

This essay argues that Humean impressions are triggers of associative processes, which enable us to form stable patterns of thought that co-vary with our experiences of the world. It will thus challenge the importance of the Copy Principle by claiming that it is the regularity with which certain kinds of sensory inputs motivate certain sets of complex ideas that matters for the discrimination of ideas. This reading is conducive to Hume’s account of perception, because it avoids the impoverishment of conceptual (...) resources so typical for empiricist theories of meaning and explains why ideas should be based on impressions, although impressions cannot be known to mirror matters of fact. Dieser Aufsatz argumentiert dafür, dass humesche Eindrücke Auslöser von assoziativen Prozessen sind, welche es uns ermöglichen, stabile Denkmuster zu bilden, die mit unseren Erfahrungen der Welt kovariant sind. Der Aufsatz stellt somit die Wichtigkeit des Kopien-Prinzips in Frage, nämlich dadurch, dass behauptet wird, für die Unterscheidung der Ideen sei die Regelmäßigkeit maßgeblich, mit der gewisse Arten von sensorischen Eingaben gewisse Mengen von komplexen Ideen motivieren. Diese Lesart trägt zu einem Verständnis von Humes Auffassung der Wahrnehmung bei, da sie die Verarmung der begrifflichen Mittel, die für empiristische Theorien der Bedeutung so typisch ist, vermeidet und erklärt, warum Ideen auf Eindrücken basieren sollten, obwohl Eindrücke nicht als Abbildungen von Tatsachen erkannt werden können. (shrink)

We do not fully understand Hume’s account of space if we do not understand his view of determinations of extension, which is too much ignored a topic. In this paper, I argue for an interpretation that determinations of extension are unities in Hume’s view: single beings in addition to their components. This realist reading is reasonable on both textual and philosophical grounds. There is strong textual evidence for it and no textual reason to reject it. Realism makes perfect sense of (...) the metaphysics of determinations of extension along Humean lines and Hume’s view of spatial relations. (shrink)

Since the mid-1970s, scholars have recognized that the skeptical interpretation of Hume's central argument about induction is problematic. The science of human nature presupposes that inductive inference is justified and there are endorsements of induction throughout "Treatise" Book I. The recent suggestion that I.iii.6 is confined to the psychology of inductive inference cannot account for the epistemic flavor of its claims that neither a genuine demonstration nor a non-question-begging inductive argument can establish the uniformity principle. For Hume, that inductive inference (...) is justified is part of the data to be explained. Bad argument is therefore excluded as the cause of inductive inference; and there is no good argument to cause it. Does this reinstate the problem of induction, undermining Hume's own assumption that induction is justified? It does so only if justification must derive from "reason", from the availability of a cogent argument. Hume rejects this internalist thesis; induction's favorable epistemic status derives from features of custom, the mechanism that generates inductive beliefs. Hume is attracted to this externalist posture because it provides a direct explanation of the epistemic achievements of children and non-human animals — creatures that must rely on custom unsupplemented by argument. (shrink)

Entre los intérpretes que problematizan la cuestión del sujeto moral en el pensamiento de David Hume, Pauline Chazan ha defendido la existencia de ciertas tensiones entre el sujeto de carácter pasional que Hume tematiza en el libro 2 del Tratado de la Naturaleza Humana y el posterior ingreso de dicho sujeto al campo de la moralidad, elaborado en el libro 3. Este trabajo ofrece una lectura novedosa de la teoría humeana de la subjetividad que permite reconsiderar y resolver este supuesto (...) conflicto entre el sujeto pasional y el sujeto moral. Para ello, desarrolla una concepción multidimensional de la subjetividad que permite concebir la formación del sujeto como un proceso complejo y gradual que involucra simultáneamente varios niveles distintos que, aunque puedan estudiarse de forma independiente, se encuentran estrechamente vinculados. Among the commentators who problematize the issue of the moral self in David Hume's thought, Pauline Chazan has argued for the existence of some tensions between the passionate self that Hume thematizes in Book 2 of A Treatise of Human Nature and how this self subsequently gets in the moral domain, which Hume elaborated in Book 3. This paper offers an innovative reading of Hume's theory of subjectivity, which allows reconsidering and resolving this apparent conflict between the passionate self and the moral self. To do so, it develops a multidimensional conception of the subjectivity allowing to conceive the formation of the self as a complex and gradual process involving simultaneously different levels that, even though may be studied separately, are closely connected. (shrink)

1. Introduction: 1.1 Difficulties of Approach; 1.2 Philosophical Background. 2. The Context of Early Modern Theories of the Passions: 2.1 Changing Vocabulary; 2.2 Taxonomies; 2.3 Philosophical Issues in Theories of the Emotions. SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENTS: Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Theories of the Emotions; Descartes; Hobbes; Malebranche; Spinoza; Shaftsbury; Hutcheson; Hume.

This paper replies to Peter Millican (Mind, 2009), who argues that Hume denies the possible existence of causal powers which underlie the regularities that we observe in nature. I argue that Hume's own philosophical views on causal power cannot be considered apart from his mitigated skepticism. His account of the origin of the idea of causal power, which traces it to a subjective impression, only leads to what he calls ‘Pyrrhonian scepticism’. He holds that we can only escape such excessive (...) skepticism by way of a natural judgment based on the association of ideas, which forms the basis of what he calls ‘a legitimate ground of Assent’. (shrink)

In this paper, I will reconstruct Hume's argument for the ontological (in the sense of rigid existential) independence of simple properties in A Treatise of Human Nature , Book 1 (1739). According to my reconstruction, the main premises of the argument are the real distinctness of every perception of a simple property, Hume's Separability Principle and his Conceivability Principle. In my view, Hume grounds the real distinctness of every perception of a simple property in his atomistic theory of sense perception (...) and his Copy Principle. I will also show why Hume's argument should be seen as relevant nowadays. David Lewis and his followers in metaphysics continue Hume's line of thinking in this respect, which is opposed by power ontologists (Brian Ellis, Stephen Mumford), for example. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of the imagination in Hume's epistemology. Three specific powers of the imagination are identified – the imagistic, conceptual and productive – as well as three corresponding kinds of fictions based on the degree of belief contained in each class of ideas the imagination creates. These are generic fictions, real and mere fictions, and necessary fictions, respectively. Through these manifestations, it is emphasized, Hume presents the imagination both as the positive force behind human creativity and a (...) subversive presence that transforms experience while at once making it possible. (shrink)