In this paper, I examine Hume’s account of an important class of causal belief which he calls “general rules”. I argue that he understands general rules, like all causal beliefs, as lively ideas which are habitually associated with our impressions or memories. However, I argue, he believes that they are unlike any reflectively produced causal beliefs in that they are produced quickly and automatically, such that they occur independently of any other processes of reasoning. Given this, I argue, Hume appears (...) to understand general rules as relatively simple beliefs, expressible only via generic sentences, like “birds lay eggs”. (shrink)

In his essay ‘Of the Standard of Taste’, Hume identifies two standards of taste: the general rules of art and the joint verdict of true judges. From this the following questions arise: Why did Hume present two standards? And, how should we understand the relation between them? We must first get a firmer grasp on each of the standards that Hume presents. Hence, this paper has two main goals. The first is to understand the general rules of art in the (...) light of Hume’s philosophical method, which is consonant with Newtonian methods of analysis and synthesis. The second is to provide a new interpretation of what Hume takes to be the joint verdict of true judges. In my interpretation, the joint verdict of true judges constitutes the standard of taste, not because their verdicts converge, but because their verdicts encompass blameless differences. With this new foundation for understanding the two standards, I will present my own reading of the relation between them. (shrink)

This paper supports the contention that the general rules introduced by Hume in the Treatise on Human Nature (THN 1.3.15) are a selection mechanism for inductive inferences, which rejects two sources of inefficiency : (i) from emotional origin, which would reduce the uneasiness coming from a possible failure in the uniformity of nature ; (ii) from cognitive origin, which would tolerate the possible overflow of the imagination on judgment. A growing consensus in recent decades, which distinguishes between two kinds of (...) rules — extensive and corrective — is at the basis of this device. Whereas the extensive rules allow us to go beyond a singular experience and derive a wider range of inferences, the corrective rules, whose command opposes the philosopher to the vulgar, control and rectify the effects of extensive rules alone, so as to eliminate emotional and cognitive inefficiencies, and to make inferences that, borrowing the expression to Peirce, we will designate as abductive. (shrink)