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)

Given the sharp distinction that follows from Hume’s Fork, the proper epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics seems to be a mystery. On the one hand, mathematical propositions concern the relation of ideas. They are intuitive and demonstratively certain. On the other hand, propositions of mixed mathematics, such as in Hume’s own example, the law of conservation of momentum, are also matter of fact propositions. They concern causal relations between species of objects, and, in this sense, they are not (...) intuitive or demonstratively certain, but probable or provable. In this article, I argue that the epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics is that of matters of fact. I wish to show that their epistemic status is not a mystery. The reason for this is that the propositions of mixed mathematics are dependent on the Uniformity Principle, unlike the propositions of pure mathematics. (shrink)

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)

Disputants in the debate regarding whether Hume's argument on induction is descriptive or normative have by and large ignored Hume’s positive argument (that custom is what determines inferences to the unobserved), largely confining themselves to intricate debates within the negative argument (that inferences to the unobserved are not founded on reason). I believe that this is a mistake, for I think Hume’s positive argument to have significant implications for the interpretation of his negative argument. In this paper, I will argue (...) that Hume’s positive and negative arguments should be read as addressing the same issues, whether normative or causal. I will then focus on the Enquiry version of Hume’s positive argument, arguing that it carries a significant normative conclusion: there, Hume argues that custom plays a normative role in justifying our inductive inferences. Given that Hume’s positive argument should be read as addressing the same issues as his negative argument, we should correspondingly read Hume’s negative argument in the Enquiry as having a normative conclusion. (shrink)

Hume has traditionally been understood as an inductive sceptic with positivist tendencies, reducing causation to regular succession and anticipating the modern distinctions between analytic and synthetic, deduction and induction. The dominant fashion in recent Hume scholarship is to reject all this, replacing the ‘Old Hume’ with various New alternatives. Here I aim to counter four of these revisionist readings, presenting instead a broadly traditional interpretation but with important nuances, based especially on Hume’s later works. He asked that we should treat (...) these— notably the first Enquiry—as his authoritative philosophical statements, and with good reason. (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)

En este artículo examino el debate entre los intérpretes epistémicos y descriptivistas de la discusión humeana de la inducción y el razonamiento probable. Los intérpretes epistémicos consideran a Hume como concernido principalmente con cuestiones relacionadas con la autoridad y justificación epistémica de nuestros principios y creencias inductivas. Los intérpretes descriptivistas, por contra, sugieren que lo que Hume pretende es explicar cómo se producen nuestras creencias, no dictaminar si están epistémicamente justificadas. En particular, me centro en tres de estas lecturas: dos (...) de ellas epistémicas, la tercera descriptivista. La primera interpretación epistémica, la de Peter Millican, nos presenta a Hume abrazando un escepticismo respecto a la inducción; la segunda lectura epistémica, de Louis Loeb, lo presenta como un externalista no escéptico a propósito de la inducción; la lectura descriptivista, defendida por David Owen, presenta a un Hume comprometido principalmente con la tarea científica de describir los mecanismos por los que llegamos a formar nuestras creencias. En este artículo propongo una interpretación alternativa a estas interpretaciones escépticas, externalistas y descriptivistas. Argumento que, aunque estas lecturas tienen innegables puntos de apoyo y ayudan crucialmente a mejorar nuestra comprensión del pensamiento de Hume, todas ellas enfrentan problemas potencialmente insuperables. Concluyo que la mejor estrategia que nos queda abierta pasa por perseguir una explicación que no sea ni escéptica ni externalista de la posición de Hume. Parte de mi objetivo es cuestionar una asunción implícita en estas tres lecturas, a saber: que para Hume el concepto de naturaleza humana es puramente descriptivo. (shrink)

This is the original, longer draft for my entry on Hume in the 'The Routledge Hand- book of Philosophy of Imagination', edited by Amy Kind and published by Routledge in 2016 (see the separate entry). — Please always cite the Routledge version, unless there are passages concerned that did not make it into the Handbook for reasons of length. — -/- This chapter overviews Hume’s thoughts on the nature and the role of imagining, with an almost exclusive focus on the (...) first book of his Treatise of Human Nature. Over the course of this text, Hume draws and discusses three important distinctions among our conscious mental episodes (or what he calls ‘perceptions’): (i) between impressions (including perceptual experiences) and ideas (including recollections, imaginings and occurrent beliefs); (ii) between ideas of the memory and ideas of the imagination; and (iii), among the ideas of the imagination, between ideas of the judgement (i.e. occurrent beliefs) and ideas of the fancy (i.e. imaginings). I discuss each distinction in turn, also in connection to contemporary views on imagining. In addition, I briefly consider Hume’s views on the imagination as a faculty aimed at the production of ideas, as well as on the role that imagining plays in the wider context of our mental lives, notably in the acquisition of modal knowledge and in the comprehension of, and resistance to, stories and opinions that we take to be false or fictional. (shrink)