This article surveys the state of the literature on Hume’s epistemology, focusing on treatments of what has come to be known as the ‘Kemp Smith problem’, that is, the problem of reconciling Hume’s scepticism with his naturalism. It first surveys the literature on this issue with regard to the Treatise, moving on to briefly compare the Treatise and the Enquiry in virtue of their epistemological frameworks, before finally examining the literature with regard to the first Enquiry.

In this paper, I argue for an interpretation of Hume's Law that sees him as dismissing all possible arguments from is to ought on the basis of a comparison with his famous argument on induction.

In this paper, I examine three mutually inconsistent claims that are commonly attributed to Hume: all beliefs are involuntary; some beliefs are subject to normative appraisal; and that ‘Ought implies Can’. I examine the textual support for such ascription, and the options for dealing with the puzzle posed by their inconsistency. In what follows I will put forward some evidence that Hume maintains each of the three positions outlined above. I then examine what I call the ‘prior voluntary action’ solution. (...) I argue that this position in any form fails to account for synchronic rationality. I then raise more specific objections depending on how we disambiguate the position, which can be read as either granting beliefs derivative voluntariness, or as denying their normative significance; the former version is inconsistent with Hume’s treatment of natural abilities, while the latter falls to a regress given Hume’s thesis regarding the inability of actions and passions to be subject to epistemic normativity. I then propose to reject instead for two reasons: first, the weakness of textual support for such an ascription; secondly, Hume’s explicit recognition of the irrelevance of involuntariness to normative evaluation in the moral case. (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)

The inoffensive title of Section 1.4.7 of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, ‘Conclusion of this Book’, belies the convoluted treatment of scepticism contained within. It is notoriously difficult to decipher Hume’s considered response to scepticism in this section, or whether he even has one. In recent years, however, one line of interpretation has gained popularity in the literature. The ‘usefulness and agreeableness reading’ (henceforth U&A) interprets Hume as arguing in THN 1.4.7 that our beliefs and/or epistemic policies are justified via (...) their usefulness and agreeableness to the self and others; proponents include Ardal (in Livingston & King (eds.) Hume: a re-evaluation, 1976), Kail (in: Frasca-Spada & Kail (eds.) Impressions of Hume, 2005), McCormick (Hume Stud 31:1, 2005), Owen (Hume’s reason, 1999), and Ridge (Hume Stud 29:2, 2003), while Schafer (Philosophers, forthcoming) also defends an interpretation along these lines. In this paper, I will argue that although U&A has textual merit, it struggles to maintain a substantive distinction between epistemic and moral justification—a distinction that Hume insists on. I then attempt to carve out the logical space for there being a distinctly epistemic notion of justification founded on usefulness and agreeableness. However, I find that such an account is problematic for two reasons: first, it cannot take advantage of the textual support for U&A; secondly, it is incompatible with other features of the text. (shrink)

Do Descartes, Locke, and Hume have an internalist or externalist view of epistemic justification? Internalism is, roughly, the view that a belief that p is justified by a mental state, such as the awareness of evidence. By contrast, externalism is, roughly, the view that a belief that p is justified by facts about the belief-forming process, such as the reliability of the belief-forming process. I argue that they all think that the awareness of evidence is required for justification, but none (...) of them think that the awareness of evidence alone is sufficient for justification. Similarly, I argue that they all think that reliability of the belief-forming process is required for justification, but none of them think reliability alone is sufficient for justification. So, neither a fully internalist position nor a fully externalist position adequately captures their views of justification; rather, both the supporting evidence and the reliability of the belief-forming process explain why we should hold those beliefs, and hence explain why those beliefs are justified. Thus, they each have a partly internalist, partly externalist view of justification. (shrink)

Hume's epistemological legacy is often perceived as a predominantly negative sceptical one. His infamous problem of induction continues to perplex philosophers to this day, and many of his sceptical worries maintain their interest in contemporary eyes (e.g. with regard to reason, the senses, substance, causation). Yet Hume's positive epistemological contributions also hold significance for philosophy in this day and age. In this paper, I aim to situate Hume's epistemology in a more contemporary context, particularly with regard to the theme of (...) reliabilism that runs throughout this epistemology. This will take the shape of examining correspondences and contrasts between Hume's epistemologies in the Treatise and Enquiry and reliabilism, as well as an examination of how Hume's framework might handle some major challenges for reliabilist epistemologies. In particular, I argue that that while Hume is tempted to an epistemology that is intimately tied to truth in the Treatise, he backs away when confronted with the excesses of scepticism in the conclusion of Book 1, and winds up with an epistemology most similar to the contemporary epistemological frameworks of dogmatism and phenomenal conservatism. Yet, largely because of his reliance on the passions (a respect in which he diverges from these two contemporary frameworks), the epistemology of the Treatise remains crucially dissociated from truth. Meanwhile, in the first Enquiry, he proceeds to develop a two-tiered epistemological framework that first accords all our justification with default authority, and then founds all-things-considered epistemic justification on our evidence for the reliability of our faculties. The first tier most resembles the contemporary epistemological framework of conservatism, while the second tier most closely resembles approved-list reliabilism. In this, a clear reliabilist thread runs through the epistemology of the Enquiry. I will also argue that although Hume did not appear to fully appreciate one of the most significant challenges for reliabilism-that is, the generality problem-his philosophical framework nevertheless contains the beginnings of a response to it. (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)

Much has been written about Kemp Smith's famous problem regarding the tension between Hume's naturalism and his scepticism. However, most commentators have focused their attention on the Treatise; those who address the Enquiry often take it to express essentially the same message as the Treatise. When Hume's scepticism in the Enquiry has been investigated in its own right, commentators have tended to focus on Hume's inductive scepticism in Sections 4 and 5. All in all, it seems that Section 12 has (...) been unduly neglected. This paper seeks to address Kemp Smith's problem from the standpoint of Hume's treatment of scepticism in EHU 12, and finds an interesting internalist account that makes sense both of Hume's discussion in EHU 12, and his aims in the Enquiry as a whole. Moreover, it is one that is of substantive philosophical interest, having intriguing parallels to contemporary epistemological accounts. (shrink)

There seems a potential tension between Hume's naturalistic project and his normative ambitions. Hume adopts what I call a methodological naturalism: that is, the methodology of providing explanations for various phenomena based on natural properties and causes. This methodology takes the form of introducing ‘the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects’, as stated in the subtitle of the Treatise; this ‘experimental method’ seems a paradigmatically descriptive one, and it remains unclear how Hume derives genuinely normative prescriptions from this methodology. (...) In resolving this problem, I will argue that Hume's naturalistic methodology – that is, his ‘experimental philosophy’, or what has come to be known as his experimental method – consists of the systematization of phenomena pertaining to human nature. In applying his experimental method to normative subjects, Hume systematizes our normative judgements, deriving general principles of normative justification; he then reflexivel... (shrink)