I argue for an interpretation of Hume on which our confused notions of causal necessity find their model in Hume's notion of logical necessity: our minds react in similar ways to constant conjunctions, on the one hand, and genuine cases of inseparability between ideas, on the other, in light of which we mistakenly place relations of necessitation between objects we call cause and effect. I argue that my account provides a more satisfying explanation of the mismatch between the feeling that (...) provides our true idea of necessary connection and the confused notions of necessary connection held by philosophers and the vulgar. (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 of Hume on causation consider that an advantage of the ‘quasi-realist’ reading is that it does not commit him to scepticism or to an error theory about causal reasoning. It is unique to quasi-realism that it maintains this positive epistemic result together with a rejection of metaphysical realism about causation: the quasi-realist supplies an appropriate semantic theory in order to justify the practice of talking ‘as if’ there were causal powers in the world. In this paper, I problematise the (...) quasi-realist reading of Hume on causation by showing how quasi-realism does not speak to inductive scepticism. I also offer evidence that Hume takes inductive scepticism to result from his theory of causation, and that his scepticism is tied to his rejection of metaphysical causal realism. (shrink)