In the “Appendix” to the Treatise, Hume claims that he has discovered a “very considerable” mistake in his earlier discussion of the self. Hume's expression of the problem is notoriously opaque, leading to a vast scholarly debate as to exactly what problem he identified in his earlier account of the self. I propose a new solution to this interpretive puzzle. I argue that a tension generated by Hume's conceptual skepticism about real “principles of union” and his account of fictions of (...) the imagination is the defect identified in the “Appendix.”. (shrink)

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)

A philosopher once wrote the following words:If I examine the PTOLOMAIC and COPERNICAN systems, I endeavour only, by my enquiries, to know the real situation of the planets; that is, in other words, I endeavour to give them, in my conception, the same relations, that they bear towards each other in the heavens. To this operation of the mind, therefore, there seems to be always a real, though often an unknown standard, in the nature of things; nor is truth or (...) falsehood variable by the various apprehensions of mankind. Though all human race should for ever conclude, that the sun moves, and the earth remains at rest, the sun stirs not an inch from his place for all these reasonings; and such conclusions are eternally false and erroneous. (shrink)

Einstein acknowledged that his reading of Hume influenced the development of his special theory of relativity. In this article, I juxtapose Hume’s philosophy with Einstein’s philosophical analysis related to his special relativity. I argue 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. The main thesis of this article is that these two points are intertwined in Hume and Einstein.

This article investigates the relationship between Hume’s causal philosophy and Newton ’s philosophy of nature. I claim that Newton ’s experimentalist methodology in gravity research is an important background for understanding Hume’s conception of causality: Hume sees the relation of cause and effect as not being founded on a priori reasoning, similar to the way that Newton criticized non - empirical hypotheses about the properties of gravity. However, according to Hume’s criteria of causal inference, the law of universal gravitation is (...) not a complete causal law, since it does not include a reference either to contiguity or to temporal priority. It is still argued that because of the empirical success of Newton ’s theory—the law is a statement of an exceptionless repetition—Hume gives his support to it in interpreting gravity force instrumentally as if it bore a causal relation to motion. (shrink)

John Locke occupies a central place in the contemporary philosophical literature on parental authority, and his child-centered approach has inspired a number of recognizably Lockean theories of parenthood.2 But unlike the best historically informed scholarship on other aspects of Locke's thought, those interested in his account of parental rights have not yet tried to understand its connection to debates of the period or to Locke's broader theory of natural law. In particular, Locke's relation to the seventeenth-century conversation about the role (...) of generation in grounding 'paternal power' is not well-known. Understanding this background is interesting in itself, but more importantly, it can provide us with a .. (shrink)

Hume’s claim that we project necessity onto objects we take to be causally related has been influential in contemporary discussions of modality, inspiring deflationary accounts of our modal commitments. Hume is commonly understood as holding that modal projection explains our judging that an effect must follow its cause. This misunderstands the role of projection in Hume’s discussions of causation and causal judgement. Projection is a diagnosis of a distinctively philosophical confusion: the commitment to mind-independent necessary connections. In arguing for this, (...) I provide an account of the psychological process that, in Hume’s view, underlies projection. This account resolves problems with Hume’s projectivism identified by his commentators. (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)

The article discusses the varying conceptions of the faculty of ‘the understanding’ in 18th-century British philosophy and logic. Topics include the distinction between the understanding and the will, the traditional division of three acts of understanding and its critics, the naturalizing of human understanding, conceiving of the limits of human understanding, British innatism and the critique of empiricist conceptions of the understanding, and reconceiving the understanding and the elimination of scepticism. Authors discussed include Richard Price, James Harris, Zachary Mayne, Edward (...) Bentham, Isaac Watts, Dugald Stewart, John Norris—as well as Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Reid. (shrink)

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 claims that education is ‘disclaimed by philosophy, as a fallacious ground of assent to any opinion’ (T 1.3.10.1) and that it is ‘never... recogniz'd by philosophers’ (T 1.3.9.19). He is usually taken to be referring here to indoctrination. I argue, however, that his main concern is with association and those philosophers who emphasize the epistemic dangers of the imagination. These include Locke, Hutcheson and Descartes, but not Hume himself. Hume praises education, highlighting its role in the formation of general (...) rules, and in fostering social conditions that encourage the growth of knowledge and moral virtue. (shrink)

In the Treatise, Book I, Part iv, Section 2, Hume seeks to explain what causes us to believe that objects continue to exist even when they are not perceived. He argues that we won't be able to prov...

This paper examines the ongoing relevance of Hume on the mind and self or personal identity.

Although Hume's analysis of geometry continues to serve as a reference point for many contemporary discussions in the philosophy of science, the fact that the first Enquiry presents a radical revision of Hume's conception of geometry in the Treatise has never been explained. The present essay closely examines Hume's early and late discussions of geometry and proposes a reconstruction of the reasons behind the change in his views on the subject. Hume's early conception of geometry as an inexact non-demonstrative science (...) is argued to be a consequence of his attempt to discredit geometrical proofs of infinite divisibility of extension by anchoring the meaning of geometrical concepts in inherently inexact qualitative measurement procedures. This measurement-based attack on the exactness and certainty of geometry is analyzed and shown to be both self-refuting and inconsistent with the general epistemological framework of the Treatise. The revised conception of geometry as a demonstrative science in the first Enquiry is then interpreted as Hume's response to the failure of his earlier attempt to discredit geometrical proofs of infinite divisibility of extension. (shrink)

Modern Hume scholarship is still divided into two major camps when it comes to the issue of causation. There are those scholars who interpret Hume as a causal anti-realist, and there are those who interpret him as a causal realist. In my paper, I argue that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence – especially textual evidence – that should lead us to read Hume as being a causal anti-realist. That is to say, one who believes that cause and effect (...) relations are felt and known in the mind of the perceiver alone; not in objects themselves. I then attempt to settle, at least partially, the ‘two definitions of cause dispute’ that was brought about by Hume’s giving us not one, but two non-equivalent and non-substitutable definitions of the cause and effect relation. (shrink)

This essay argues that Hume's political and historical thought is well read as skeptical and skeptical in a way that roots it deeply in the Hellenistic traditions of both Pyrrhonian and Academical thought. It deploys skeptical instruments to undermine political rationalism as well as theologically and metaphysically political ideologies. Hume's is politics of opinion and appearance. It labors to oppose faction and enthusiasm and generate suspension, balance, tranquility, and moderation. Because Hume advocate the use of reflectively generated but epistemically and (...) metaphysically suspensive general rules, his political thought is not intrinsically conservative. While it valorizes stability and peace, Humean politics accepts a contested and open-ended political order, one that requires continuous maintenance and revision but does not pretend to any ultimate or final progress or end. (shrink)

Traditionally Hume is seen as offering an ‘empiricist’ critique of ‘rationalism’. This view is often illustrated – or rejected – by comparing Hume's views with those of Descartes'. However the textual evidence shows that Hume's most sustained engagement with a canonical ‘rationalist’ is with Nicolas Malebranche. The author shows that the fundamental differences (among the many similarities) between the two on the self and causal power do indeed rest on a principled distinction between ‘rationalism’ and ‘empiricism’, and that there is (...) some truth in the traditional story. This, however, is very far from saying that Hume's general orientation is an attack on something called ‘rationalism’. (shrink)

In the early eighteenth century context there was an intimate connection between problems concerning the existence of the material world and problems of natural religion. Two issues are of particular importance for understanding Hume’s irreligious intentions in the Treatise. First, if we are unable to establish that we know that the material world exists, then all arguments for the existence of God that presuppose knowledge of the material world (i.e. its beauty, order, design, etc.) are placed in doubt. Second, if (...) we are naturally disposed to believe in the existence of body, but this belief is false, then it seems to follow that God must be a deceiver -- or does not exist. Hume’s arguments in 1.4.2, I maintain, are finely crafted to present both these (irreligious) challenges to the orthodox view. (shrink)

An introduction to the Synthese topical collection "Humeanisms".

This essay examines the manner in which Hume challenges the cognitivist and realist intuitions informing our ordinary experience of value by identifying values with mind-dependent feelings and by separating facts from values. However, through a process of interpretive rehearsal of Hume’s arguments in the first two parts of the paper we find that they come under increasing internal strain, which points, contrary to his initial argument about the irreducibly phenomenal aspects of value experience, to the motivational role of reason and (...) to the identification of values, not with mind-dependent feelings, but with dispositional properties of objects. The third and final part of the paper will offer a systematic reconstruction of his arguments with a view to suggesting one possible – descriptivist – alternative to Hume’s initial challenges, which can serve to satisfy the emerging cognitivist and realist needs of his arguments. (shrink)

Hume invokes the separability of perceptions to derive some of his most contentious pronouncements. To assess the cogency of the arguments, the notion must first be clarified. The clarification reveals that sic different separability claims must be distinguished. Of these, I consider the three that are rarely discussed. They turn out to be unacceptable. Locke espouses none of them.This Article does not have an abstract.

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)

According to Husserl, Hume’s empirical method was deeply flawed—like all empiricists, Hume did not, and could not adequately justify his method, much less his findings. Instead, Hume gives us a “circular” and “irrational” “psychological explanation” of “mediate judgments of fact,” i.e. of inductive inferences. Yet Husserl was certain that he could justify both his own method and his own findings with an appeal to the phenomenological, pre-theoretical, pre-naturalistic “epoché”. However, whether or not Husserl’s notion of an epoché is justified, or (...) even viable, is not our focus here. Rather, our issue is with Hume, particularly: How could Hume have responded? In this paper, I show that in Book I of the Treatise, Hume did—however implicitly—appeal to a “pre-theoretical” notion of belief, which meets Husserl’s demands for a pre-theoretical grounding, i.e. a justificatory grounding. And so, his method is, at least in this respect, justified. But this belief is by no means “prenaturalistic.” Rather, it is a function of empirical data. In particular, it is a product of the “constant and coherent” impressions that seem to naturally obtain of experience. As a result, Hume’s method, which, in agreement with Husserl, we may characterize as psychology, does admit of a certain degree of regularity, but an empirical regularity. And according to Hume, contra Husserl’s complaints, this is the best that we can hope for; regularity will have to suffice, not certainty. However, it must be noted up front that this justification is implicit—Hume is not nearly as forthright as he could have been. Thus, making his position more explicit is the task of this paper. I am not presenting my own position, where I offer my own arguments. Instead, I present textual evidence, contextualized with ample explication. It is my hope that by doing so, Hume may more effectively make his case. (shrink)

This paper presents a new account of Hume’s “probability of causes”. There are two main results attained in this investigation. The first, and perhaps the most significant, is that Hume developed – albeit informally – an essentially sound system of probabilistic inductive logic that turns out to be a powerful forerunner of Carnap’s systems. The Humean set of principles include, along with rules that turn out to be new for us, well known Carnapian principles, such as the axioms of semiregularity, (...) symmetry with respect to individuals (exchangeability), predictive irrelevance and positive instantial relevance. The second result is that Hume developed an original conception of probability, which is subjective in character, although it differs from contemporary personalistic views because it includes constraints that are additional to simple consistency and do not vary between different persons. The final section is a response to Gower’s thesis, by which Hume’s probability of causes is essentially non-Bayesian in character. It is argued that, on closer examination, Gower’s reading of the relevant passages is untenable and that, on the contrary, they are in accordance with the Bayesian reconstruction presented in this paper. (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)

Hume seems to have discarded with final causes and teleology. However, his invocation of a pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the succession of our ideas suggests otherwise. This paper takes Hume’s general strategy of shifting to the external perspective into account, and argues that the seemingly internal property of force and vivacity are, in fact, functional-teleological properties. Force and vivacity bears many explanatory burdens: It explains the difference between imagination and memory, between conception and belief, and it (...) establishes causal necessity. What kind of property is this supposed to be? We can answer this question by taking into account Hume’s explanation of the way in which this very property is communicated in the cases of ideas of memory and belief, and of the function it performs in these cases. It will be argued that force and vivacity is not an intrinsic, phenomenal property of ideas. It is a relational and historical property. A major objective of the paper is the application of this interpretation from the case of ideas to the case of impression. What kind of history could transfer force and vivacity to impressions? Answer: natural history. By a careful examination of passages concerning innate capacities, passions, and animal instincts, we can make sense of the tenet that impressions have force and vivacity because of our natural history. It will be suggested that Hume’s philosophy of mind is fit to integrate Darwinian Design as an explanatory corner-stone. Hume, so scheint, ist ein scharfer Kritiker von Finalursachen und Teleologie. Seine häufig als ironisch missverstandene Berufung auf eine Art „prästabilierter Harmonie“ zwischen Naturverläufen und Ideenabfolgen verweist jedoch auf eine andere Lesart. Der folgende Essay behauptet, indem er Humes explanatorische Strategie betont, etwa im Falle seiner berühmten Lösung der skeptischen Zweifele zur Kausalität zu einer externen Perspektive zu wechseln, dass es sich bei der scheinbar geistinternen Eigenschaft „Kraft und Lebendigkeit“ tatsächlich um eine teleologisch- historische Eigenschaft handelt. Kraft und Lebendigkeit leisten in Humes Philosophie des Geistes eine große Erklärungsarbeit: Sie erklären den Unterscheid zwischen Vorstellung und Erinnerung, zwischen Vorstellung und Überzeugung, und sie stellen die wesentliche Zutat der kausalen Notwendigkeit dar. Doch um welche Art Eigenschaft handelt es sich? Diese Frage kannmit Blick auf Humes Ausführung darüber beantwortet werden, wie diese Eigenschaft auf Ideen der Erinnerung und auf Überzeugungsideen übertragen wird, und v.a. mit Blick auf die Funktion, die diese Eigenschaft übernimmt. Es soll gezeigt werden, dass es sich bei Kraft und Lebendigkeit um keine intrinsische, phänomenale Eigenschaft von Ideen handelt, sondern um eine relationale, historische Eigenschaft. Ein wichtiges Ziel des Essays besteht darin, diese Deutung von Ideen auf Eindrücke zu übertragen. Inwiefern kann es sich bei der Kraft und Lebendigkeit von Eindrücken umeine relationale und historische Eigenschaft handeln? Die Antwort findet sich in der Naturgeschichte, wie mit Verweis auf Humes Ausführungen zu angeborenen Fähigkeiten, Leidenschaften und tierlichen Instinkten gezeigt werden kann. Die Stoßrichtung des Essays besagt, dass Humes Philosophie des Geistes durchaus mit einer Darwinschen Auffassung des Geistes zusammengeführt werden kann. (shrink)

An important part of Hume's philosophy is grounded in a fundamental distinction between two kinds of perceptions: impressions and ideas. Existing views of the distinction are that the former are livelier than the latter, that the former are causally prior to the latter, that the latter are copies of the former, that the former but not the latter are perceptions of an objective realm, and that the former are feelings whereas the latter are thoughts. I argue that all of these (...) views of the distinction are problematic and should be replaced by the Reflection view, according to which (simple) ideas are, while impressions are not, the direct products of reflection on other perceptions. (shrink)

Hume is known for his claim that our idea of causation is nothing beyond constant conjunction, and that our idea of necessary connection is nothing beyond a felt determination of the mind. In short, Hume endorses a "thin" conception of causation and necessary connection. In recent years, however, a sizeable number of philosophers have come to view Hume as someone who believes in the existence of thick causal connections - that is, causal connections that allow one to infer a priori (...) the effect from the cause, and vice versa. Hume doesn't wish to deny such connections, said philosopher's claim, he only seeks to demonstrate that we can't know anything about the nature of the thick causal connections that make up the natural world. In this dissertation, I defend the old or traditional interpretation of Hume on causation. I draw attention to the important but neglected role of clear and distinct perception in Hume's thought, arguing that for Hume our impressions are clear and distinct perceptions, whereas our ideas are faint and obscure. Accordingly, Hume's copy principle - the thesis that our ideas are copies of our impressions - is Hume's way of rendering our naturally obscure and confused ideas distinct. One need only discern the impression from which said ideas are copied. In this way, I show that Hume's opinion concerning our idea of thick causation is that it's an obscure and confused idea, and that the only clear and distinct idea we can have of causation is thin causation. Furthermore, since meaning for Hume is a matter of a word's being associated with an idea, Hume thinks that an expression such as "thick causation" is meaningless or confused. In one sense, then, Hume is a positivist, and as such doesn't believe in thick causal connections. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBy means of critical reflection on the current situation of Chinese philosophy, this article aims to clarify two different approaches to philosophy. One is for scholars to focus on original texts and thought tradition, concerned with interpretation and inheritance; even in this way, scholars can achieve theoretical innovation through creative interpretation. The other is for researchers to face up questions from academics and from reality, and mainly to do theoretical creation in philosophy on a profound theoretical background, strictly following academic (...) norms and standards. For contemporary Chinese philosophy, the two approaches are indispensable, but the serious problem is that the first approach absolutely is dominant, but the second is too weak. The correct choice of Chinese philosophy should be to let hundreds of flower bloom, to let different approaches compete with each other, and to cooperatively establish the prosperity of contemporary Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

Reid declared Hume's appeal to variation in the magnitude of a table with distance to be the best argument that had ever been offered for the ‘ideal hypothesis’ that we experience nothing but our own mental states. Reid's principal objection to this argument fails to apply to minimally visible points. He did establish that we have reason to take our perceptions to be caused by external objects. But his case that we directly perceive external objects is undermined by what Hume (...) had to say about the role played by color in our perception of the primary qualities of bodies. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza la teoría humeana del conocimiento del mundo externo. Defiende que la misma supone una defensa del realismo directo propio del sentido común y una crítica de cualquier tipo de realismo representacional así como del fenomenismo. Esta defensa es escéptica porque Hume considera que la premisa básica de tal realismo, el carácter específicamente semejante de los cuerpos y nuestras percepciones de ellos, no tiene otro fundamento que la naturaleza de nuestra imaginación y, además, contradice la razón, a la (...) vez que señala que esta última facultad es incapaz de erigir un sistema preferible a aquel sistema vulgar. (shrink)

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 essay revisits the puzzle of the ‘passage’ of time in relation to EPR-type measurements and asks what philosophical consequences can be drawn from them. Some argue that the lack of invariance of temporal order in the measurement of a space-like related EPR pair, under relativistic motion, casts serious doubts on the ‘reality’ of the lapse of time. Others argue thatcertain features of quantum mechanics establisha tensed theory of time – understood here as Possibilism or the growing block universe. The (...) paper analyzes the employment of frame-invariant entropic clocks in a relativistic setting and argues that tenselessness does not imply timelessness. But this conclusion does not support a tensed theory of time, which requires a preferred foliation. It is argued that the only reliable inference from the EPR example and the use of entropic clocks is an inference not just to a Leibnizian order of the succession of events but a frame-invariant order according to some selected clocks. (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)

The following inquiry pursues two interlinked aims. The first is to understand Wittgenstein's idea of non-foundational certainty in the context of a reading of On Certainty that emphasizes its Pyrrhonian elements. The second is to read Wittgenstein's remarks on idealism/radical skepticism in On Certainty in parallel with the discussion of rule-following in Philosophical Investigations in order to demonstrate an underlying similarity of philosophical concerns and methods. I argue that for the later Wittgenstein, what is held certain in a given context (...) of inquiry or action is a locally transcendental condition of the inquiry or action in question. In On Certainty, Wittgenstein's analysis of the difference between knowledge and certainty forms the basis of his critique of both Moore's "Proof" and radical skepticism. This critique takes the shape of rejection of a presupposition shared by both parties, and utilizes what I identify as a Pyrrhonian-style argument against opposed dogmatic views. Wittgenstein's method in this text involves describing epistemic language-games. I demonstrate that this is consistent with the rejection of epistemological theorizing, arguing that a Wittgensteinian "picture" is not a theory, but an impressionistic description that accomplishes two things: (i) throwing into relief problems with dogmatic theories and their presuppositions, and (ii) describing the provenance of linguistic and epistemic practices in terms of norms grounded in convention. Convention, in turn, is not arbitrary, but grounded in the biological and social natures of human beings--in what Wittgenstein calls forms of life. Thus there is a kind of naturalism in the work of the later Wittgenstein. It is a naturalism that comes neatly dovetailed with Pyrrhonism--a combination of strategies traceable to Hume's work in the Treatise. I read Hume as someone who develops the Pyrrhonian method to include philosophy done "in a careless manner," and argue that Wittgenstein adopts a similar method in his later works. Finally, I explain the deference to convention in the work of both Hume and Wittgenstein by reference to a passage in Sextus' Outlines, on which I provide a gloss in the final chapter of this work. (shrink)

Esta monografia faz parte de uma pesquisa de Iniciação Científica (IC) atualmente em curso, com financiamento da FAPESP (processo 2023/04313-5) até 31/12/2024.A pesquisa de IC em questão, intitulada “Como fazer ciência da cognição? O problema do método científico nas ciências cognitivas na perspectiva do naturalismo anti-reducionista das epistemologias de Quine e Sellars”, pretende caracterizar e articular os conceitos de ciência e de cognição a partir das epistemologias naturalizadas de Willard von Orman Quine (1951/1961 e 1969) e Wilfrid Sellars (1956/1963 e (...) 1962/1963). Estamos examinando se uma perspectiva naturalista e anti-reducionista, adotada em ambas nas teorias epistemológicas desses filósofos, é de fato adequada para responder ao problema filosófico de como estabelecer critérios adequados para conhecer cientificamente a cognição. Assim, estamos pesquisando, no desenvolvimento da IC, como a epistemologia naturalizada contribui para lidar com o problema de como é possível conhecer objetivamente um objeto de investigação científica que é, por excelência, subjetivo. É a partir desse problema de pesquisa que elaboramos o recorte bibliográfico desta monografia. Neste texto, que é simultaneamente um trabalho final de disciplina (Monografia I - HG770 K, 1s2024) e a primeira versão de uma monografia a ser aprimorada e expandida no segundo semestre de 2024 com auxílio da disciplina de Monografia II (HG 870), pretendo comparar os naturalismos epistemológicos de Hume e Quine quanto à natureza da cognição. Ou seja, pretendo comparar como Hume e Quine concebem, no interior de suas respectivas epistemologias, que são naturalizadas, aquilo que geralmente chamamos de ‘mente’ ou, às vezes, de ‘alma’. Na segunda e última versão da monografia, a ser desenvolvida no semestre que vem, pretendo incluir o naturalismo epistemológico de Aristóteles na comparação, e pretendo também incluir, embora brevemente e com auxílio de bibliografia contemporânea sobre o assunto, alguns resultados da pesquisa de IC relativos à epistemologia naturalizada de Sellars, o outro autor principal do projeto de IC, e algumas de suas teses em Filosofia da Mente, na expectativa de isso seja de alguma forma útil ao empreendimento de compreender a trajetória histórica pela qual percorreu o naturalismo até o século XX. Esta monografia, portanto, pretende recuperar as epistemologias de dois importantes precursores de Quine, as de Hume e Aristóteles, comparando-as com o programa quineano de naturalização da epistemologia e preparando o terreno para a uma pesquisa futura quanto aos sucessores de Quine nesse programa, inclusive Sellars. Desse modo, espero que esta monografia contribua positivamente para o desenvolvimento de uma das partes da pesquisa de IC no sentido de investigar possíveis bases históricas a partir das quais o naturalismo epistemológico floresceu no século XX. (shrink)