It is widely believed that Hume often wrote carelessly and contradicted himself, and that no unified, sound philosophy emerges from his writings. Don Garrett demonstrates that such criticisms of Hume are without basis. Offering fresh and trenchant solutions to longstanding problems in Hume studies, Garrett's penetrating analysis also makes clear the continuing relevance of Hume's philosophy.

The existence of an idea of a missing shade of blue contradicts Hume's first principle that simple ideas all derive from corresponding simple impressions. Hume dismisses the exception to his principle as unimportant. Why does he do so? His later account of distinctions of reason suggests a systematic way of dealing with simple ideas not derived from simple impressions. Why does he not return to the problem of the missing shade, having offered that account? Several suggestions as to Hume's solution (...) of the problem of the missing shade (not all appealing to distinctions of reason) are explored with an eye both to their adequacy as Humean solutions and their value as clues to his dismissal of the problem. Hypotheses concerning the latter perplexity are formulated and discussed as well. Senses in which the missing shade of blue is or may be a red herring are identified. In course, this author names Hume's missing shade marjorie grene. Historians of philosophy will want to adopt this nomenclature. (shrink)

Hume's arguments in the Treatise require him to employ not only the copy principle, which explains the intrinsic properties of perceptions, but also a thesis that explains the representational content of a perception. I propose that Hume holds the semantic copy principle, which states that a perception represents that of which it is a copy. Hume employs this thesis in a number of his most important arguments, and his doing so enables him to answer an important objection concerning the status (...) of the copy principle. I further argue that the semantic copy principle is necessary, a priori, and discovered through an analysis of our general idea of representational content. (shrink)