This paper argues that, contrary to most interpretations, e.g., those of Reid, Popkin and Passmore, Hume is not a sceptic with regard to reason. The argument of Treatise I, IV. i, of course, has a sceptical conclusion with regard to reason, and a somewhat similar point is made by Cleanthes in the Dialogues. This paper argues that the argument of Treatise I, IV. i is parallel to similar arguments in Bentham and Laplace. The latter are, as far as they go, (...) sound, and so is Hume’s. But the limitations of all mean that they cannot sustain a general argument against reason. Hume the historian is quite aware of these limitations. So is Hume the philosopher. A careful examination of the other references in the Treatise to the argument of I, IV. i reveals that Hume not only rejects but constructs a sound case against accepting the sceptical conclusion, arguing that reason can indeed show the sceptic’s argument to be unreasonable. A close reading of the Dialogues shows that Hume there also draws the same conclusion. The thrust of the paper is to go some way towards showing that it is a myth that Hume is a pyrrhonian sceptic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:158. RELATIVE IDEAS REVISITED: A REPLY TO THOMAS In "Hume's Relative Ideas" I argued that what Hume called a "relative idea" is the cognitive analogue of a definite description, that relative ideas are nonimagistic, and that recognizing the distinction between positive ideas (images) and relative ideas sheds light on various issues that remain opaque apart from that distinction. Thomas has recently taken exception to my position, contending that I (...) have "produced a 2 theory without application in Hume's framework." In reply I shall present the three cornerstones of my view and then turn to Thomas's criticisms. I. On Relative Ideas 1.What relative ideas are: In claiming that a relative idea is the cognitive analogue of a definite description, I mean only that a relative idea functions in the cognitive realm (realm of ideas) in the same way that a definite description functions in the linguistic realm. Just as the statement expressing the contextual definition of a definite description specifies the truth conditions for a statement containing that description, the statement expressing the contextual definition of a definite description corresponding to a relative idea indicates the (factual) conditions that must obtain if that relative idea succeeds in singling out an entity, i.e., it specifies the "truth conditions" for a relative idea (see T 448, T 458, and T 84 for Hume's use of 'truth'). 2.The intellectual milieu: The expressions 'relative idea' and 'relative notion' seem to have at least two uses in eighteenth century philosophy. Some philosophers used such expressions to refer to an idea 4 or a conception of a relation. Nonetheless, since no 159. substance theorist held that a substance is a relation, this can hardly be the sense in which Locke used the expression when he claimed that one has an "obscure and relative idea of substance in general." Further, Locke's discussion of the relationship between positive ideas (images) and the relative idea of substance clearly indicates that relative ideas provide an indirect means of allowing one to know what something is on the basis of its relation to something known directly, i.e., on the basis of its relation to a C positive idea. Locke also claimed that one's idea of 7 infinity is a relative idea, he seems to have held that the idea of power is a relative idea, and given his account of perception, it is at least reasonable to suggest that relative ideas are found in perceptual contexts. Similarly, Berkeley maintained that one has a relative notion of immaterial substance, but no relative notion of material substance, since in the former case, but not in the latter, one has a notion 9 of the relation between: a substance and its attributes. Outside the "way of ideas" one finds the distinction between direct and relative "conception" clearly spelled out in Reid' s Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind. Reid wrote: Of some things, we know what they are in themselves; our conception of such things I call direct. Of other things, we do not know what they are in themselves, but only that they have certain properties or attributes, or certain relations to other things; of these our conception is only relative. 10 Reid contended that our conceptions of mind, of body, of powers, and of secondary qualities are relative conceptions, that at least some of our conceptions of large numbers of things and of polygons are relative conceptions, and that relative conceptions are operative in memory. Now given that there seems to have been a fairly 160. widely recognized doctrine of relative conception in the eighteenth century, given that the contexts in which Hume used the term 'relative idea' are contexts in which proponents of relative conception employed that term, and given that Hume stated philosophical issues in terms of the conceptual system of his time, I consider it reasonable to suggest that Hume recognized and held a doctrine of relative conception even though he did not devote so much as a paragraph to stating that doctrine. 3. The relation of images to relative ideas: A relative idea is inherently complex: it includes a positive idea (or ideas) and a relation... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:168 HUME ON MEMORY AND CAUSATION In the first part of this paper I shall argue that an examination of Hume's second criterion for distinguishing between ideas of the memory and ideas of the imagination shows that Hume's ideas of the memory are relative ideas corresponding to definite descriptions of the general form, "the complex impression that is the (original) cause of a particular positive idea m and which (...) exactly (or closely) resembles m," where 'm' is a variable ranging over positive ideas (mental images). I shall show that if this is correct, there is a clear basis for distinguishing ideas of the memory both from ideas of the imagination and from beliefs regarding spatially and temporally located objects that are not based upon the memory. But since there is often a significant temporal distance between the impression remembered and the positive component of one's relative idea of the memory, it is incumbent upon me to explain how the remembered impression and the positive idea can be causally related even though they are not temporally contiguous. In the second part of the paper I shall argue that, contrary to his "definitions" of causation in the Treatise,2 Hume took neither spatial nor temporal contiguity to be essential to causation. In Book I, Part I, Section 3 and again in Book I, Part III, Section 5 of his Treatise of Human Nature, Hume provides two criteria for distinguishing between ideas of the memory and ideas of the imagination. I shall refer to these two criteria as "the phenomenal criterion" and "the formal criterion". In this section I shall show that while the phenomenal criterion 169 expresses the means one actually employs in distinguishing an idea of the memory from an idea of the imagination, the formal criterion provides one with insight into the complex structure of an idea of the memory, and therefore allows one to distinguish ideas of the memory from both ideas of the imagination and from other ideas of and beliefs regarding spatially and temporally located objects. In Book I, Part I,- Section 3 of the Treatise, Hume introduces the phenomenal criterion as follows: We find by experience, that when any impression has been present with the mind, it again makes its appearance there as an idea; and this it may do after two different ways: either when in its new appearance it retains a considerable degree of its first vivacity, and is somewhat intermediate betwixt an impression and an idea; or when it entirely loses that vivacity, and is a perfect idea. The faculty, by which we repeat our impressions in the first manner, is called the MEMORY, and the other the IMAGINATION. 'Tis evident at first sight, that the ideas of the memory are much more lively and strong than those of the imagination, and that the former faculty paints its objects in more distinct colours, than any which are employ'd by the latter. When we remember any past event, the idea of it flows in upon the mind in a forcible manner; whereas in the imagination the perception is faint and languid, and cannot without difficulty be preserv'd by the mind steddy and uniform for any considerable time. Here then is a sensible difference betwixt one species of ideas and another. (T 8-9; cf. T 85) It is clear that Hume took this to be a phenomenal criterion, i.e., to specify a sensible characteristic by which one can distinguish an idea of the memory from an idea of the imagination. Not only does he state that he has found "a sensible difference betwixt one species of ideas and another" (T 9), in the parallel 170 passage in Part III, Section 5 he claims to "search for the characteristic [of the idea], which distinguishes the memory from the imagination" (T 85, Hume's emphasis). The characteristic that allows one to "distinguish them in their operation" (T 85) is the difference in the force and vivacity of the ideas involved. Ideas of the memory are "much more lively and strong than those of the imagination," "the former faculty paints its objects in more distinct colours", and ideas of the memory... (shrink)