This chapter presents a typology of the different kinds of inductive inferences we can draw from our evidence, based on the explanatory relationship between evidence and conclusion. Drawing on the literature on graphical models of explanation, I divide inductive inferences into (a) downwards inferences, which proceed from cause to effect, (b) upwards inferences, which proceed from effect to cause, and (c) sideways inferences, which proceed first from effect to cause and then from that cause to an additional effect. I further (...) distinguish between direct and indirect forms of downwards and upwards inferences. I then show how we can subsume canonical forms of inductive inference mentioned in the literature, such as inference to the best explanation, enumerative induction, and analogical inference, under this typology. Along the way, I explore connections with probability and confirmation, epistemic defeat, the relation between abduction and enumerative induction, the compatibility of IBE and Bayesianism, and theories of epistemic justification. (shrink)

I believe that Tom is the proud father of a baby boy. Why do I think his child is a boy? A natural answer might be that I remember that his name is ‘Owen’ which is usually a boy’s name. Here I’ve given information that might be part of a causal explanation of my believing that Tom’s baby is a boy. I do have such a memory and it is largely what sustains my conviction. But I haven’t given you just (...) any causally relevant information, I’ve given my grounds for my belief. I’ve given reasons that might justify me in supposing that Tom’s baby is a boy. Less naturally, the question might be taken as a request for a broader causal explanation of my holding this belief. Appropriate answers might cite all manner of facts concerning the evolution of the human race, why I chose to pursue philosophy and hence came to know Tom, the mechanisms of email transmission, the firing of various neurons, the circumstances of concept formation as a result of which I’m able to grasp the thought that Tom’s baby is a boy, and so on. It is an interesting question what distinguishes the narrower set of answers that I first suggested. I won’t pursue that here. I assume you have a good enough sense of the distinction I’m drawing. We might call the narrower set of answers justifying reasons, the kind of reasons I might cite in justifying my belief. Answers of the first sort are clearly relevant to epistemological evaluation. In assessing whether you know p or are rational in believing it to the degree you do, I will naturally want to consider what reasons you have for your belief. In deliberating myself about whether to believe p, in seeking an answer to the question of whether p, I will naturally consider what reasons or grounds I have to suppose that p. But what I want to focus on here is how explanations of the broader sort bear on such questions as whether to believe p. From a third-person perspective we can ask, ‘In assessing the epistemic status of S’s belief that p, what is the relevance of causal information that lies outside of the realm of justifying reasons?’ From the first-person standpoint we can ask ‘In seeking to answer whether p, how should such causal information affect my deliberations?’ At first it might seem that such broader causal information could have little relevance if any. Like any belief my belief that p can be traced back to innumerable causes from far and wide.. (shrink)

Is the world internally connected by a web of necessary connections or is everything loose and independent? Followers of David Hume accept the latter by upholding Hume’s Dictum, according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. Roughly put, anything can coexist with anything else, and anything can fail to coexist with anything else. Hume put it like this: “There is no object which implies the existence of any other if we consider these objects in themselves.” Since Hume’s (...) day, Hume’s Dictum has played a major role in philosophy, especially in contemporary metaphysics. In ruling out necessary connections, Hume’s Dictum implies that causal relations and the laws of nature are contingent. It makes other demands on our metaphysics of science as well; for example, it places restrictions on our metaphysics of counterfactuals, dispositions, and explanation. The principle has applications in other areas too. Hume’s Dictum places constraints on our theories of abstract objects and moral properties. For example, Hume’s Dictum rules out the view that moral properties are distinct from, but necessarily connected to, non-moral properties. While Hume’s Dictum is a prominent principle in metaphysics, few Humeans have defended the principle at length. It is assumed more often than it is argued for. As a result, Hume’s Dictum no longer enjoys the reputation it once did. It’s common to hear complaints about the lack of arguments in support of Hume’s Dictum. Moreover, philosophers are increasingly willing to defend views that are at odds with Hume’s Dictum. A striking example of this is the recent explosion of interest in views that take causal relations and the laws of nature to be necessary. Humeans can no longer afford to be complacent. An extended defense of Hume’s Dictum is called for, and that’s what this dissertation aims to offer. This dissertation has three parts. In the first part, I lay out some preliminaries and offer a precise formulation of Hume’s Dictum. In the second part, I develop three arguments in favor of Hume’s Dictum. In the final part, I defend Hume’s Dictum against objections. (shrink)

Reliabilists hold that a belief is doxastically justified if and only if it is caused by a reliable process. But since such a process is one that tends to produce a high ratio of true to false beliefs, reliabilism is on the face of it applicable to binary beliefs, but not to degrees of confidence or credences. For while beliefs admit of truth or falsity, the same cannot be said of credences in general. A natural question now arises: Can reliability (...) theories of justified belief be extended or modified to account for justified credence? In this paper, I address this question. I begin by showing that, as it stands, reliabilism cannot account for justified credence. I then consider three ways in which the reliabilist may try to do so by extending or modifying her theory, but I argue that such attempts face certain problems. After that, I turn to a version of reliabilism that incorporates evidentialist elements and argue that it allows us to avoid the problems that the other theories face. If I am right, this gives reliabilists a reason, aside from those given recently by Comesaña and Goldman, to move towards such a kind of hybrid theory. (shrink)

. The question of whether or not our universe is deterministic remains of interest to both scientists and theologians. In this essay I argue that this question can be solved only by metaphysical decision and that no scientific evidence for either determinism or indeterminism will ever be conclusive. No finite being, no matter how powerful its cognitive abilities, will ever be able to establish the deterministic nature of the universe. The only being that would be capable of doing so would (...) be one that is at once transcendent and immanent. Such a being is compatible with the God of the Christian tradition, which yields that a deterministic worldview is compatible with a deterministic worldview. A more important point is that because science is never able to establish the determinism of our universe, it can never definitely rule out divine action except on metaphysical grounds. (shrink)

Whereas many philosophers take backwards causation to be impossible, the few who maintain its possibility either take it to be absent from the actual world or else confined to theoretical physics. Here, however, I argue that backwards causation is not only actual, but common, though occurring in the context of our social institutions. After juxtaposing my cases with a few others in the literature and arguing that we should take seriously the reality of causal cases in these contexts, I consider (...) several objections. These objections involve whether the cases should be reinterpreted, whether they are properly within the institution, whether they involve necessitation or else Cambridge changes, whether and how they involve changing the past, and whether this should call us to question institutional reality. I end by suggesting that it is a virtue of our institutions that they allow backwards causation, that this is a kind of technology that they are often built to incorporate. (shrink)

Consider a circle and a pair of its semicircles. Which is prior, the whole or its parts? Are the semicircles dependent abstractions from their whole, or is the circle a derivative construction from its parts? Now in place of the circle consider the entire cosmos (the ultimate concrete whole), and in place of the pair of semicircles consider the myriad particles (the ultimate concrete parts). Which if either is ultimately prior, the one ultimate whole or its many ultimate parts?

The paper examines definitions of ‘cause’ in the epidemiological literature. Those definitions all describe causes as factors that make a difference to the distribution of disease or to individual health status. In the philosophical jargon, causes in epidemiology are difference-makers. Two claims are defended. First, it is argued that those definitions underpin an epistemology and a methodology that hinge upon the notion of variation, contra the dominant Humean paradigm according to which we infer causality from regularity. Second, despite the fact (...) that causes be defined in terms of ‘difference-making’, this cannot fixes the causal metaphysics. Causality in epidemiology ought to be interpreted according to the epistemic theory. In this approach relations are deemed causal depending on the evidence and on the available methods. Indeed, evidence to establish causal claims requires difference-making considerations; furthermore, those definitions of cause reflect the ‘variational’ epistemology and methodology of epidemiology. (shrink)

This paper defends the naïve thesis that the method of experiment has per se an epistemic superiority over the method of computer simulation, a view that has been rejected by some philosophers writing about simulation, and whose grounds have been hard to pin down by its defenders. I further argue that this superiority does not come from the experiment’s object being materially similar to the target in the world that the investigator is trying to learn about, as both sides of (...) dispute over the epistemic superiority thesis have assumed. The superiority depends on features of the question and on a property of natural kinds that has been mistaken for material similarity. Seeing this requires holding other things equal in the comparison of the two methods, thereby exposing that, under the conditions that will be specified, the simulation is necessarily epistemically one step behind the corresponding experiment. Practical constraints like feasibility and morality mean that scientists do not often face an other-things- equal comparison when they choose between experiment and simulation. Nevertheless, I argue, awareness of this superiority and of the general distinction between experiment and simulation is important for maintaining motivation to seek answers to new questions. (shrink)

How can Hume account for the meaning of causal claims? The causal realist, I argue, is, on Hume's view, saying something nonsensical. I argue that both realist and agnostic interpretations of Hume are inconsistent with his view of language and intentionality. But what then accounts for this illusion of meaning? And even when we use causal terms in accordance with Hume’s definitions, we seem merely to be making disguised self-reports. I argue that Hume’s view is not as implausible as it (...) sounds by exploring his conception of language. (shrink)

Hume argued that inductive inferences do not have rational justification. My aim is to reject Hume’s argument. The discussion is partly motivated by an analogy with Carroll’s Paradox, which concerns deductive inferences. A first radically externalist reply to Hume (defended by Dauer and Van Cleve) is that justified inductive inferences do not require the subject to know that nature is uniform, though the uniformity of nature is a necessary condition for having the justification. But then the subject does not have (...) reasons for believing what she believes. I defend a moderate externalist account that seeks to partly accommodate that objection to the radical externalist proposal. It is based on an extension of Peacocke’s theory of concepts: possession conditions for predicative concepts standing for natural properties include (fallible) dispositions to project them to new cases in accordance with inductive inferential patterns. (shrink)

There is a clean image of knowledge transmission between thinkers that involves sincere and reliable speakers, and hearers who carefully assess the epistemic credentials of the testimony that they hear. There is, however, a murkier side to testimonial exchange where deception and lies hold sway. Such mendacity leads to sceptical worries and to discussion of epistemic vice. Here, though, I explore cases where deceit and lies are involved in knowledge transmission. This may sound surprising or even incoherent since lying usually (...) involves saying something that is false. Even if a liar unwittingly tells the truth, those believing their testimony would not acquire knowledge. In §1, however, I suggest a range of examples where lies can be used to transmit knowledge. The kinds of cases upon which I focus are those involving ‘engineered knowledge’, where a speaker skilfully manipulates another into having a true belief. Such cases are epistemologically significant for several reasons. First, they are counter-examples to a range of widely held assumptions about knowledge. We have, for example, cases where sincerity is not necessary for knowledge transmission, where there is knowledge from falsehood, and, as we shall discuss in §2, knowledge that is fragile or not safe. Second, in §3 and §4 I suggest that engineered knowledge is best captured by a virtue theoretic approach to testimonial transmission. (shrink)

Hume é conhecido por sua teoria da indução por repetição, mas em sua filosofia há lugar para inferências derivadas de experiências singulares. Parte do fundamento destas inferências depende de uma regra newtoniana, mas é preciso acrescentar a especificação do tipo de classe de objetos a que pertencem tanto a causa como o efeito – de um modo que pode esclarecer a exata natureza do “empirismo” humiano.

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)

As a field of scientific expertise, semiotics has the interesting property of being a relevant tool for understanding how scientists represent any domain of research, including the semiotic domain itself. This feature is particularly expressive in the case of biology, as it appears to be the case that a certain range of biological phenomena are of a semiotic character. However, it is not consensual the extent to which semiotics pervades biology. This paper deals with this issue for the particular case (...) of developmental biology, stressing the role of semiotics-as-a-discipline in delimiting the extent of semiotics-as-a-natural-phenomenon and, specifically, in disentangling semiotic mechanisms from semiotic metaphors aimed at clarifying non-semiotic developmental mechanisms. (shrink)

Ethical aspects of management control systems are attracting increasing attention among scholars and practitioners. Much of the work centers on their aims. We complement this scholarship by applying the ethical principle of “no harm,” i.e., non-maleficence, to examine how those aims are achieved. We illustrate this approach by exploring the effects of four MCS designs on job-related stress drawing on the differentiation of stress into two dimensions: a challenge and a threat dimension. Results from a lagged field-survey with 471 managers (...) and employees from the UK and the U.S. support key predictions and offer first insights into designing MCS based on a “no harm” ethics. Our study highlights the benefits of interdisciplinary research in business ethics and hopefully encourages more work on MCS from a perspective based on the non-maleficence principle. (shrink)

The classical arguments against metaphysics provided by Immanuel Kant, neopositivists and recently by analytical philosophers focus on the problem of meaning. In my paper I would like to shed a little bit of light on different dimensions of this problem in the metaphysical discourse and make a proposition how to overcome the difficulties that arise from this kind of discourse.

David Hume's most brilliant and ambitious work is entitled A Treatise of Human Nature, and it, together with his other writings, has left an indelible mark on philosophical conceptions of human nature. So it is not merely the title of Hume's work that makes discussion of it an appropriate inclusion to this volume, but the fact of its sheer influence. However, its pattern of influence – including, of course, the formulations of ideas consciously antithetical Hume's own – is an immensely (...) complex one, subtle and incredibly difficult to decode. In all probability ‘Hume's’ presence in contemporary thinking of human nature is to likened to the end product of a historiographical game of Chinese whispers, whereby ‘Hume's’ view on x and y is now inflected with interpretations his work – or, more accurately, selected parts of it – that are in turn filtered by thinkers and traditions with different focuses and interest from Hume's own. I am not equipped even to begin to trace this line of influence, a lack compounded by my relative ignorance of the present state of the debate on human nature. Nevetheless various ‘humean’ doctrines still orient debate and I guess these claims include the idea that causation is a matter of instantiating a universal regularity, that normativity can understood causally, that motivation is a matter of belief plus some independently intelligibly ‘attitude’, that a self is best conceived as a collection of independent states that combine to yield a self and so on. (shrink)

There is no such thing as moral luck or everyone is profoundly mistaken about its nature and a radical rethinking of moral luck is needed. The argument to be developed is not complicated, and relies almost entirely on premises that should seem obviously correct to anyone who follows the moral luck literature. The conclusion, however, is surprising and disturbing. The classic cases of moral luck always involve an agent who lacks control over an event whose occurrence affects her praiseworthiness or (...) blameworthiness. Close examination of what it is to have control or to lack it reveals the logical space for counterexamples that do not fit the pattern constitutive of moral luck, and so unravel the whole. (shrink)

If one looks for the notion of conscience in Hume, there appears to be a contrast between the loose use of it that can be found in his History of England, and the stricter use of it Hume makes in his philosophical works. It is my belief that, notwithstanding the problems Hume’s philosophy raises for a notion such as conscience, it is possible to frame a positive Humean explanation of it. I want to suggest that, far from corresponding to a (...) mental power or to a faculty of some sort, conscience for Hume can be understood as a reflective form of self-surveying. This becomes apparent if the discussion about conscience as presented in A Treatise of Human Nature is integrated with other notions Hume introduces in An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals when discussing the case of the ‘sensible knave’, such as those of inward peace of mind, consciousness of integrity, and reflection on one’s own conduct. To further explicate my line of argument, I shall also contrast Hume’s conclusions with some arguments presented by other authors in this regard, such as Bernard Mandeville and Joseph Butler. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to clarify the concept of scientific ignorance: what is it, what are its sources, and when is it epistemically detrimental for science. I present a taxonomy of scientific ignorance, distinguishing between intrinsic and extrinsic sources. I argue that the latter can create a detrimental epistemic gap, which have significant epistemic and social consequences. I provide three examples from medical research to illustrate this point. To conclude, I claim that while some types of scientific ignorance (...) are inevitable and even desirable, other types of scientific ignorance are epistemically and ethically flawed and should be prevented. (shrink)

(2014). Cross-world luck at the time of decision is a problem for compatibilists as well. Philosophical Explorations: Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 112-125. doi: 10.1080/13869795.2014.912673.

While Hume has often been held to have been an agnostic or atheist, several contemporary scholars have argued that Hume was a theist. These interpretations depend chiefly on several passages in which Hume allegedly confesses to theism. In this paper, I argue against this position by giving a threshold characterization of theism and using it to show that Hume does not confess. His most important confession does not cross this threshold and the ones that do are often expressive rather than (...) assertive. I then argue that Hume is best interpreted as an atheist. Instead of interpreting Hume as a proto-logical positivist and arguing on the basis of Hume’s theories of meaning and method, I show that textually he appears to align himself with atheism, that his arguments in the Dialogues on Natural Religion support atheism, and that this position is most consistent with Hume’s naturalism. But, I hold that his atheism is soft and therefore distinct from that of his peers like Baron d’Holbach—while Hume really does reject theism, he neither embraces a dogmatically materialist position nor takes up a purely polemical stance towards theism. I conclude by suggesting several ways in which Hume’s atheistic philosophy of religion is relevant to contemporary discussions. (shrink)

RESUMO -/- Este artigo discute duas variedades de interpretação para a teoria moral de Hume. De um lado, ela é representada como uma forma de subjetivismo e, de outro, como uma forma de realismo. Ao final, é proposto que esta filosofia pode ser melhor descrita como uma forma de intersubjetivismo. -/- ABSTRACT -/- This paper discusses two varieties of interpretations of Hume's moral theory. On the one side the attempt to represent Hume's moral theory as a form of the moral (...) subjectivism, on the other, as a form of realism. Finally, propose that Hume's moral philosophy may be rather described as a form of the intersubjectivism. (shrink)

The article tries to answer the following question: what is the most promising epistemological strategy if my objective is the construction of a theory which gives me the opportunity to decrease the risk of getting to what is actually absolute, that is, to irreversible negative actions (irreversible as a theory might not be, but as an action often is)? The answer proposed is a form of epistemological dualism which means that I metaphysically believe (that is, I programmatically and systematically believe, (...) without certainly knowing it) that the epistemological relationship between any theory and any reality is dualistic. More specifically, I metaphysically believe that the epistemological relationship between any theory and any reality is not saturated: in any theory there is an ideal error, because there is no theory which is totally saturated by reality, and any reality can actualize the ideal error, because there is no reality which is totally saturated by theory. (shrink)

If we lack deep free agency, like that supposed by metaphysical libertarianism, should we view life as meaningless, pointless, or not worth living? Here I present a new argument in support of meaning-compatibilism, or the view that life can indeed be meaningful without our having deep free agency. I show that this argument secures meaning-compatibilism more effectively than an argument provided by Derk Pereboom. In the process, we learn that Susan Wolf’s hybrid theory of meaning in life is not equipped (...) to handle the question of meaning-compatibilism, which a broader approach to meaning in life should help us to grasp. On the alternative approach I present, judgments about meaning in life involve a sensitivity to whether giving up on life, or “agency defeat”, is justified. I argue that, so long as we are able to exist in reality, giving up on life is difficult to justify, and even without deep free agency, we do indeed exist in reality. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es revisar las posturas de Pierre Bayle y David Hume en torno al problema del mal, para determinar si la postura de Hume se reduce a la de su predecesor o si existen diferencias más profundas entre ambos. Bayle propone una solución fideísta, declarando que se trata de un misterio que está por encima de la razón al que debemos adherir a partir de la creencia, mientras que Hume se limita a suspender el juicio al (...) respecto. En primer lugar, se reconstruye el planteo del problema del mal y sus consecuencias sobre la moral en los dos autores. Luego, se revisan sus críticas a la teología racional y el papel que juega el escepticismo respecto de la religión. Se concluye que la influencia de Bayle sobre Hume está centrada en mostrar las limitaciones de la razón humana para abordar el problema, y que el aporte original de este último se vincula con la defensa de la filosofía como un tipo de especulación autónoma. (shrink)

ABSTRACT An apparent objection against my theory of instantiation as partial identity is that identity is necessary, yet instantiation is often contingent. To rebut the objection, I show how it can make sense that identity is contingent. I begin by showing how it can make sense that identity is temporary. I rely heavily on Andre Gallois’s formal theory of occasional identity, but argue that there is a gap in his explanation of how his formalisms make sense that needs to be (...) filled by appeal to my theory of Aspects. (shrink)

This essay examines the relation between philosophical questions concerning personal identity and character development in Shaftesbury’s and Hume’s philosophy. Shaftesbury combines a metaphysical account of personal identity with a normative approach to character development. By contrasting Shaftesbury’s and Hume’s views on these issues, I examine whether character development presupposes specific metaphysical views about personal identity, and in particular whether it presupposes the continued existence of a substance, as Shaftesbury assumes. I show that Hume’s philosophy offers at least two alternatives. Moreover, (...) I consider whether and how Hume’s philosophy leaves scope for character development and how he departs from Shaftesbury’s normative project of self-formation. (shrink)

Hume’s “impressions of reflection” is a category made up of all our non-sensory feelings, including “the passions and other emotions.” These two terms for affective mental states, ‘passion’ and ‘emotion’, are both used frequently in Hume’s work, and often treated by scholars as synonymous. I argue that Hume’s use of both ‘passion’ and ‘emotion’ in his discussions of affectivity reflects a conceptual distinction implicit in his work between what I label ‘attending emotions’ and ‘fully established passions.’ The former are the (...) transient, changeable, valenced feelings that flow between perceptions and constitute their felt nature and impulse. The latter are the particular passions fully realized, with characteristic valence, and analyzed by Hume in terms of their particular belief structures and relations between ideas and impressions understood to be constituent of particular passions. The term ‘emotion’ for Hume generally denotes either the attending feeling, sometimes distinct from the passion (particularly as ‘passion’ is being used to include the associated beliefs, causes and objects), or as a synonym for a particular passion, typically when Hume is primarily referring to the felt nature of the passion. Generally speaking, ‘passion’ is a more cognitive category of affective mental state, while ‘emotion’ is more sensationalist. I will further argue that when we grant Hume the emotion/passion distinction, he can accommodate both highly sensationalist and highly cognitivist understandings of affective mental states. I finish with the application of my distinction to two key topics in Hume studies: his sympathy mechanism, and his theory of belief and motivation. (shrink)

Hume thought that if you believed in powers, you believed in necessary connections in nature. He was then able to argue that there were none such because anything could follow anything else. But Hume wrong-footed his opponents. A power does not necessitate its manifestations: rather, it disposes towards them in a way that is less than necessary but more than purely contingent. -/- In this paper a dispositional theory of causation is offered. Causes dispose towards their effects and often produce (...) them. But a set of causes, even though they may succeed in producing an effect, cannot necessitate it since the effect could have been counteracted by some additional power. This would require a separation of our concepts of causal production and causal necessitation. The most conspicuous cases of causation are those where powers accumulate and pass a requisite threshold for an effect to occur. -/- We develop a model for representing powers as constituent vectors within an n-dimensional quality space, where composition of causes appears as vector addition. Even our resultant vector, however, has to be understood as having dispositional force only. This model throws new light on causal modality and cases of prevention, causation by absence and probabilistic causation. (shrink)

Belief in the existence of spiritual entities is an integral part of many people’s religious worldview. Angels appear, demons possess, ghosts haunt. But is belief that such entities exist justified? If not, are there conditions in which it would be? I will begin by showing why, once one clearly understands how to infer the best explanation, it is obvious that neither stories nor personal encounters can provide sufficient evidence to justify belief in spiritual entities. After responding to objections to similar (...) arguments I have published in the past, I will go on to show that there is at least an imaginable circumstance in which belief in spiritual entities would be justified but then point out that it is not reasonable to think that such conditions will ever be met. In short, if such entities were real, it would be theoretically possible to demonstrate their existence scientifically, and in doing so, one could make belief in their existence justified. But doing so would require and entail a scientific revolution equivalent to proving that the Earth is flat. (shrink)

La tesis sostenida por David Hume en su ensayo sobre los milagros, contenida en el capítulo X de su primera Investigación, ha sido objeto continuo de interés. Sus detractores han sostenido que el conjunto del argumento de Hume fracasa. Tras reconstruir los dos argumentos proporcionados por Hume -argumento a priori y argumento a posteriori- proponemos establecer una distinción entre milagrosn y milagros para concluir que el argumento de Hume justifica el escepticismo respecto a estos últimos. En definitiva, el argumento de (...) Hume, lejos de pretender en última instancia probar la inexistencia de los milagros como un factum dentro del orden natural, tiene por objeto demarcar la distinción entre creencias científicas y creencias religiosas como dos ámbitos que deben considerarse de manera separada. Esta diferenciación ha contribuido de manera decisiva a conformar la separación entre Ciencia y Religión propia de las sociedades secularizadas contemporáneas. (shrink)

This thesis investigates Hume’s philosophy of external existence in relation to, and within the context of, his philosophy of scepticism. In his two main works on metaphysics – A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) and the first Enquiry (first ed. 1748) – Hume encounters a predicament pertaining to the unreflective, ‘vulgar’ attribution of external existence to mental perceptions and the ‘philosophical’ distinction between perceptions and objects. I argue that we should understand this predicament as follows: the vulgar opinion is our (...) natural and default belief for Hume, but causal reasoning reveals it to be false, and the philosophical alternative is a confabulation that we cannot permanently believe and is devoid of justification. Hume uses the fact that we cannot have a satisfactory account of belief in external existence as a sceptical consideration to motivate his wider philosophical scepticism. Hume’s response to his predicament about external existence is found in the context of his confrontation with other sceptical worries (Treatise 1.4.7 and Enquiry 12), in which Hume also reflects generally on the nature and implications of scepticism. I argue that we should characterise Hume’s position as residually sceptical. This means that, while Hume accepts the unanswerability of some sceptical problems, he denies that it is possible to eradicate all belief as a result (and denies that it is practically useful to even try) and instead uses sceptical problems as a motivation to adopt a moderately sceptical position. While we inevitably return to entertaining the vulgar belief, there is no solution to the sceptical predicament; Hume does not endorse the vulgar belief, or the philosophical system, or indeed any alternative system of the external world that might extinguish the predicament. Sceptical doubt, for Hume, does not derail intellectual pursuits, but rather modifies our attitudes in those very pursuits. (shrink)

En este artículo examino el debate entre los intérpretes epistémicos y descriptivistas de la discusión humeana de la inducción y el razonamiento probable. Los intérpretes epistémicos consideran a Hume como concernido principalmente con cuestiones relacionadas con la autoridad y justificación epistémica de nuestros principios y creencias inductivas. Los intérpretes descriptivistas, por contra, sugieren que lo que Hume pretende es explicar cómo se producen nuestras creencias, no dictaminar si están epistémicamente justificadas. En particular, me centro en tres de estas lecturas: dos (...) de ellas epistémicas, la tercera descriptivista. La primera interpretación epistémica, la de Peter Millican, nos presenta a Hume abrazando un escepticismo respecto a la inducción; la segunda lectura epistémica, de Louis Loeb, lo presenta como un externalista no escéptico a propósito de la inducción; la lectura descriptivista, defendida por David Owen, presenta a un Hume comprometido principalmente con la tarea científica de describir los mecanismos por los que llegamos a formar nuestras creencias. En este artículo propongo una interpretación alternativa a estas interpretaciones escépticas, externalistas y descriptivistas. Argumento que, aunque estas lecturas tienen innegables puntos de apoyo y ayudan crucialmente a mejorar nuestra comprensión del pensamiento de Hume, todas ellas enfrentan problemas potencialmente insuperables. Concluyo que la mejor estrategia que nos queda abierta pasa por perseguir una explicación que no sea ni escéptica ni externalista de la posición de Hume. Parte de mi objetivo es cuestionar una asunción implícita en estas tres lecturas, a saber: que para Hume el concepto de naturaleza humana es puramente descriptivo. (shrink)

This essay shows that a moral sense or moral sentiments alone cannot identify appropriate morals. To this end, the essay analyzes three defenses of Francis Hutcheson's, David Hume's, and Adam Smith's moral sense theories against the relativism charge that a moral sense or moral sentiments vary across people, societies, cultures, or times. The first defense is the claim that there is a universal moral sense or universal moral sentiments. However, even if they exist, a moral sense or moral sentiments alone (...) cannot identify appropriate morals. The second defense is to adopt a general viewpoint theory, which identifies moral principles by taking a general viewpoint. But it needs to employ reason, and even if not, it does not guarantee that we identify appropriate morals. The third defense is to adopt an ideal observer theory, which draws moral principles from sentimental reactions of an ideal observer. Yet it still does not show that a moral sense or moral sentiments alone can identify appropriate morals. (shrink)

El artículo realiza una comparación entre Hume y Ortega como autores de historias de la nación. A ello se añade una aproximación entre los dos autores en la medida en que los dos desarrollan teorías de la creencia o convención que constituyen de manera importante la llave metodológica en su visión de la historia. Hume llega a la noción de convención muy tempranamente en el Tratado sobre la Naturaleza Humana, mientras que en el caso de Ortega la aparición de la (...) teoría de la creencia es posterior a la contraposición entre minorías y masa y su muy influyente España Invertebrada. Las diversas crisis de los años '30 le llevan a los conceptos de creencia, de uso e incluso de legitimidad de un orden social. Por ello se puede entender que en Ortega habría una inflexión en su pensamiento por el que, aun defendiendo la unidad europea, entiende que solo desde un concepto de razón narrativa y aceptando las limitaciones de la misma puede situarse el individuo en su momento. Para Hume la Historia de Inglaterra constituye una oportunidad de aplicar conceptos ya trabajados en la primera obra. Es, sin embargo, importante que en la Historia de Inglaterra va a valorar, antes que la propiedad, como en el Tratado, el deber de obediencia. (shrink)

According to Thomas Reid, an agent cannot be free unless she has the power to do otherwise. This claim is usually interpreted as a version of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. Against this interpretation, I argue that Reid is committed to the seemingly paradoxical position that an agent may have the power to do otherwise despite the fact that it is impossible that she do otherwise. Reid's claim about the power to do otherwise does not, therefore, entail the Principle of (...) Alternate Possibilities. When it is an agent's character that deprives her of alternate possibilities, she is not thereby deprived of either power or freedom, and this is true even if the agent was not free or active in the formation of her character. (shrink)

A specter is haunting Hume scholarship: the specter of the “New Hume.” Contrary to more traditional interpretations, according to which Hume rejects belief in any conception of causation that invokes (metaphysically) necessary connections between distinct existences, proponents of the New Hume hold that Hume at the least allowed for the possibility of such connections—it’s just that he thought we couldn’t know much, if anything, about them, if we assume that they do exist. -/- I will argue that the views of (...) the “New Humers” (as I shall call them) are mistaken. I will begin by discussing their reading of Hume on causation, using Galen Strawson as a foil. I then examine the relation between Hume’s view of relations (pun intended) and his account of “necessary connexions”. Next, I argue that this account, once properly understood, shows that he did not believe in what we would think of as necessary connections while at the same time explaining why, as the New Humers point out, Hume sometimes writes in ways that can make it sound like he does, as well as reconciling Hume’s two definitions of causation. After that, I answer objections, and then raise some doubts about Hume’s account before finally concluding the paper. (shrink)