David Hume is widely recognized as providing the most influential statement of the “compatibilist” position in the free will debate — the view that freedom and moral responsibility can be reconciled with (causal) determinism. The arguments that Hume advances on this subject are found primarily in the sections titled “Of liberty and necessity”, as first presented in A Treatise of Human Nature (2.3.1-2) and, later, in a slightly amended form, in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (sec. 8). Although there is (...) considerable overlap in content between these two statements of Hume's position, there are also some significant differences. This includes, for example, some substantial additions in the Enquiry discussion as it relates to problems of religion, such as predestination and divine foreknowledge. While these differences are certainly significant they should not be exaggerated. Hume's basic strategy and compatibilist commitments in both works remain the same in their essentials.. (shrink)

This paper offers a new reading of Hume’s much discussed Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779/2000) which shows that, in contrast to what commentators tend to ascribe to Hume, the crux of the text is not epistemological-ontological – that is, not the arguments in favour of and against God’s existence – but moral. It is shown that, although most of the epistemologicalontological pro-and-contra arguments are quite weak, Hume’s interlocutors nevertheless cling to their theses from beginning to end, with the reason for (...) their dogmatism shown to be moral rather than epistemological-ontological. The paper is divided into four sections. The introduction to the argument is followed by a discussion of Hume’s rejection of substance as epistemologicallyontologically superfluous and as morally bad. Thereafter, it is first shown how the concept of a transcendental God undergoes deflation and consequently disappears. It is then shown that, even though their arguments are wrong, Cleanthes and Philo cling dogmatically to their starting points instead of trying to improve their claims and to rebuff the criticisms made against them. In conclusion, it is shown that the only way to account for their dogmatic inflexibility is in terms of their moral position: Cleanthes thinks that society and morals will collapse without the belief in a transcendental God, while Philo thinks it will function better if we discard this belief. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , September 2008, Volume 8, Edition 2. (shrink)

This is a reply to Willem Lemmens’ discussion of my interpretation of the Dialogues on Natural Religion in my 2000 collection Themes from Hume: Self, Will, Religion. I use Lemmens’ careful textual analysis to clarify my considered position and to further the reading of Part 12 of the Dialogues.

This is a reply to Donald Ainslie's discussion of Terence Penelhum's work on Hume, Locke and the nature of consciousness; although agree on many points about the differences between Locke and Hume, I take issue with Ainslie's views about the epistemic status Hume accords to introspective acts.

According to Terence Penelhum, Philo's confession in the last part of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion reveals on the side of the author a reconciliatory and pacifying attitude towards the liberal moderate clergy of his days. This article investigates whether another reading of this intriguing text is not more appropriate. It defends the idea that Philo's speeches and Cleanthes’ reactions to it in the last part of the Dialogues reveal on Hume's side an attitude of mild despair and isolation towards (...) the religious culture of eighteenth-century Scotland, in both its orthodox and more moderate form. (shrink)

This paper sketches a recently emerging divide between two interpretations of Hume's methodology and philosophy of science. On the first interpretation Hume relies on an inductive methodology and provides a dynamic theory of the mind, and his philosophy of science reflects this methodology. On the second, Hume relies on inferences to the best explanation via comparative analysis of instances, and offers an anatomy of the mind relying on a chemical and organic imagery. The paper also aspires to lean the reader's (...) sympathies toward the latter interpretation while outlining some of its potential consequences for the character of Hume's psychology, the limits of associationism, and his empiricism. (shrink)

Mathematics for Hume is the exemplary field of demonstrative knowledge. Ideally, this knowledge is a priori as it arises only from the comparison of ideas without any further empirical input; it is certain because demonstration consist of steps that are intuitively evident and infallible; and it is also necessary because the possibility of its falsity is inconceivable as it would imply a contradiction. But this is only the ideal, because demonstrative sciences are human enterprises and as such they are just (...) as fallible as their human practitioners. According to the reading suggested here, Hume develops a radical sceptical challenge for mathematics, and thereby he undermines the knowledge claims associated with demonstrative reasoning. But Hume does not stop there: he also offers resources for a sceptical solution to this challenge, one that appeals crucially to social practices, and sketches the social genealogy of a community-wide mathematical certainty. While explaining this process, he relies on the conceptual resources of his faculty psychology that helps him to distinguish between the metaphysics and practices of mathematical knowledge. His account explains why we have reasons to be dubious about our reasoning capacities, and also how human nature and sociability offers some remedy from these epistemic adversities. (shrink)

Considering various arguments in Hume’s Treatise, I reconstruct a Humean argument against personal identity or unity. According to this argument, each distinct perception is separable from the bundle of perceptions to which it belongs and is thus transferable either to the external, material reality or to another psychical reality, another bundle of perceptions. Nevertheless, such transference (Hume’s word!) is entirely illegitimate, otherwise Hume’s argument against causal inference would have failed; furthermore, it violates private, psychical accessibility. I suggest a Humean thought (...) experiment clearly demonstrating that, to the extent that anything within a psychical reality is concerned, no distinction leads to separation or transference and that private, psychical accessibility has to be allowed in the Humean argument for personal identity or unity. Private accessibility and psychical untransferability secure personal identity and unity. Referring to the phenomenon of multiple personality along the lines of the Humean argument for personal identity or unity, I illustrate both private accessibility and a possible notion of one and the same person distinct from his/her alters or psychical parts. Finally, I show why Parfit’s Humean argument against personal identity must fail. (shrink)

Where Terence Penelhum sees a deep continuity between John Locke's theory of ideas and David Hume's theory of perceptions, I argue that the two philosophers disagree over some fundamental issues in the philosophy of mind. While Locke treats ideas as imagistic objects that we recognize as such by a special kind of inner consciousness, Hume thinks that we do not normally recognize the imagistic content of our perceptions, and instead unselfconsciously take ourselves to sense a shared public world. My disagreement (...) with Penelhum over Hume's debt to Locke helps to explain our disagreement over the nature of Hume's scepticism. (shrink)

David Hume's various writings concerning problems of religion are among the most important and influential contributions on this topic. In these writings Hume advances a systematic, sceptical critique of the philosophical foundations of various theological systems. Whatever interpretation one takes of Hume's philosophy as a whole, it is certainly true that one of his most basic philosophical objectives is to unmask and discredit the doctrines and dogmas of orthodox religious belief. There are, however, some significant points of disagreement about the (...) exact nature and extent of Hume’s irreligious intentions. One of the most important of these is whether Hume's sceptical position leads him to a view that can be properly characterized as “atheism”. Although this was a view that was widely accepted by many of Hume's critics during his own lifetime, contemporary accounts have generally argued that this misrepresents his final position on this subject. The primary aims of this article are: (1) to give an account of Hume's main arguments as they touch on various particular issues relating to religion; and (2) to answer to the question concerning the general character of Hume's commitments on this subject. (shrink)

-/- Human beings are conscious not only of the world around them but also of themselves: their activities, their bodies, and their mental lives. They are, that is, self-conscious (or, equivalently, self-aware). Self-consciousness can be understood as an awareness of oneself. But a self-conscious subject is not just aware of something that merely happens to be themselves, as one is if one sees an old photograph without realising that it is of oneself. Rather a self-conscious subject is aware of themselves (...) as themselves; it is manifest to them that they themselves are the object of awareness. Self-consciousness is a form of consciousness that is paradigmatically expressed in English by the words “I”, “me”, and “my”, terms that each of us uses to refer to ourselves as such. -/- A central topic throughout the history of philosophy—and increasingly so since the seventeenth century—the phenomena surrounding self-consciousness prompt a variety of fundamental philosophical and scientific questions, including its relation to consciousness; its semantic and epistemic features; its realisation in both conceptual and non-conceptual representation; and its connection to our conception of an objective world populated with others like ourselves. (shrink)

En este trabajo se explora el "problema de las otras mentes" desde una perspectiva humeana, con la intención de concebir una alternativa anticartesiana tanto en el nivel teórico como en el metateórico. Para ello, se examinan brevemente algunas de las características más importantes de la teoría humeana de la subjetividad, sistemáticamente desatendidas por la mayoría de los intérpretes: la preponderancia de la dimensión pasional en la formación gradual de la subjetividad y el papel de la simpatía en ese proceso. Además, (...) se sostiene la posibilidad de elaborar una perspectiva anticartesiana sobre la base de una inversión metateórica ineludible, un verdadero giro práctico que tiene lugar dentro de la propuesta humeana, el cual implica hacer un marcado hincapié en la primacía del aspecto práctico-intersubjetivo de la subjetividad por encima del aspecto teórico-individualista. This paper explores the "other minds problem" from a Humean perspective, with the objective of devising an anti-Cartesian alternative, both theoretical and meta-theoretical. In order to do this, the paper briefly examines some of the most important features of the Humean theory of the self systematically neglected by most interpreters: the prevalence of the passional dimension in the gradual formation of the self, and the role of sympathy in that process. We hold the possibility of developing an anti-Cartesian perspective on the basis of an unavoidable meta-theoretical reversal, a genuine practical turn that takes place within the Humean proposal, and which involves a greater emphasis on the primacy of the practical-intersubjective aspect of the self over the theoretical-individualistic one. (shrink)