Abstract

In Hume's True Scepticism, I offer a new interpretation of David Hume's epistemology and philosophy of mind as presented in A Treatise of Human Nature.1 I approach this task by developing what I take to be the first comprehensive2 investigation of Part 4 of Book 1. The arguments Hume offers there have frequently been addressed by the secondary literature in a piecemeal fashion, especially his account of personal identity and of our belief in the external world. But I argue in HTS that they should be read as a sustained investigation of the human temptation to form philosophical systems. Consider its title: "Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy". Hume, I suggest, is...