Abstract

Hume's sections on the reason of animals are considered. He claims that animals show what we find extraordinary sagacity, in nest building and migration, as well as needing to learn many things from experience, just as we do. He issues a challenge to any rival account of our own powers to do as well or better than he does in accounting for the continuities, and discontinuities, between animal and human cognitive achievements. Yet when he looks at our ability to recognize familiar lasting things, only in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding does he allow that animals do this just as we do. Does his Treatise account of what exactly we do, noting constancies and coherence in our impressions, so overlooking interruption and disguising variation, fail his own touchstone?