Abstract

Hume’s response to his very personal encounter with skepticism is well known: “I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour’s amusement, I wou’d return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain’d, and ridiculous, that I cannot find it in my heart to enter into them any farther”.1 As many commentators have noted, this “response” to skepticism is deeply unsatisfying. For example, Brian Ribeiro writes, “Having dinner and watching some TV no more ‘cures’ or ‘solves’ the skeptical problem than the drugs given to those with herpes ‘cure’ their...