Abstract

In this rigorous and thorough discussion of David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature 1.4, entitled “Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy,” Donald Ainslie aims both to provide detailed textual exegeses of all seven sections, and to offer a way of understanding them as unified by the recurring theme of the dangers of “false” philosophy and a defense of “true” philosophy or “true scepticism.” To understand the compatibility of Hume’s skeptical conclusions and his philosophical ambitions, and so to be in a position to properly interpret 1.4.7, we must “fully contextualize” it in “what has preceded it, especially elsewhere in Part 4”. Ainslie tells us he will argue “that true scepticism...