Abstract

According to Robert Fogelin Hume's Treatise 'is packed with skeptical arguments'. In spite of this, he claims, most recent Hume scholarship has either neglected or downplayed Hume's scepticism. Hume commentators have tended to underestimate the importance of sceptical themes in Hume's philosophy because, following Norman Kemp Smith, they tend to over-emphasize Hume's naturalism. In opposition to this trend Fogelin seeks to establish that Hume's scepticism is a 'central feature' of the Treatise. An understanding of the relationship between Hume's sceptical arguments and his 'naturalistic program' (i.e. his intention to provide causal explanations for mental phenomena) is, it is argued, 'one of the central problems for interpreting the Treatise as a whole'. Hume's 'generalposture', Fogelin says, 'is that of a moderate skeptic recommending that wemodestly restrict our inquiries to topics within our ken and, recognizing our fallibility, adjust our beliefs to probabilities' (p. 2). However, the relationship between this moderate (Academic) scepticism and Hume's naturalism 'needs no special explanation' as it 'complements Hume's overall naturalistic program'. What particularly interests Fogelin, therefore, is the relationship between Hume's stronger, Pyrrhonian scepticism and his naturalism. Fogelin's book is primarily an attempt to understand the relationship between these two aspects of Hume's thought.