Abstract

This paper considers whether elements of T 1.2 Of the Ideas of Space and Time in Hume’s Treatise is inconsistent with skepticism regarding the external world in T 1.4.2 Of Scepticism with regard to the Senses. This apparent tension vexes commentators, and efforts to resolve it drives the recent scholarship on this section of Hume’s Treatise. To highlight this tension I juxtapose Hume’s “Adequacy Principle” with what I call his “skeptical causal argument” in T 1.4.2. The Adequacy Principle appears to state that we can form conclusions about objects through the comparison of our ideas of them, while Hume’s skeptical causal argument asserts that we cannot form any conclusions about objects using ideas. Is Hume being inconsistent? I argue that he is not. My paper has three parts. First, I give a general reading of the Adequacy Principle in light of Hume’s peculiar claim that it is “the foundation of all human knowledge.” I then explain why the Adequacy Principle itself is not inconsistent with Hume’s skeptical causal argument by explaining how the term “object” should not be strictly read as “external” object but merely the “the object of inquiry” or even “the matter under consideration.” Second, I sketch Hume’s employment of the Adequacy Principle in his Divisibility Argument, explaining how this is also not at odds with his skeptical causal argument. In the third and final part I explore various interpretations in the literature and consider whether “finite extensions” need necessarily be read as external objects.