Eighteenth-century Scotsman David Hume, a naturalist and empiricist who argued the only reliable source of knowledge is experience, is widely considered the most important philosopher to write in the English language. Key passages from his writings are featured here, including A Treatise on Human Nature, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, accompanied by explanatory essays that put Hume's thoughts into proper political and historical context.

_Hume's Naturalism_ provides a clear and concise guide to the debates over whether Hume's empiricism or his 'naturalism' in the tradition of the Scottish 'Common Sense' school of philosophy gained his upper hand. This debate is central to any understanding of Hume's thought. H.O. Mounce presents a beautifully clear guide to Hume's most important works, _The Treatise on Human Nature_ and _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_. Accessible to anyone coming to Hume for the first time, _Hume's Naturalism_ (...) affords a much needed overview of the key concepts of empiricism, causation, scepticism, reason and morality that are essential to any understanding of Hume's philosophy. (shrink)

Hume is a naturalist in many different respects and about many different topics; this paper argues that he is also a naturalist about intentionality and representation. It does so in the course of answering four questions about his theory of mental representation: (1) Which perceptions represent? (2) What can perceptions represent? (3) Why do perceptions represent at all? (4) Howdo perceptions represent what they do? It appears that, for Hume, all perceptions except passions can represent; and they can represent bodies, (...) minds, and persons, with their various qualities. In addition, ideas can represent impressions and other ideas. However, he explicitly rejects the view that ideas are inherently representational, and he implicitly adopts a view according to which things (whether mental or non-mental) represent in virtue of playing, through the production of mental effects and dispositions, a significant part of the causal and/or functional role of what they represent. It is in virtue of their particular functional roles that qualitatively identical ideas are capable of representing particulars or general kinds; substances or modes; relations; past, present, or future; and individuals or compounds. (shrink)

Scholars studying the history of heredity suggest that during the 19th-century biologists and anthropologists viewed characteristics as a collection of blended qualities passed on from the parents. Many argued that those characteristics could be very much affected by environmental circumstances, which scholars call the inheritance of acquired characteristics or "soft" heredity. According to these accounts, Gregor Mendel reconceived heredity - seeing distinct hereditary units that remain unchanged by the environment. This resulted in particular traits that breed true in succeeding generations, (...) or "hard" heredity. The author argues that polygenist anthropology (an argument that humanity consisted of many species) and anthropometry in general should be seen as a hardening of heredity. Using a debate between Philadelphia anthropologist and physician, Samuel G. Morton, and Charleston naturalist and reverend, John Bachman, as a springboard, the author contends that polygenist anthropologists hardened heredity by conceiving of durable traits that might reappear even after a race has been eliminated. Polygenists saw anthropometry (the measurement of humans) as one method of quantifying hereditary qualities. These statistical ranges were ostensibly characteristics that bred true and that defined racial groups. Further, Morton's interest in hybridity and racial mixing demonstrates that the polygenists focused as much on the transmission and recognition of "amalgamations" of characters as they did on racial categories themselves. The author suggests that seeing race science as the study of heritable, statistical characteristics rather than broad categories helps explain why "race" is such a persistent cultural phenomenon. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Hume's Naturalism Hume's Skepticism The Relation between Hume's Naturalism and His Skepticism Skepticism and Naturalism after the Treatise References Further Reading.

Most naturalists think that the belief/desire model from Hume is the best framework for making sense of motivation. As Smith has argued, given that the cognitive state (belief) and the conative state (desire) are separate on this model, if a moral judgment is cognitive, it could not also be motivating by itself. So, it looks as though Hume and Humeans cannot hold that moral judgments are states of belief (moral cognitivism) and internally motivating (moral internalism). My chief claim is that (...) the details of Hume’s naturalistic philosophy of mind actually allow for a conjunction of these allegedly incompatible views. This thesis is significant, since readers typically have thought that Hume’s view that motivation is not produced by representations, coupled with his view that moral judgments motivate on their own, imply that moral judgments could never take the form of beliefs about, or representations of, the moral (virtue and vice). (shrink)

While Hume has often been held to have been an agnostic or atheist, several contemporary scholars have argued that Hume was a theist. These interpretations depend chiefly on several passages in which Hume allegedly confesses to theism. In this paper, I argue against this position by giving a threshold characterization of theism and using it to show that Hume does not confess. His most important confession does not cross this threshold and the ones that do are often expressive rather than (...) assertive. I then argue that Hume is best interpreted as an atheist. Instead of interpreting Hume as a proto-logical positivist and arguing on the basis of Hume’s theories of meaning and method, I show that textually he appears to align himself with atheism, that his arguments in the Dialogues on Natural Religion support atheism, and that this position is most consistent with Hume’s naturalism. But, I hold that his atheism is soft and therefore distinct from that of his peers like Baron d’Holbach—while Hume really does reject theism, he neither embraces a dogmatically materialist position nor takes up a purely polemical stance towards theism. I conclude by suggesting several ways in which Hume’s atheistic philosophy of religion is relevant to contemporary discussions. (shrink)

Mounce presents this book as a general introduction to Hume, not as a scholarly interpretation of Hume that is intended to engage other scholars in interpretive debate. He does, nonetheless, bring an interpretation to bear on Hume's writings. Mounce's focus is not limited to Hume's naturalism, as his title suggests; it is rather the relationship between Hume's naturalism and his empiricism. His claim is that Hume is both a naturalist and an empiricist, and that these (...) two positions cannot sit easily with each other. Mounce does not present Hume as attempting to reconcile the two positions. Instead, he sees Hume as saddled with internal tensions of which he is often unaware. This, at least, is where Mounce begins, but he also goes further. After some introductory moves, he focuses each chapter on a particular issue in Hume, exposing the naturalist and the empiricist interpretations. He consistently decides that the naturalist Hume is entirely correct and the empiricist Hume is entirely wrong. Ultimately, the book fails to find its place as an introduction to Hume. (shrink)

필자는 본 논문에서 흄이 「부록」에서 고백하는 “자아의 동일성 문제”에 있어 흄이 처한 곤경이 무엇인가에 대하여 새로운 해석을 제시한다. 우선 필자는 김효명이 『영국경험론』에서 제시한 「부록」의 “흄의 곤경”에 관한 해석이 지닌 의의와 한계를 검토한다. 김효명은 「부록」의 흄이 처한 곤경을 선험적 자아를 받아들일 것인가 말 것인가 하는 딜레마적 상황으로 해석하고, 이 문제를 해결할 수 있는 대안으로, 지각을 지각의 내용뿐만 아니라, 지각의 활동까지 포괄하는 개념으로 이해한다면 흄이 처한 난관을 돌파할 수 있을 것이라는 제안을 한다. 그러나 이 해석에는 “지각의 다발”이 지각 활동을 한다는 말이 반직관적이라는 (...) 문제가 남아있다. 필자는 이러한 문제가 발생한 것은 김효명이 흄의 “지각 다발 이론”에 전제되어 있는 “분리가능성의 원리”를 간과했기 때문인 것으로 진단한다. 필자가 제시하는 해석에 따르면, 흄이 「부록」에서 곤경에 처하게 된 것은 흄이 전제로 받아들인 “분리가능성의 원리”가 결국 자아동일성 문제를 해결하는데 걸림돌이 됨을 자각했기 때문이다. “분리가능성의 원리”가 야기 시키는 문제는 관점에 관한 비대칭성의 문제이며 이는 결국 자아의 동일성 문제를 다룸에 있어서 무한퇴행의 문제로 이어질 수밖에 다는 것이 필자의 주장이다. (shrink)

This paper considers normative naturalism, understood as the view that (i) normative sentences are descriptive of the way things are, and (ii) their truth/falsity does not require ontology beyond the ontology of the natural world. Assuming (i) for the sake of argument, I here show that (ii) is false not only as applied to ethics, but more generally as applied to practical and epistemic normativity across the board. The argument is a descendant of Moore's Open Question Argument and (...) class='Hi'>Hume's Is-Ought Gap. It goes roughly as follows: to ensure that natural ontology suffices for normative truth, there must be semantically grounded entailments from the natural truths to the normative truths. There are none. So natural ontology does not suffice for normative truth. (shrink)

This essay argues that the exploration of scepticism and its implications in the work of Stanley Cavell and David Hume bears more similarities than is commonly acknowledged, especially along the lines of what I wish to call “sceptical naturalism.” These lines of similarity are described through the way each philosopher relates the “natural” and “nature” to the universal, the necessary, and the conventional.

I argue for the viability of one neglected way of developing supervenience-based objections to metaethical non-naturalism. This way goes through a principle known as ‘Hume’s Dictum’, according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. I challenge several objections to the Hume’s Dictum-based argument. In the course of doing so, I formulate and motivate modest and precise versions of Hume’s Dictum, illustrate how arguments employing these principles might proceed, and argue that the Hume’s Dictum argument enjoys some (...) advantages relative to other supervenience-based objections to non-naturalism. (shrink)

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY PRIZE for the best published book in the history of philosophy [Awarded in 2010] _______________ -/- Although it is widely recognized that David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) belongs among the greatest works of philosophy, there is little agreement about the correct way to interpret his fundamental intentions. It is an established orthodoxy among almost all commentators that skepticism and naturalism are the two dominant themes in this work. The difficulty (...) has been, however, that Hume's skeptical arguments and commitments appear to undermine and discredit his naturalistic ambition to contribute to "the science of man". This schism appears to leave his entire project broken-backed. The solution to this riddle depends on challenging another, closely related, point of orthodoxy: namely, that before Hume published the Treatise he removed almost all material concerned with problems of religion. Russell argues, contrary to this view, that irreligious aims and objectives are fundamental to the Treatise and account for its underlying unity and coherence. It is Hume's basic anti-Christian aims and objectives that serve to shape and direct both his skeptical and naturalistic commitments. When Hume's arguments are viewed from this perspective we can solve, not only puzzles arising from his discussion of various specific issues, we can also explain the intimate and intricate connections that hold his entire project together. This "irreligious" interpretation provides a comprehensive fresh account of the nature of Hume's fundamental aims and ambitions in the Treatise. It also presents a radically different picture of the way in which Hume's project was rooted in the debates and controversies of his own time, placing the Treatise in an irreligious or anti-Chrisitan philosophical tradition that includes Hobbes, Spinoza and freethinking followers. Considered in these terms, Hume's Treatise constitutes the crowning achievement of the Radical Enlightenment. (shrink)

Graciela De Pierris presents a novel interpretation of the relationship between skepticism and naturalism in Hume's epistemology, and a new appraisal of Hume's place within early modern thought. Contrary to dominant readings, she argues that Hume does offer skeptical arguments concerning causation and induction in Book I, Part III of the Treatise, and presents a detailed reading of the skeptical argument she finds there and how this argument initiates a train of skeptical reasoning that begins in Part (...) III and culminates in Part IV. She goes on to demonstrate that Hume was committed to the Newtonian inductive method while rejecting the place of the supernatural in our understanding of nature. (shrink)

이 논문에서 나는 현대 메타윤리학에서 신감성주의가 흄의 자연주의의 어떠한 점을 전수 받았는지 보여주기 위해 흄의 철학에서 ‘자연’의 의미를 분석하고, 흄이 ‘개방적(liberal)자연주의’를 통해 도덕을 위한 공간을 어떻게 마련하는지 보여주고자 한다. 이를 위해, 둘째, 나는 흄의 자연주의의 주된 측면이 환원적 시각을 유지하는 과학적 자연주의라는 해석에 반대한다. 이를 보이기 위해 나는 그의 인간학의 주된 주제를 구성하는 것이 무엇인가에 주목한다. 내가 이 논문에서 주장하고자 하는 핵심은 흄의 인식론과 윤리학 둘 다가 ‘약한’ 자연주의 또는 ‘개방적 자연주의’로 특징져 질 수 있다는 것이다. 흄의 인식론과 윤리학을 ‘약한 (...) 자연주의’로 해석하는데 중요한 역할을 하는 부분이 『인성론』 제 2권 정념론이다. 정념이라는 본성을 중심으로 사회적·생물학적 존재로서의 인간에 초점을 맞춘 생활세계 인식론을 이해하면 흄의 『인성론』 제 1, 2, 3 권의 자연주의의 일관성을 이해할 수 있다. 흄에 따르면 우리가 세계에 대해 갖는 믿음은 습관이나 자연적 성향에 따라 인과적으로 결정되는 자연적 사실이기 때문에 그것은 다른 자연적 사실들처럼 정당화의 문제가 아니라 습관, 자연적 성향, 상상력과 같은 인간본성의 원리에 의해 설명된다. 이로써 극단적 회의주의는 인간본성의 원리에 호소하는 존재론적 자연주의에 의해 해소된다. 이에 더하여 정념을 통한 일상인들의 사회적 상호작용에 초점을 맞추는 그의 정념론 또한 자연주의이다. 윤리학에서 흄의 자연주의 전략은 허치슨의 도덕감 정론을 따르지만 허치슨의 선천적인 내재적 도덕감의 존재를 부정하고 도덕감의 발생기제를 자연적 윈리인 공감에 호소하는 것이다. 끝으로 나는 도덕의 자연화 전략에 관해 자세히 살펴보기 위해 도덕적 평가에 대한 흄의 입장을 살펴본다. 가치가 세계 그 자체에 있는 것이 아니라 우리 마음속에 존재한다는 흄의 입장을 우리는 투사주의(projectivism)라 부를 수 있다. 그러나 투사주의에서 말하는 것처럼 도덕판단이 그 자체로는 옳고·그름이라는 속성을 갖고 있지 않는 세계에 우리의 비인지적 느낌을 투사한 것이고, 그와 같은 비인지적 느낌의 옳고 그름은 그와 같은 느낌에 대해 행위자의 승인·불승인이라는 고차 태도(higher-order attitude)에 의존한다면 도덕의 보편성과 도덕판단의 규범성을 어떻게 말할 수 있는가? 이에 관한 답을 나는 최근에 흄의 도덕감정론을 발전시킨 프린츠의 입장을 검토해 보고 그 한계점을 보인 후, 흄의 관습적 규약론에서 찾고자 한다. (shrink)

We can understand epistemic naturalism as the view that there are cases in which we are justified in holding a belief and cases in which we are not so justified, and that we can distinguish cases of one sort from cases of the other with reference to non-normative facts about the mechanisms that produce them. By my lights, Hume is an epistemic naturalist of this sort, and I propose in this paper a novel and detailed account of his epistemic (...) naturalism. On my account, which I call the determinacy account, Hume characterizes epistemic justification in terms of the mind's feeling determined by the relation of cause and effect to move from one impression (or idea) to an(other) idea. I find a statement of this account, which Hume applies initially to what he calls the second system of realities, in Treatise 1.3.9. After rejecting other accounts of Hume's epistemic naturalism, I show how the determinacy account handles the cases Hume considers later in Treatise 1.3. (shrink)

This work presents a conception of Hume's overall philosophical stance which is derived from a focus on his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and The Natural History of Religion. A broad context is provided by frequent references to A Treatise of Human Nature and to An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding as well as to other relevant essays and letters written by Hume. Religious Naturalism is a complex tapestry woven of aesthetic, ethical, epistemological and metaphysical elements. The religious element in (...) Hume's writings, which some commentators see as a transcendent position, is interpreted as an immanentist religiosity akin to that of Spinoza and Einstein. Hume's three "strong natural beliefs" in "self", objects and causality, come together as a metaphysical faith in the ultimate reality of a shared cosmos. Hume's aesthetic response is expressed as a sense of the sublimity of the cosmos even in the midst of skeptical doubt. In Hume's religious naturalism his epistemological skepticism casts doubt on and tempers his metaphysical faith. It is shown that Hume's overriding ethical concern was to further the happiness of humanity by replacing the "pernicious superstition" of supernaturalism with an immanentist position which affirms the inexplicable presence of an eternal cosmos. This position is what is here termed Religious Naturalism. (shrink)

I argue that acknowledging Hume as a doxastic naturalist about belief in a deity allows an elegant, holistic reading of his Dialogues. It supports a reading in which Hume's spokesperson is Philo throughout, and enlightens many of the interpretive difficulties of the work. In arguing this, I perform a comprehensive survey of evidence for and against Philo as Hume's voice, bringing new evidence to bear against the interpretation of Hume as Cleanthes and against the amalgamation view while correcting (...) several standard mistakes. I ultimately isolate the interpretation of Philo's Reversal at the end of the Dialogues as of paramount importance, and show how my naturalistic interpretation makes this, and other notoriously difficult passages, unproblematic. (shrink)

This is a terrific tome. Packed with interesting insights and supported with extensive research, this book has tremendous potential to shape certain aspects of Hume studies. In light of such potential, it is not surprising that the earlier hardback edition earned the 2008 Journal of the History of Philosophy History of Philosophy Book Prize. Why is this book so important? Quite simply, this is one of the best contextualist studies of Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature ever written. To elaborate (...) a bit, this book provides a unique and fascinating interpretation of the Treatise by relating its structure and content to many of the most influential debates about re- ligion raging at Hume’s time. Even the best of books is not without its flaws, though. After summarizing a representative sample of Russell’s main claims, I will isolate a key weakness of his overall interpretive argument..... Although I am not convinced by the strong version of Russell’s thesis, I want to reiterate that this is one of the best books on Hume I have ever read. Russell’s points about Hume’s religious context are surely important for a complete understanding of the Treatise, even if they do not help to solve the sceptic/naturalist riddle. It is a book that all Hume scholars should read. (shrink)

1. Readers of Hume, even those who call attention to the depth and variety of his skeptical excursions, now happily admit that Hume is, in crucial respects, a “naturalist.” A naturalist is, broadly, someone who emphasizes the natural sources of our beliefs, attitudes, and practices; and Hume surely is at least this kind of naturalist. But understanding Hume’s naturalism to include only this general explanatory commitment obscures as much as it reveals, I will argue, about the text of Treatise (...) I iv, where Hume examines various skeptical “systems of philosophy.” To understand that part of the Treatise, we must, I will argue, understand Hume’s shifting allegiances to different kinds of naturalism. (shrink)

A standard interpretation of Hume’s naturalism is that it paved the way for a scientistic and ‘disenchanted’ conception of the world. My aim in this paper is to show that this is a restrictive reading of Hume, and it obscures a different and profitable interpretation of what Humean naturalism amounts to. The standard interpretation implies that Hume’s ‘science of human nature’ was a reductive investigation into our psychology. But, as Hume explains, the subject matter of this science is (...) not restricted to introspectively accessible mental content and incorporates our social nature and interpersonal experience. Illuminating the science of human nature has implications for how we understand what Hume means by ‘experience’ and thus how we understand the context of his epistemological investigations. I examine these in turn and argue overall that Hume’s naturalism and his science of man do not simply anticipate a disenchanted conception of the world. (shrink)

1. Readers of Hume, even those who call attention to the depth and variety of his skeptical excursions, now happily admit that Hume is, in crucial respects, a “naturalist.” A naturalist is, broadly, someone who emphasizes the natural sources of our beliefs, attitudes, and practices; and Hume surely is at least this kind of naturalist. But understanding Hume’s naturalism to include only this general explanatory commitment obscures as much as it reveals, I will argue, about the text of Treatise (...) I iv, where Hume examines various skeptical “systems of philosophy.” To understand that part of the Treatise, we must, I will argue, understand Hume’s shifting allegiances to different kinds of naturalism. (shrink)

Hume's compatibilist arguments are generally understood to be arguments about the logic of our notion of moral freedom. It would be illogical to hold an agent responsible for an action with which he is entirely unconnected. Accordingly, it would be illogical to hold an agent responsible for an action which was either uncaused or caused by factors external to the agent. It is logically necessary that a responsible action is one that has been determined by the will of the (...) agent. In short, while it is reasonable to hold an agent who has liberty of spontaneity responsible it is not reasonable to hold an agent responsible for actions that are due to indifference or external violence. This is the gist of what I shall call the 'orthodox' interpretation of Hume's 'reconciling project'. -/- This paper argues that these claims are seriously mistaken. Hume introduces 'the experimental method of reasoning' into this controversy in order to put an end to 'this long disputed question'. His arguments relating to 'liberty' and 'necessity' describe the 'regular mechanism' that governs the operation of our moral sentiments and relies on description rather than on 'logic' or 'conceptual analysis'. In important respects, therefore, Hume's 'general strategy' is very different from that of compatibilism as ordinarily understood (i.e. as per the 'orthodox' or classical interpretation). ________ Replies include: -/- * Antony Flew, "Paul Russell on Hume's `reconciling project' "; Mind 93 (372):587-588 (1984) -/- * Paul Russell, "Hume's `reconciling project': A reply to Flew"; Mind 94 (376):587-590 (1985) -/- . (shrink)

Is Hume a naturalist? Does he regard all or nearly all beliefs and actions as rationally unjustified? In order to settle these questions, it is necessary to examine their key terms and to understand the character-especially the normative character-of Hume's philosophical project. This paper argues that Hume is a naturalist-and, in particular, both a moral and an epistemic naturalist-in quite robust ways; and that Hume can properly regard many actions and beliefs as "rationally justified" in several different senses of (...) that term. (shrink)

Hume's scepticism about the ability of demonstrative reasoning to justify many of our most common and important beliefs, such those concerning the connection between causes and effects, does not sit well with his tendency to make normative claims about which beliefs we ought to accept. I argue that Hume's naturalist account of the causes of belief is nonetheless rich enough to provide for normative assessments of belief and even for the modification of beliefs in light of these assessments. (...) I argue, moreover, that far from interfering with his normative claims, Hume's appeals to the force of sceptical arguments are essential premises for this result. (shrink)

This paper explores the metaethical ramifications of a coarse-grained criterion of property identity, sometimes referred to as Hume's dictum. According to Hume's dictum, properties are identical if and only if they are necessarily co-extensive. Assuming the supervenience of the normative on the natural, this criterion threatens the non-naturalist view that there are instantiable normative properties which are distinct from natural properties. In response, non-naturalists typically point to various counterintuitive implications of Hume's dictum. The paper clarifies this strategy (...) and defends it against objections by Bart Streumer and Ralf Bader. In addition, it is argued that proponents of naturalist and supernaturalist views, along with proponents of a certain kind of nihilism, should also reject Hume's dictum. This shows that non-naturalists can also attack the criterion indirectly, by pointing to partners in guilt. Also, it shows that not just any opponent of non-naturalism can appeal to Hume's dictum. Only certain nihilists can. (shrink)

Hume's Enlightenment Tract is the first full book-length study for forty years of David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. The Enquiry has, contrary to its author's expressed wishes, long lived in the shadow of its predecessor, A Treatise of Human Nature. Stephen Buckle presents the Enquiry in a fresh light, and aims to raise it to its rightful position in Hume's work and in the history of philosophy. He argues that the Enquiry is not, as so often (...) assumed, a mere collection of watered-down extracts from the earlier work. It is, rather, a coherent work with a unified argument; and, when this argument is grasped as a whole, the Enquiry shows itself to be the best introduction to the lineaments of its author's general philosophy. Buckle offers a careful guide through the argument and structure of the work. He shows how the central sections of the Enquiry offer a critique of the dogmatic empiricisms of the ancient world, and set in place an alternative conception of human powers based on the sceptical principles of habit and probability. These principles are then put to work, to rule out philosophy's metaphysical ambitions and their consequences: religious systems and their attendant conception of human beings as semi-divine rational animals. Hume's scepticism, experimentalism, and naturalism are thus shown to be different aspects of the one unified philosophy - a sceptical version of the Enlightenment vision. (shrink)

Hume's Enlightenment Tract is the first full book-length study for forty years of David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. The Enquiry has, contrary to its author's expressed wishes, long lived in the shadow of its predecessor, A Treatise of Human Nature. Stephen Buckle presents the Enquiry in a fresh light, and aims to raise it to its rightful position in Hume's work and in the history of philosophy. He argues that the Enquiry is not, as so often (...) assumed, a mere collection of watered-down extracts from the earlier work. It is, rather, a coherent work with a unified argument; and, when this argument is grasped as a whole, the Enquiry shows itself to be the best introduction to the lineaments of its author's general philosophy. Buckle offers a careful guide through the argument and structure of the work. He shows how the central sections of the Enquiry offer a critique of the dogmatic empiricisms of the ancient world, and set in place an alternative conception of human powers based on the sceptical principles of habit and probability. These principles are then put to work, to rule out philosophy's metaphysical ambitions and their consequences: religious systems and their attendant conception of human beings as semi-divine rational animals. Hume's scepticism, experimentalism, and naturalism are thus shown to be different aspects of the one unified philosophy - a sceptical version of the Enlightenment vision. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Some Features of Hume's Approach to the Science of Man Structure and Content of “Conclusion of this book” The Rational Justification of Belief Skepticism and Naturalism Notes References Further reading.

Frederick F. Schmitt offers a new account of Hume's epistemology in A Treatise of Human Nature, which alternately manifests scepticism, empiricism, and naturalism. Critics have emphasised one of these positions over the others, but Schmitt argues that they can be reconciled by tracing them to an underlying epistemology of knowledge and probability.

Peirce wrote that Hume’s argument against miracles (which is generally liked by twentieth century philosophers for its antireligious conclusion) "completely misunderstood the true nature of" ’abduction’. This paper argues that if Hume’s argumentative strategy were seriously used in all situations (not just those in which we seek to "banish superstition"), it would deliver a choking epistemological conservatism. It suggests that some morals for contemporary naturalistic philosophy may be drawn from Peirce’s argument against Hume.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 27, Number 1, April 2001, pp. 3-83 Moral Skepticism and Moral Naturalism in Hume's Treatise NICHOLAS L. STURGEON Section I I believe that David Hume's well-known remarks on is and ought in his Treatise of Human Nature (T 469-70)1 have been widely misunderstood, and that in consequence so has their relation to his apparent ethical naturalism and to his skepticism about the (...) role of reason in morality. My aim in this paper is to display their connection with these larger issues in Hume's work by placing them in a more illuminating light. Readers may wonder whether there is anything left to say about the passage containing these remarks; they may also share Barry Stroud's suspicion that the vast literature focused on this one paragraph has "given it an importance and point out of all proportion to its actual role in the text of the Treatise."2 But I have some new things to say. I agree, moreover, that many recent discussions, in projecting twentieth-century assumptions onto Hume's text, have accorded this passage the wrong sort of importance: that is part of what I want to correct. But getting clear about what Hume is saying here is, I shall argue, a way of moving familiar and obviously central questions about his views on morality into an unfamiliar but revealing focus. Hume's is-ought thesis is commonly, and I believe correctly, seen as an application of his more general skepticism about the capacity of reason to discover "moral distinctions." But that general skepticism is usually taken, in turn, to conflict with those many passages in which Hume Nicholas L. Sturgeon is Professor of Philosophy, Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-3201, USA. e-mail: [email protected] 4 Nicholas L. Sturgeon appears to say, in a reductive and naturalistic vein, that ascriptions of moral virtue and vice simply state certain empirical facts, facts about our own sentiments. My central thesis, however, is that Hume's view that there is a logical gap between is and ought is not merely consistent with his reductive naturalism, but actually depends on it. It is precisely because moral ascriptions state the facts that they do about our sentiments that no ought can be derived from an is and, a bit more generally, that reason is unable to discover moral distinctions. Hume's skepticism about reason in ethics depends, I shall argue, on his reductive ethical naturalism. This is not the usual understanding of Hume's views, and it will require careful explanation and defense. I shall proceed in several stages. My first step, in Section II, will be to argue that Hume's naturalism is at least consistent with his skepticism about reason, and in particular with his remarks about is and ought. I shall show this by focusing on a difficulty often taken to epitomize the conflict between these two strains in his thought: namely, that the paragraph containing these remarks (T 469-70: henceforth, the is-ought paragraph) and the one immediately preceding it (which I shall call the matter -of-fact paragraph (T 468-9)) appear, on their most natural readings, flatly to contradict one another.3 On the most common reading of the is-ought paragraph, it assumes the existence of two classes of statements, «-statements and oM^hr-statements, and declares that no member of the latter class can be derived entirely from members of the former. In the preceding paragraph, however, Hume appears in the guise of an ethical naturalist and subjectivist, and, if we take him at his word, simply equates a moral judgment with one asserting what he himself calls a "matter of fact," albeit a psychological fact about oneself: So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. (T 469) But, one supposes, if a moral assessment of an action or character is equivalent in meaning to a description of one's sentiments, then it can be derived from that description, and there... (shrink)

Much has been written about Kemp Smith’s (1941) famous problem regarding the tension between Hume’s naturalism and his scepticism. However, most commentators have focused their attention on the Treatise; those who address Enquiry often take it to express essentially the same message as the Treatise. When Hume’s scepticism in the Enquiry has been investigated in its own right, commentators have tended to focus on Hume’s inductive scepticism in Sections 4 and 5. All in all, it seems that Section 12 (...) has been unduly neglected. This paper seeks to address Kemp Smith’s problem from the standpoint of Hume’s treatment of scepticism in EHU 12, and finds an interesting internalist account that makes sense both of Hume’s discussion in EHU 12 and his aims in the Enquiry as a whole, as well as one that is of philosophical interest, having intriguing parallels to contemporary epistemological accounts. (shrink)

In The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion, Paul Russell makes a strong case for the claim that “The primary aim of Hume's series of skeptical arguments, as developed and distributed throughout the Treatise, is to discredit the doctrines and dogmas of Christian philosophy and theology with a view toward redirecting our philosophical investigations to areas of ‘common life,’ with the particular aim of advancing ‘the science of man’”. Understanding Hume in this way, according to (...) Russell, sheds light on the “ultimate riddle” of the Treatise: “is it possible to reconcile Hume's skeptical principles and conclusions with his aim to advance the ‘science of man’”? Or does Hume's skepticism undermine his “secular, scientific account of the foundations of moral life in human nature”? Russell's controversial thesis is that “the irreligious nature of Hume's fundamental intentions in the Treatise” is essential to solving the riddle. Russel.. (shrink)