Selections from Hume's and Kant's writings, with commentary.

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better if we were immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Life, Death, and Meaning brings together key readings, primarily by English-speaking philosophers, on such 'big questions.'.

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses.

A compact and accessible edition of Hume’s political and moral writings with essays by a distinguished set of contributors A key figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume was a major influence on thinkers ranging from Kant and Schopenhauer to Einstein and Popper, and his writings continue to be deeply relevant today. With four essays by leading Hume scholars exploring his complex intellectual legacy, this volume presents an overview of Hume’s moral, political, and social philosophy. (...) Editors Angela Coventry and Andrew Valls bring together a selection of writings from Hume’s most important works, with contributors placing them in their appropriate context and offering a lively discourse on the relevance of Hume’s thought to contemporary subjects like reason’s dependence on emotion and the importance of social convention in political and economic behavior. Perfect for classroom use, this volume is an invaluable companion for anyone studying an important thinker who advanced the development of moral philosophy, economics, cognitive science, and many other fields of the Western tradition. (shrink)

The focus of this chapter will be Kant’s understanding of Hume, and its impact on Kant’s critical philosophy. Contrary to the traditional reading of this relationship, which focuses on Kant’s (admittedly real) dissatisfaction with Hume’s account of causation, my discussion will focus on broader issues of philosophical methodology. Following a number of recent interpreters, I will argue that Kant sees Hume as raising, in a particularly forceful fashion, a ‘demarcation challenge’ concerning how to (...) distinguish the legitimate use of reason in (say) natural scientific contexts from the illegitimate use of it in (say) dogmatic metaphysics. I will then go on to argue that Kant sees Hume’s tendency to slide into more radical forms of skepticism as a symptom of his failure to provide a systematic or principled account of this distinction. This failure, I argue, can be traced (according to Kant) to Hume’s impoverished, non-hylomorphic account of our faculties – which both robs Hume of the materials necessary to construct a genuinely systematic philosophy as Kant understands this, and makes it impossible for Hume to clearly conceive of what Kant calls ‘Formal Idealism.’ In this way, the failings of Hume’s account of causation are (for Kant) symptoms of more fundamental limitations within Hume’s philosophy. I close by briefly discussing the similarities between Hume and Kant’s understanding of the relationship between, first, philosophical methodology and, second, the nature of our faculties. (shrink)

I claim evolution through natural selection is inconsistent with Kantian epistemology, because there is nothing about humans or 'the mind' which does not vary, so its inappropriate to base universal laws of nature on how the variable mind might generates experience. I also claim that the apparent self sufficient world presented by natural selection is at least suspiciously inconsistent with Hume's views that it is impossible to see how anything could itself (be sufficient to) produce anything.

Three of the papers included here have not previously appeared in English, and five have not been published at all.

If the theory advanced below is correct, then what is the difference (I know she [Philippa Foot]] will ask) between the moral must/must not and the must/must not of etiquette or the clubhouse? Looking forward to the conclusion I shall reach, let me reply, roughly and readily, that the difference will reside not in anything formal but in the depth, spread, and felt authority of the attachments to which the moral must/must not appeals-and categorically appeals.

Given Hume's seemingly ambivalent—and often cryptic—claims about the limits of human knowledge, it is no surprise that a skeptical and a naturalistic reading compete as the proper interpretation of the Treatise. Although Hume was traditionally viewed as a skeptic, more recently the "naturalized" view of the Treatise has been in the ascendancy. On this view, while Hume deploys various skeptical arguments, they are mainly in the service of revealing the essentially naturalistic structure of human cognition. In other (...) words, Hume is taken to be engaged in a type of philosophical psychology, and the results of this project are taken to accord with generally naturalized claims about the mind. (shrink)

Hobbes and Hume on the imagination can initiate a discussion of empiricism in the 17th and 18th centuries: here, however, it provides the opportunity to focus on Kant's attempt to overcome the limits of their sense originating, naturalist ethics. I argue the general point that Kant's response to his predecessors, both empiricist and non-empiricists, is to modify their focus on nature without falling into skepticism; indeed, his speculative metaphysics also is a response to classical ontological metaphysics. (...) class='Hi'>Kant by providing two realms or perspectives, a natural and a noumenal, avoids many difficulties resulting from Hobbes and Hume's starting point in sense leading to imagination and a non-normative reason. Yet, challenged by Herder and the romantics, he uses a sort of residual view of the imagination in relation to the freedom of the noumenal, which results in difficulties for his speculative, noumenal metaphysics. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

At a time when certain scholars insist that the self does not exist and is not worth discussing, a return to the work of Kierkegaard proves valuable insofar as he considers this topic without appeal to abstractions and instead by way of lived experiences. My paper argues that we gain crucial insights into what constitutes Kierkegaard’s lived self by considering the trajectory of a debate between two of his most prominent predecessors, Hume and Kant. From Hume we (...) gain an account of the problem of thinking the self abstractly (i.e., the paradox of the bundle of perceptions having to be itself a perception) and how this problem vaguely connects to the passions. From Kant we gain an account of the psychological morality framing the self and the radical evil at its heart. I suggest that Kierkegaard builds on these accounts by synthesizing their abstract components in an embodied, dynamic context, showing (not telling) how the self can be presented in everyday experiences. (shrink)

This paper uses the humor of Road Runner cartoons as a test of our intuitions about causality as these intuitions are appealed to by the rival theories of Hume and Kant. I argue that Road Runner cartoons are funnier to Kantians, with their stronger presumption of necessary causal regularity, and therefore supportive of Kantianism to the degree that we find this humor compelling.

In current debates concerning atheism, two positions are considered possible: naturalistic atheism or anti-naturalistic theism. Anti-naturalistic theism is motivated by the failure of naturalism to explain the fundamental nature of reality. We, however, endorse anti-naturalistic atheism by reviving the ‘anthropomorphic critique’, arguing that theism misattributes human traits to the deity. Anti-naturalistic atheism is better suited to refute theists, since it undercuts their appeal to science's inadequacies. We trace the anthropomorphic critique from Hume's Dialogues, through Kant's epistemology, and conclude (...) with its reception in Feuerbach. The anthropomorphic critique is an epistemological – not metaphysical – thesis, hence, it is agnostic about the fundamental nature of reality. Yet it convincingly shows that theism is not a tenable position. In essence, we aim to decouple atheism from naturalism, on the basis of a salient critique in the history of modern philosophy, in order to ameliorate current debates between atheists and theists.Export citation. (shrink)

This paper traces the systematic connections between the structure of Hume's argument in "Of the Standard of Taste" and the way Kant presents the Antinomy of Taste in his Critique of Judgment. It is argued, however, that although there are striking parallels between the way Hume and Kant formulate their respective antinomies, there are significant differences in the way the two philosophers solve them. For while Hume's approach reflects his scepticism about the place of philosophy (...) in common life, Kant's solution confirms his view that philosophy can effectively correct the errors into which human reason naturally falls. (shrink)

In current debates concerning atheism, two positions are considered possible: naturalistic atheism or anti-naturalistic theism. Anti-naturalistic theism is motivated by the failure of naturalism to explain the fundamental nature of reality. We, however, endorse anti-naturalistic atheism by reviving the ‘anthropomorphic critique’, arguing that theism misattributes human traits to the deity. Anti-naturalistic atheism is better suited to refute theists, since it undercuts their appeal to science's inadequacies. We trace the anthropomorphic critique from Hume's Dialogues, through Kant's epistemology, and conclude (...) with its reception in Feuerbach. The anthropomorphic critique is an epistemological – not metaphysical – thesis, hence, it is agnostic about the fundamental nature of reality. Yet it convincingly shows that theism is not a tenable position. In essence, we aim to decouple atheism from naturalism, on the basis of a salient critique in the history of modern philosophy, in order to ameliorate current debates between atheists and theists. (shrink)

This paper traces missing links in the history of economic thought. In outlining Hume's concept of 'the reflexive mind' it shows that this opened frontiers between philosophy and psychology which Bertrand Russell denied and which logical positivism in philosophy and positive economics displaced. It relates this to Hume's influence not only on Smith, but also on Schopenhauer and the later Wittgenstein, with parallels in Gestalt psychology and recent findings from neural research and cognitive psychology. It critiques Kant's (...) reaction to Hume's claim that one may assume but cannot prove cause and effect and how Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis has been Kantian but wrong in claims for axioms that are universal truths. It illustrates how Samuelson's presumption that language and mathematics are 'identical' was as mistaken as the logical atomism of Russell and the early Wittgenstein, relates this to Kleinian splitting, denial and projective identification and suggests that recovery of greater realism in economics needs to regain links with such philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

Do Hume and Kant hold strongly divergent views about the causal principle, viz. the principle that every event or change of state in nature must have a cause? It has traditionally been held that they do, and on the ground that while Hume claims that there is no justification for the principle’s acceptance, Kant claims that the principle can be shown to be necessary for the possibility of experience. However, I argue that, on Hume’s account (...) of how we come to believe in the existence of external objects, it is not possible for us to perceive any external object that is changing its state randomly or acausally. Accordingly, Hume is no position to deny that the causal principle can be justified, given he acknowledges, like Kant, that we do believe ourselves capable of perceiving events, or changes of state, in nature. Equally, Kant is no position to claim to have answered Hume’s scepticism about the causal principle given he acknowledges, like Hume, that the objects of the senses are, in reality, merely appearances and not things in themselves. (shrink)

This article is a transcript of an interview with the previous editor-in-chief of Philosophy of Management. It discusses his career, the use of and hopes for field of philosophy of management, and leading the journal.

This collection of essays by one of the preeminent Kant scholars of our time transforms our understanding of both Kant's aesthetics and his ethics. Guyer shows that at the very core of Kant's aesthetic theory, disinterestedness of taste becomes an experience of freedom and thus an essential accompaniment to morality itself. At the same time he reveals how Kant's moral theory includes a distinctive place for the cultivation of both general moral sentiments and particular attachments on (...) the basis of the most rigorous principle of duty. Kant's thought is placed in a rich historical context including such figures as Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, Burke, Kames, as well as Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, Schiller, and Hegel. Other topics treated are the sublime, natural versus artistic beauty, genius and art history, and duty and inclination. These essays extend and enrich the account of Kant's aesthetics in the author's earlier book, Kant and the Claims of Taste. (shrink)

This paper considers how Descartes's and Hume's sceptical challenges were appropriated by Christian Wolff and Johann Nicolaus Tetens specifically in the context of projects related to Kant's in the transcendental deduction. Wolff introduces Descartes's dream hypothesis as an obstacle to his account of the truth of propositions, or logical truth, which he identifies with the 'possibility' of empirical concepts. Tetens explicitly takes Hume's account of our idea of causality to be a challenge to the `reality' of transcendent (...) concepts in general, a challenge he addresses by locating the source of this concept in the understanding rather than in the imagination. After considering this background, I turn to Kant's deployment of apparently traditional sceptical concerns at the outset of the transcendental deduction and argue that he does not there intend to introduce a global sceptical challenge and, accordingly, that there are historical grounds for doubting that the transcendental deduction is intended as an anti-sceptical argument. (shrink)

Kant has long been held in some quarters to undermine Hume’s derivation of the concept of cause. At least part of what Kant aims to show in his second analogy, according to adherents of this view, is that our putative awareness of objective succession—and thus of individual events—depends on our already having it. The aim of this paper is fourfold. First, to make clear that there are strong textual grounds for the claim that Kant aims to (...) show this. Second, to reveal a problem with the most prominent defense of the claim that Hume can account for the putative awareness in question without any appeal to the relevant concept. Third, to propose an alternative defense of that claim. And fourth, to defend the position ascribed to Hume on this alternative defense against an attack ascribed to Kant byBeatrice Longuenesse. The conclusion is thus that Kant fails in his attempt to refute Hume’s derivation. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson is one of the most famous Kantian philosophers and interpretators of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”. This study is dedicated to reconstruction of this interpretation. It is also dedicated to the analysis of the story and place of Strawson’s interpretation in the history of his own philosophical career. I show how Strawson reads Kant’s text, what strategies of interpretation he adopts and what problems he faces. In “Individuals” and “The Bounds of Sense” Strawson explicitly associates himself (...) with Kant and considers himself as Kantian philosopher. Kantian philosophy for Strawson is the descriptive, anti-sceptical metaphysics that seeks to explicate our basic conceptual sсheme. However, due to various criticism, Strawson had to abandon descriptive metaphysics and to change his intellectual figures. On of the main heroes of “Skepticism and Naturalism” - his late book - becomes Hume. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the explanation of the transition from Kant to Hume. In this work, Strawson argues for some kind of soft Hume-like naturalism instead of previously held descriptive metaphysics. This kind of naturalism is more modest than metaphysics. It does not pretend to be the main and the most fundamental of all the philosophical studies. It is simply an analysis of one of the possible philosophical perspective. The stand point of ordinary believes. (shrink)

This is a book about Kant's views on causality as understood in their proper historical context. Specifically, Eric Watkins argues that a grasp of Leibnizian and anti-Leibnizian thought in eighteenth-century Germany helps one to see how the critical Kant argued for causal principles that have both metaphysical and epistemological elements. On this reading Kant's model of causality does not consist of events, but rather of substances endowed with causal powers that are exercised according to their natures and (...) circumstances. This innovative conception of Kant's view of causality casts a light on Kant's philosophical beliefs in general, such as his account of temporality, his explanation of the reconciliation of freedom and determinism, and his response to the skeptical arguments of Hume. (shrink)

Kant's notion of ‘discipline’ has received considerable attention from scholars of his philosophy of education, but its role in his theoretical philosophy has been largely ignored. This omission is surprising since his discussion of discipline in the first Critique is not only more extensive and expansive in scope than his other discussions but also predates them. The goal of this essay is to provide a comprehensive reading of the Discipline that emphasizes its systematic importance in the first Critique. I (...) argue that its goal is to establish a set of rules for the use of pure reason that, if followed, will mitigate and perhaps even eliminate our tendency to make judgments about supersensible objects. Since Kant's justification for these rules relies crucially on claims he has defended in the Doctrine of Elements, I argue further that, far from being a dispensable part of the Critique as commentators have tended to claim, the Discipline is, in fact, the culmination of Kant's critique of metaphysics. (shrink)

Teaching Kant’s metaphysics to undergraduates in a survey course can be quite challenging. Specifically, it can be daunting to motivate interest in Kant’s project and present his system in an accessible way in a short amount of time. Furthermore, comprehending some of the important features of his requires some understanding of Hume’s skepticism. Unfortunately, students often misunderstand the extent and relevance of Hume’s skepticism. Here, I offer three strategies for presenting Kant’s metaphysics as a response (...) to Hume. First, I describe an exercise for presenting the problem of induction in a way that resonates with many students. Next, I provide a way of generating interest in Kant’s project so students are motivated to understand his position. Finally, I explain a game I use to bolster interest in Kant’s project and explain some of the more challenging aspects of the First Analogy. (shrink)

Teaching Kant’s metaphysics to undergraduates in a survey course can be quite challenging. Specifically, it can be daunting to motivate interest in Kant’s project and present his system in an accessible way in a short amount of time. Furthermore, comprehending some of the important features of his requires some understanding of Hume’s skepticism. Unfortunately, students often misunderstand the extent and relevance of Hume’s skepticism. Here, I offer three strategies for presenting Kant’s metaphysics as a response (...) to Hume. First, I describe an exercise for presenting the problem of induction in a way that resonates with many students. Next, I provide a way of generating interest in Kant’s project so students are motivated to understand his position. Finally, I explain a game I use to bolster interest in Kant’s project and explain some of the more challenging aspects of the First Analogy. (shrink)

Wayne Waxman here presents an ambitious and comprehensive attempt to link the philosophers of what are known as the British Empiricists--Locke, Berkeley, and Hume--to the philosophy of German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Much has been written about all these thinkers, who are among the most influential figures in the Western tradition. Waxman argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Kant is actually the culmination of the British empiricist program and that he shares their methodological assumptions and basic convictions about (...) human thought and knowledge. (shrink)

David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is the definitive statement of the greatest philosopher in the English language. His arguments in support of reasoning from experience, and against the "sophistry and illusion"of religiously inspired philosophical fantasies, caused controversy in the eighteenth century and are strikingly relevant today, when faith and science continue to clash. The Enquiry considers the origin and processes of human thought, reaching the stark conclusion that we can have no ultimate understanding of the physical world, or (...) indeed our own minds. In either sphere we must depend on instinctive learning from experience, recognizing our animal nature and the limits of reason. Hume's calm and open-minded skepticism thus aims to provide a new basis for science, liberating us from the "superstition" of false metaphysics and religion. His Enquiry remains one of the best introductions to the study of philosophy, and his edition places it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)