David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature is famous for its extreme skepticism. Louis Loeb argues that Hume's destructive conclusions have in fact obscured a constructive stage that Hume abandons prematurely. Working within a philosophical tradition that values tranquillity, Hume favors an epistemology that links justification with settled belief. Hume appeals to psychological stability to support his own epistemological assessments, both favorable regarding causal inference, and unfavorable regarding imaginative propensities. The theory's success in explaining Hume's epistemic distinctions gives way to (...) pessimism, since Hume contends that reflection on beliefs is deeply destabilizing. So much the worse, Hume concludes, for placing a premium on reflection. Hume endorses and defends the position that stable beliefs of unreflective persons are justified, though they would not survive reflection. At the same time, Hume relishes the paradox that unreflective beliefs enjoy a preferred epistemic status and strains to establish it. Loeb introduces a series of amendments to the Treatise that secures a more positive result for justified belief while maintaining Hume's fundamental principles. In his review of Hume's applications of his epistemology, Loeb uncovers a stratum of psychological doctrine beyond associationism, a theory of conditions in which beliefs are felt to conflict and of the resolution of this uneasiness or dissonance. This theory of mental conflict is also essential to Hume's strategy for integrating empiricism about meaning with his naturalism. However, Hume fails to provide a general account of the conditions in which conflicting beliefs lead to persisting instability, so his theory is incomplete. Loeb explores Hume's concern with stability in reference to his discussions of belief, education, the probability of causes, unphilosophical probability, the belief in body, sympathy and moral judgment, and the passions, among other topics. (shrink)

The distinguished philosopher Louis Loeb examines the epistemological framework of Scottish philosopher David Hume, as employed in his celebrated work A Treatise of Human Nature. Loeb's project is to advance an integrated interpretation of Hume's accounts of belief and justification. His thesis is that Hume, in his Treatise, has a "stability-based" theory of justification which posits that his belief is justified if it is the result of a belief producing mechanism that engenders stable beliefs. But Loeb argues that the striking (...) corollary to this theory is that no belief generating mechanism is fully stable - or fully justified - for a fully reflective person. This carefully argued and original interpretation of Hume makes sense of seemingly contradictory ideas and will provoke serious discussion among Hume scholars. (shrink)

The symposiasts press from a number of directions. Erin Kelly contends that Hume’s stability-based sentimentalist ethics cannot do justice to our considered normative moral judgements. Schmitt and Williams criticize my account of Hume’s epistemology proper. I will have to give ground: my book does overstate the extent to which Hume reaches a destructive result, in large part because I overlook significant variants of a stability account of justification. I make other concessions—in regard to the country gentlemen passage and Hume’s 1.3.9 (...) treatment of resemblance—but believe these have limited repercussions. (shrink)

This volume will thus appeal to advanced students and scholars not just in the history of early modern philosophy but in epistemology and other core areas of ...

Since the mid-1970s, scholars have recognized that the skeptical interpretation of Hume’s central argument about induction is problematic. The science of human nature presupposes that inductive inference is justified and there are endorsements of induction throughout Treatise Book I. The recent suggestion that I.iii.6 is confined to the psychology of inductive inference cannot account for the epistemic flavor of its claims that neither a genuine demonstration nor a non-question-begging inductive argument can establish the uniformity principle. For Hume, that inductive inference (...) is justified is part of the data to be explained. Bad argument is therefore excluded as the cause of inductive inference; and there is no good argument to cause it. Does this reinstate the problem of induction, undermining Hume’s own assumption that induction is justified? It does so only if justification must derive from “reason”, from the availability of a cogent argument. Hume rejects this internalist thesis; induction’s favorable epistemic status derives from features of custom, the mechanism that generates inductive beliefs. Hume is attracted to this externalist posture because it provides a direct explanation of the epistemic achievements of children and non-human animals—creatures that must rely on custom unsupplemented by argument. (shrink)

Since the mid-1970s, scholars have recognized that the skeptical interpretation of Hume's central argument about induction is problematic. The science of human nature presupposes that inductive inference is justified and there are endorsements of induction throughout "Treatise" Book I. The recent suggestion that I.iii.6 is confined to the psychology of inductive inference cannot account for the epistemic flavor of its claims that neither a genuine demonstration nor a non-question-begging inductive argument can establish the uniformity principle. For Hume, that inductive inference (...) is justified is part of the data to be explained. Bad argument is therefore excluded as the cause of inductive inference; and there is no good argument to cause it. Does this reinstate the problem of induction, undermining Hume's own assumption that induction is justified? It does so only if justification must derive from "reason", from the availability of a cogent argument. Hume rejects this internalist thesis; induction's favorable epistemic status derives from features of custom, the mechanism that generates inductive beliefs. Hume is attracted to this externalist posture because it provides a direct explanation of the epistemic achievements of children and non-human animals — creatures that must rely on custom unsupplemented by argument. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume's Moral Sentiments and the Structure of the Treatise LOUIS E. LOEB ACCORDING TO NORMAN KEMP SMITH and Thomas Hearn, Hume classified moral sentiments as direct passions.' According to Pb.II A,rdal, Hume classified the basic moral sentiments of approval and disapproval of persons as indirect passions. if either of these interpretations is correct, there is an intimate connection between Books II and 111 of Hume's Treatise. This is because (...) the direct and indirect passions (together with the will) are the subject of Book 11 and moral sentiments are discussed in Book 111. So if moral sentiments are special cases of either direct or indirect passions, the treatment of passions in Book Ii is central to the understanding of Book 111. 1 contend, on the contrary, that Hume's moral sentiments are neither direct nor indirect passions. Consequently, the connection between Books 11 and 111 of the Treatise is much less intimate than A,rdal and Hearn have recently suggested.' i. Hume's Classification of the Impressions of Reflection In the four paragraphs of II, i, I Hume provides an exhaustive "Division of the Subject"--the "subject" being "all the perceptions of the mind. ''4 Nowhere else in the Treatise is a complete "division" to be found. As A,rdal points out, such introductory chapters "are likely to be written after the bulk of the book has been completed, or at least to be carefully revised in the light of the main arguments in the book. ''~ For these reasons, there is a strong presumption that the "division" in!I, i, 1should be taken as canonical. Hume's "division" is straightforward. In the first paragraph, perceptions are divided into ideas and impressions; in the first and second paragraphs, impressions are divided into those of sensation and those of reflection; in the third paragraph, impressions of reflection are divided into the calm and the violent; in the fourth (as I am indebted to Wdham Frankena, Ronald Glossop, and Peter Jones for their most helpful comments. ' Norman Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume (New York: St. Martm'~ Press, 1966), pp. 167-168; and Thomas K. Hearn, Jr., "Ardal on the Moral Sentiments in Hume's rreattse," Phtlosophy 48 (1973):290. z Passton and Value m Hume's "Treatise" (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966), pp. I 1, 109-133. For a discussion heavily influenced by Ardal, see Stewart R. Sutherland, "Hume on Morality and the Emotions," Phllosophwal Quarterly 26 (1976) : 14-19 especially. ' See Ardal, pp. I-5, 109-133; and Hearn, pp. 288, 292. 9 A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888), p. 275; hereafter cited as T followed by page number. 9 Ardal, p. 94. 13951 396 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY indicated by the last sentence of the third), the violent impressions of reflection are divided into the direct and the indirect. The structure is of a genus-species sort, and none of the distinctions cut across each other: J calm i sense of beauty and deformity (T, 276), moral sentiments impressions of reflection = emotions (secondary impressions) violent = passions direct indirect desire, aversion, grief, joy, pride, humility, love, hope, fear (T, 277, 439) hatred (T, 276-277) This classification is based upon the only natural reading of paragraph three and the first sentence of paragraph four of II, i, I. I quote this material, adding my own emphasis and deleting Hume's: The reflective impressions may be divided into two kinds, viz. the calm and the violent. Of the first kind is the sense of beauty and deformity in action, composition, and external objects. Of the second are the passions of love and hatred, grief and joy, pride and humility. This division is far from being exact. The raptures of poetry and music frequently rise to the greatest height; while those other impressions, properly called passions, may decay into so soft an emotion, as to become, in a manner, imperceptible. But as in general the passions are more violent than the emotions arising from beauty and deformity, these impressions have been commonly distinguish'd from each other. The subject of the human mind being so copious and various, I shall here take... (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Some Context The Traditional Interpretation Disarming the Evidence for the Traditional Interpretation Evidence that Hume Considers Inductive Inference Justified The Traditional Interpretation Revisited Hume's Epistemic Options Applications to Extended Objects and Belief in God Limitations on Enumerative Induction Acknowledgments References.

Hume’s claim that a state is a belief is often intertwined---though without his remarking on this fact---with epistemic approval of the state. This requires explanation. Beliefs, in Hume’s view, are steady dispositions , nature’s provision for a steady influence on the will and action. Hume’s epistemic distinctions call attention to circumstances in which the presence of conflicting beliefs undermine a belief’s influence and thereby its natural function. On one version of this interpretation, to say that a belief is justified, ceteris (...) paribus, is to say that for all that has been shown the belief would be steady in its influence under suitable reflection. On a second version, it is to say that prima facie justification is an intrinsic property of the state, in virtue of its steadiness. These versions generate different understandings of the relationship between Parts iii and iv of Book I of the Treatise. (shrink)

Hume's claim that a state is a belief is often intertwined—though without his remarking on this fact—with epistemic approval of the state. This requires explanation. Beliefs, in Hume's view, are steady dispositions (not lively ideas), nature's provision for a steady influence on the will and action. Hume's epistemic distinctions call attention to circumstances in which the presence of conflicting beliefs undermine a belief's influence and thereby its natural function. On one version of this interpretation, to say that a belief is (...) justified, ceteris paribus, is to say that for all that has been shown the belief would be steady in its influence under suitable reflection. On a second version, it is to say that prima facie justification is an intrinsic property of the state, in virtue of its steadiness. These versions generate different understandings of the relationship between Parts iii and iv of Book I of the Treatise. (shrink)

Who other than Don Garrett could construct a work this rigorous and comprehensive, encompassing Hume’s aesthetics, political philosophy, and philosophy of religion—not as add-ons but tightly integrated into a genuinely new interpretation? Garrett’s intricate reading has no equal in the architectonic it locates in Hume’s philosophical corpus. This elegantly crafted work will reinvigorate thinking about Hume’s theory of normativity across the epistemic and moral realms.1 I center my comments on a central line of argument in chapters 4, 5, and 7. (...) In chapter 4, Garrett focuses on four “sense-based” concepts or pairs of such concepts: virtue, beauty, causation, and probability.... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Causation, Extrinsic Relations, and Hume's Second Thoughts about Personal Identity Louis E. Loeb According to the account offered in Treatise 1.4.6, "Of personal identity," the identity of a mind over time consists in a sequence of perceptions related by causation. In both ofHume's two definitions of cause, causation is an external or extrinsic relation. Hume is explicit that this result is tolerable. If causation is an extrinsic relation, and (...) personal identity is analysed in terms of causation, then personal identity is an extrinsic relation. I suggest that Hume finds this consequence intolerable, and that his finding it so is the source ofhis famous misgivings in the appendix in regard to his section on personal identity.1 In the appendix, Humeindicates that "there wou'dbe no difficulty" in regard to his section concerning personal identity, if the mind perceived some "real connexion" among perceptions.2 In book 1, however, Hume maintains that causation does not involve a real connection, and that personal identity depends on causation; and he seems content with the result that personal identity does not involve a real connection. At 1.3.14, "Ofthe idea ofnecessary connexion," Hume insists that there is no "real connexion" between causes and effects and, more generally, that there is no "real intelligible connexion" between external objects (T 168; cf. T 103). At T 169-70, he offers two ("exact") definitions of the relation of cause and effect. Hume thinks there are causes and effects, even though there are no real connections. At 1.4.6, Hume writes that whether or not the relation ofpersonal identity is a "real bond" or "real connection" among perceptions is a "question we might easily decide, ifwe wou'd recollect whathas been already pro^d at large, that the understanding never observes any real connexion among objects, and that even the union of cause and effect, when strictly examin'd, resolves itselfinto a customary association ofideas" (T 259-60). A mere three paragraphs later, Hume writes that "the true idea of the human mind, is to consider it as a system of different perceptions or different existences, which are link'd together by the relation ofcause and effect, and mutually produce, destroy, influence, and modify each other" (T 261). So Hume's view, at 1.4.6, is that personal identity requires causation, but does not require a real connection. It is curious that in the appendix Hume takes the claim Volume XVIII Number 2 219 LOUIS E. LOEB thatthereis noreal connectionbetween perceptions toruinhis account of personal identity, whereas in book 1 he treats this result with equanimity. Thispuzzlecan begeneralized somewhat. Hume observesin 1.3.14 that "the terms of efficacy, agency, power, force, energy, necessity, connexion, andproductive quality, are all nearly synonimous" (T 157). His principal negative claim in that sectionis that(takingefficacy, and the other nearly synonymous concepts, to require something in objects over and above constant conjunction) there is no efficacy, necessity, or connection in causation. Hume targets a number of the nearly synonymous notions not only in 1.3.14, but also at T 246-51 of 1.4.5, and T 632-33 ofthe appendix. In the discussion ofpersonal identity in the appendix, Hume seems to be in search of the sort of bond or connection that he has forcefully rejected, as if he has a lingering commitment to real connections, or to necessity, despite himself. From this perspective, his misgivings easily appear to constitute a retrogression, orlapse, into amode ofthought, or metaphysical picture, that he has taken pains to reject. This is not an attractive explanation ofHume's misgivings. It has the consequence that Hume simply changes his mind, or is of two minds, inregard to therole ofreal connections in an account ofpersonal identity. Although I do not think these possibilities are to be dismissed outofhand, much oftheir support would have to derive from the failure of alternative accounts of what is bothering Hume. At the same time, a solution ought in some way to relate to Hume's thinking about real connections. Hume does write in the appendix, In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to... (shrink)

John Locke thought that the clearest idea of active power derives from observing the mind's command over its ideas and limbs; observing the transfer of motion in impact also gives us an idea of active power. Berkeley denied this latter claim: the (related) idea of causation is derived exclusively from the experience of willing ideas, of volitional activity; the concept of causality has no legitimate extension beyond spirits and their volitions. The malleability of empiricist theories of meaning, whether in the (...) eighteenth or twentieth century, enables Berkeley and Hume to advance opposing, empiricist theories of causation. Demonstrative knowledge is possible where "nominal" and "real" essences coincide. Empiricism about meaning did have a deep impact on Hume. This chapter discusses the role of empiricism about meaning in Berkeley. Berkeley subscribed to a Cartesian metaphysics of mind. Berkeley's Cartesian theory of mind is set within an occasionalist metaphysics. (shrink)

In 1967, Alvin Goldman proposed that 'X' knows that 'p' only if the fact that 'p' is causally connected with X's belief that 'p'. Brian Skyrms' alleged counterexample, the case of the fiend who beheads a person already deceased, has been widely accepted (by Robert Ackermann, Gilbert Harman, and Marshall Swain) as such. But it is not a counterexample. To see this, we must attend to two distinctions: between a death and being dead, and between causation and causal overdetermination. The (...) most visible objection to Goldman's analysis is then dissolved. a modified version of Skyrms' case fares no better. (shrink)