A Hume-Inspired Argument against Reason

Hume and the Enlightenment, Craig Taylor and Stephen Buckle (eds.) Pickering and Chatto, 2011; 105-116, 2011

Despite the fact that many Hume scholars now think that Hume is a kind of naturalist and agree that he thinks that his philosophy is continuous with the sciences of the mind, they ignore much of the evidence that bears on his claims. I discuss Hume’s argument in the section of the Treatise titled ‘Of Scepticism with Regard to Reason’. I take him to be arguing there against aspects of Cartesianism, in particular the claim that one can be certain that one is right about some very simple mathematical or logical beliefs. I argue that his view is vindicated to a surprising degree by some recent research on the family of cognitive deficits called ‘acalculia’. Acalculics can have false beliefs about even very simple arithmetical propositions. At the same time, they can be convinced that their claims are obviously true. They are not insane. Their case constitutes a modern malignant demon. My paper follows up arguments I put in an earlier paper on Hume: ‘Is Induction Epistemologically Prior to Deduction?’ (Ratio, 17, 2004: 28-44).

2013

One of the most important of Hume’s texts for understanding the nature and scope of his scepticism is “Of Scepticism with Regard to Reason” (T1.4.1, 180–7). The issues raised in this section are so important and wide-ranging that an entire book, let alone a single chapter, is insufficient to do them justice.1 In this chapter, I focus on how Hume argues for the first main conclusion of this section, which is that “all knowledge degenerates into probability” (T1.4.1.1, 180). More specifically, I offer an interpretation of the first part of this section to show how it forms an integral piece in the puzzle of understanding Hume’s stance on sceptical issues. Others are beginning to notice the importance of this part of Hume’s text. David Owen (forthcoming) explicitly emphasizes its significance while Jonathan Bennett claims that it is the “heart” of the entire section (2001, 318). One reason this particular conclusion is important is that it seems obvious that Hume never repudiates it (s...

History of European Ideas, 2006

Hume's position in the history of philosophical scepticism can hardly be questioned. But the nature of his own philosophical scepticism is a matter of contention in both the historical and philosophical literatures. In this essay, I argue that a philosophical reconstruction of Hume's scepticism needs to pay attention to the way in which Hume and his contemporaries understood the place of sceptical thinking in the history of modern philosophy. When looked at in this context, Hume's philosophy of knowledge and the understanding is self-evidently sceptical. It is so, because it develops both a critical and a positive view of what a sceptical attitude implies. From a critical perspective, Hume aims to show that human reason is incapable of being its own foundation. From a more positive perspective, Hume sketches a phenomenology of the understanding by developing a probabilistic and self-referential view of philosophical knowledge, one which is not different from common knowledge and which relies on the workings of human nature and the imagination to make sense of the world and of our actions.

Dialogue, 2009

In his Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume argues strongly against our intuitions about induction. In his view, the justification of induction relies upon the principle of the uniformity of nature, a principle that we can only justify by an appeal to induction. Thus, a non-circular justification of induction is impossible. This argument has troubled philosophers ever since, especially philosophers interested in the philosophy of science. One prominent solution to this problem comes from Karl Popper, who posited a deductivist solution to the problem. In this paper, I will briefly summarize Hume's argument as well as Popper's response to it. I will then argue that Popper's account twice fails to solve the problem of induction: first, as A. J. Ayer pointed out, his account appears to contain a built-in inductive assumption, and second, by shifting his discussion from induction to deduction, Popper begs Hume's question, merely shifting from a problem of induction to a problem of deduction.

Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2012

Hume argues against the seventeenth-century rationalists that reason is impotent to motivate action and to originate morality. Hume's arguments have standardly been considered the foundation for the Humean theory of motivation in contemporary philosophy. The Humean theory alleges that beliefs require independent desires to motivate action. Recently, however, new commentaries allege that Hume's argument concerning the inertness of reason has no bearing on whether beliefs can motivate. These commentaries maintain that for Hume, beliefs about future pleasurable and painful objects on their own can produce the desires that move us to action. First, I show that this reading putsHumeat odds withHumeans, since the latter are committed, not only to the view that beliefs and desires are both necessary to action, but also to the view that beliefs do not produce desires. Second, I review textual, philosophical and historical grounds for my interpretation of Hume's argument for the ...

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

I offer a novel interpretation of Hume on skepticism, drawing on a theory of excuses—in contrast to justifications and exemptions. Hume’s excuse shows that criticizing one’s beliefs on the basis of skeptical arguments is unreasonable when forming such beliefs is a primary aspect of human nature. Generally, it is unreasonable to criticize a creature for having a feature that is part of the nature of such creatures. The appeal to universal aspects of human nature as an indulgence rather than justification can be found throughout Hume’s texts. Though this excuse holds regardless of whether an individual’s belief is flawed according to some ideal, non-species-specific standard, it does not mitigate criticism of the whole species. Hume accepted the species-wide judgment that humans are epistemically limited, even while excusing individual humans for exhibiting human frailty. Once this is clarified, the differences from and advantages over familiar, “naturalist” interpretations emerge.

Philosophia, 1998

Hume's account of belief is understood to be inspired by allegedly incompatible motivations, one descriptive and expressing Hume's naturalism, the other normative and expressing Hume's epistemological aims. This understanding assumes a particular way in which these elements are distinct: an assumption that I dispute. I suggest that the explanatory-naturalistic aspects of Hume's account of belief are not incompatible with the normative-epistemological aspects.

Hume on Is and Ought; edited by Charles Pigden; Palgrave Macmillan, 2010