Hume

Hume – 6

Phil 004 -- Introduction to Modern Philosophy

Hume: skepticism, metaphysics and naturalism

Required readings:

• Enquiry, §12 (pp. 199-211)

• recommended: Beauchamp, Editor’s Introduction (pp. 51-61)

I. Naturalism and Skepticism

A. skepticism: antecedent and consequent; Descartes and Hume

B. Hume’s skepticism with regard to reason, and the cure through naturalism (recap)

C. Hume’s skepticism with regard to the senses, and the nature of the problem that arises from such skepticism

Reading Questions

1. Explain the difference, according to Hume, between antecedent and consequent scepticism. What kind applies most to Descartes (according to Hume; according to you)? Is Hume either kind of sceptic?

2. Is Hume a sceptic with regards to reason? Does he have a solution to this scepticism?

3. Is Hume a sceptic with regards to the senses? If so, does his scepticism resemble or differ from Descartes’ sense scepticism? If they differ, how do they differ?

II. Skepticism with regards to the senses, and the nature and existence of the external world

A. recall Descartes

i. nature of the world

ii. existence of the world

iii. Descartes’ answer to skepticism: this won’t help Hume (versus “pure reason”)

B. recall Locke

i. the primary-secondary quality distinction, and the nature of the world

ii. cause and the existence of the world

iii. Hume versus the primary-secondary quality distinction, and the “veil of perception”

C. three responses to the breakdown of the primary-secondary quality distinction

i. the external world does not exist

ii. the external world does exist, but we cannot know what its nature is

iii. utter skepticism: we cannot know whether the world exists nor what its nature is (Hume by the end of Part I)

D. why not naive realism?

i. what is...