Abstract
This chapter is organized as follows. In Sect. 2, I summarize the terms and concepts we have covered. In Sect. 3, we revisit the notion of justification, in regard to objects, causal relations and the principle of uniformity. In Sect. 4, we discuss the viability of skeptical realism. Finally, in Sect. 5, we discuss Hume’s skepticism in light of his conception of objects, where we briefly touch on Berkelian idealism.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
However, our ability to think in a natural, reflexive causal manner (where we do not believe in this relation; recall Chap. 2) does seem possible; see Sect. 3.2.1 of this chapter for more detail.
- 3.
The bulk of this section was presented at the Upstate New York Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy, at Cornell University in 2008. I am grateful for the remarks given to me by my commentator, Alex Klein, and the audience.
- 4.
In some respects, this anticipates Stove’s (1973) analysis of Hume. However, Stove argues that Hume was a closet “deductivist,” where Hume meant to show that any method that does not rely on a priori principles is worthless (see Millican 1995) for a comprehensive discussion (and dismissal) of Stove’s position). Husserl however, thought that Hume had no such noble intentions. Rather, Husserl thought that the Scotsman was just horribly mistaken, mired in a rather absurd methodological circle (see above).
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More precisely: Millican argues that inductive claims are not justified by a “faculty of intellectual insight” (1995, p. 211), but the “true foundation of such extrapolation is revealed to be animal instinct” (1995, p. 212). This means, Millican argues, that there is a looser sense in which inductive claims may be classified as “reasonable:” “Hume thus has the basis for a naturalistic account of his intermediate sense of ‘reason,’ according to which beliefs and methods of inference count as reasonable if they have a place within a consistent and systematic rule-governed framework dominated by the ‘permanent, irresistible, and universal’ principles of the imagination, and in particular by the fundamental belief in inductive uniformity and the rules by which to judge of causes and effects which systematize its implications. Hume can, of course, give no independent justification for this fundamental belief itself” (1995, p. 207). Similarly, Millican writes in 2002b:” Our beliefs about the behavior of objects in the external world, and the operations of our own mind, are founded on a naïve assumption of uniformity, a blind reliance on the past rather than on any sort of supernatural insight into why thinks work the way they do” (31). I show above, however, that our belief in the principle of uniformity does is in fact, seem to be justified, however implicitly. Strictly speaking, although our belief in the principle of uniformity is not rationally justified, it is not, as a result, “naïve” or “blind.” Rather, it is duly informed by the regularity that naturally obtains of our impressions, where that regularity is not be confused with a principle about the regularity (i.e. the principle of uniformity). See above for more detail.
- 8.
Causal relations might also obtain of events. However, Hume never clearly distinguishes between events and objects in the Treatise.
- 9.
Stroud writes: “[No] objective connection between perceptions or objects [is] required in order for me to come to think of things as causally connected with each other. As long as my experience exhibits certain regularities I will come to have that ‘fictitious’ idea” (p. 140, emphasis added).
- 10.
In a footnote, in response to Loeb’s earlier work (1997, pp. 283–6), Owen (1999) argues that in these instances, Hume does not have what modern epistemologists mean by justification in mind. Owen writes: “In the early modern period, to explain something as the product of the faculty of reason was to explain the production of a state that we take to be true. It is natural enough for Hume to think that when he has explained the production of belief, he has explained the production of a state we take to be true, even though he denied that we were determined by reason. But this is a much weaker claim than modern claims about justification. Similar remarks apply to Hume’s frequent use of expressions such as ‘reason justly’ (T 72) and ‘just inference’ (T 89)” (p. 139, n. 38). However, if, on Hume’s account, we believe something to be true, to be real, we are, in some instances, engaged in a proper, i.e. justified belief production process, and in others, we are clearly not, i.e. all those instances where we come up with fantastic beliefs. Thus, Hume is doing more than simply explaining the production of a state we take to be true; he gives us an account that distinguishes between those states that we take to be true that are not justified, but are “occult” (e.g. believing in an immaterial soul) v. those that are. Also see Loeb’s 2002 response to Owen, p. 43, n 13.
- 11.
In this respect, Hume may, generally speaking, be classified as what some call an “internalist,” i.e. as Bonjour (2010) puts it: “justification is internalist if an only if it requires that all of the factors needed for a belief to be epistemically justified for a given person be cognitively accessable to that person, internal to his cognitive perspective” (p. 364). However, an extensive discussion of internalism v. externalism would take us beyond the scope of this project.
- 12.
There are many other New Humeans (e.g. Broughton; see Read and Richman 2007), but I cannot effectively address all of their positions here.
- 13.
This article, “David Hume: Objects and Power,” reflects many of the ideas Strawson presented in his earlier book, The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism and David Hume (1989). “Objects and Power” was initially published in 2001 in the first edition of Richman and Read’s The New Hume Debate.
- 14.
Much of Strawson’s explanation concerns the Enquiry, which falls outside the scope of this book. However, to make his case concerning relative ideas, he relies heavily on a handful of passages from the Treatise. We focus on those here.
- 15.
Kail writes regarding the New Humeans: “realists do not, and more importantly, need not, read Hume as believing in powers. Realists talk instead of Hume’s ‘assumption’ or his ‘taking for granted’ or his ‘supposition’ of powers. And when realists do talk of ‘belief’ the term is either uses in a sense not intended to respect technicalities of Hume’s own view of belief, or else appeals to the technical term ‘natural belief, a category which carries its own complications” (2007b, p. 254). However, Strawson does not give any kind of extensive definition of natural belief in this paper. Regardless, as we will see in our discussion of Kail (Sect. 4.1.2 above), “natural belief,” as it is articulated by Kail, is somewhat similar to my notion of transcendental belief.
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- 17.
Not quite the same since these ideas do not exactly represent impressions, but Hume acknowledges this issue on the next page of the Treatise. See below for more detail.
- 18.
Also see Wright (2007, p. 90) who relies heavily on T 1.4.5.20; SBN 241. Like Strawson, Wright’s distinction between supposing and conceiving is, I think, mistaken; he neglects to see that it reflects Hume’s distinction between fantastic ideas and ideas that have content. Concomitantly, like Strawson, Wright ignores the complex psychological account of justifiably imagining objects that has been explicated in Parts II and III of this book. Thus, Wright’s account of objects must also be rejected.
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- 20.
As is the case with Strawson, Wright’s first premise in his argument to show that Hume thought that mind-independent causality (i.e. Causality) exists is: We may “suppose” that mind-independent objects exist, where such objects do not represent (indirectly or not) impressions. Nevertheless, these ideas refer to mind-independent objects. Thus, because we can “suppose” content-less ideas of objects that refer to mind-independent objects, we may also “suppose” content-less ideas of Causality that refer to mind-independent causal relations. Note: “It is clear then that at least in his discussion of external existence, Hume argues that we are not limited in our beliefs about objects to what is based on our legitimate impression-derived ideas. The same then is to be found in his discussion of space and time in Part 2, Book I of the Treatise. Why should there be an exception in the case of Hume’s discussion of causality?” (2007, p. 90). However, as we have seen, this is not the case. When Hume uses the word ‘suppose’ in the passages that Strawson and Wright rely on to make their case, he is referring to an unjustified act of the imagination, e.g. cases where we imagine substances and souls. But these ideas do not refer to anything; Hume does not think that such things actually exist. As far as our justified ideas of objects are concerned, we must imagine an idea of an object that indirectly represents an impression (and in fact, this is also the case in regard to our ideas of space and time; they are abstract ideas; recall Chap. 7. Thus, we may deny Wright’s first premise as well, and thus, effectively undermine his argument that Hume thought that there are content-less ideas that refer to mind-independent causal relations.
- 21.
- 22.
Also recall Chap. 4, Sect. 3 of this book, where we saw that according to Hume, to conceive of is, indeed, to ontologically commit to, but only in terms of de dicto existence.
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Rocknak, S. (2013). Conclusion. In: Imagined Causes: Hume's Conception of Objects. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 71. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2187-6_12
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