Abstract
I believe that I have provided in the foregoing pages (particularly, from Chapter II onward) a detailed, comprehensive and satisfactory solution to the central problem I raised at the outset of this work, viz., the problem of determining how Hume’s theory of imagination is related to, or involved in, the generic features and main lines of argument of his philosophy of the human understanding. I also believe that I have furnished (not only in Chapter I, but elsewhere) sufficient evidence for the contention that such a solution has not hitherto been provided.
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Even though these two problems are logically distinct — in part, at least — from each other, the peculiarly intimate relation between certain aspects of them made it unfeasible to consider these aspects separately.
A “consequent” scepticism is one which is consequent to inquiry, rather than antecedent to it. Descartes’ so-called methodological doubt is an instance of an “antecedent” scepticism.
It hardly needs mentioning that this statement exhibits the extremely intimate relation between certain of the generic features of Hume’s philosophy of the human understanding and his theory of imagination.
There is a sense in which principle (C) is also connected with the Pyrrhonistic component. It is so connected insofar as the exhibition of the activities of the determined imagination [principle (C)] are shown to lead to results which are in conflict with the activities of the free imagination [principle (B)]. The reason for this is that one of the aims of the Pyrrhonistic component is to show conflicts between (and within) cognitive faculties. To this end, Hume tries to show that there is a conflict even within the determined imagination itself (see my discussion of his claim about a conflict between our belief in causation and our belief in the existence of material objects, p. 158).
For the sake of accuracy, I should mention the combined attack on abstract and matter-of-fact reasoning — since it is distinct from the separate attacks on these two types of reasoning.
I say practically every other one, because neither of these two elements is in evidence in the combined attack on abstract and matter-of-fact reasoning.
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© 1968 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Wilbanks, J. (1968). Conclusion. In: Hume’s Theory of Imagination. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0709-7_7
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