Abstract
What reason is there for coupling one of the newest branches of modern science with a long-dead philosopher, however august? And why with Hume, of all people? Was he not a sceptic, famous for questioning the possibility of any, and, thus, a fortiori,scientific, knowledge? Interesting as his reasons for such doubts may be to other philosophers, can they not be safely ignored by scientists, those actually engaged in pursuing and, surely, gaining, the knowledge he said was unattainable? But, then, what else has he to say to the latter? In what follows, I shall argue that far from being sceptical about the possibility of a science of the mind, Hume was perhaps the first to embark self-consciously on the project of constructing one. Furthermore, some of the goals and some of the results of his project anticipate in interesting and rarely noticed ways those of recent cognitive science and its philosophy.
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Biro, J. (2004). Cognitive Science and David Hume’s Science of the Mind. In: Korta, K., Larrazabal, J.M. (eds) Truth, Rationality, Cognition, and Music. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 102. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0548-6_1
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