The Existence of External Objects in Hume’s Treatise: Realism, Skepticism, and the Task of Philosophy (original) (raw)

Springer eBooks, 1998

Abstract

A historian of philosophy who takes an interest in the work of a canonical figure is faced with a problem familiar to historians of, say, arts or music: for all of them the object of research is something more than a trace of the past, it is still alive in our present because it still commands a measure of assent or, more precisely, is still liable to be judged in terms of the enjoyment or revulsion, assent or dissent to which it gives rise.1 Hume’s position in the canon of philosophy is, I think, more or less unshakable—in the concrete sense that his writings are widely read and appropriated at all levels, and by widely different philosophical traditions; and Hume is, by common consent, the one who first set the terms for discussing some of the classic problems of contemporary philosophy, such as causation and induction. But often Hume’s treatment of these “Hume problems” is at once a mile-stone and a millstone. “One of the most exasperating of philosophers,” John Passmore has called him to emphasize how his writing shows him at once full of good ideas and disastrous inconsistencies, so sharp and clever, and yet so disruptive, even so irresponsible.2 Or, as it has been put recently in more colorful terms: Anyone who reads David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature cannot but be struck by ... his tendency either to ignore traditional philosophical issues or to provide unphilosophical answers to philosophical questions. ... Hume’s treatment of philosophical issues is anything but what one would expect from a philosopher.3

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