The Real David Hume
Part 1 of 2: The most common misconception about his philosophy
David Hume is an oft-referenced figure, as he very well deserves to be. Most people will probably be familiar with our pleasantly plump Scotsman through one of his many famous insights and arguments, all of which have grown handy names over the years for easy identification. The problem of causation, Hume’s Fork, the is-ought problem. Hume — not that you care about this — but Hume has always been my favorite thinker precisely because he showed such a free-ranging, totally apprehending intellect; I appreciate him precisely because he dealt with such disparate issues, and always dealt with them in the same lucid, evenhanded way.
I would hope to honor Hume’s own levelheaded style with my own, and accordingly I’ll get to the point immediately and tell you that this first short essay is aimed simply at correcting a common misconception about what might be called the spirit of Hume’s philosophy. It is to be followed by a second short essay meant to give the reader a better sense of who Hume was as a person. So this first one:
The Spirit of Hume’s Skepticism: The Problem of Causation
The problem of causation is probably Hume’s best known idea and so one of his most often misrepresented. The…
