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articles
1. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
Jonathan Ellis The Contents of Hume’s Appendix and the Source of His Despair
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This paper has two goals: first, to show that the footnote and structure of App. 20, to which too little careful attention has been given, ultimately undermine a great many interpretations of Hume’s dissatisfaction with his theory of personal identity; and second, to offer an interpretation that both heeds these textual features and (unlike other interpretations consistent with these features) renders Hume worried about something that would have truly bothered him. Hume’s problem, I contend, concerns the relation, in his genetic explanation of ideas such as that of the self, between (i) the objects of the perceptions along which there is a smooth and uninterrupted progress of thought, and (ii) the contents of the ideas that the mind in such cases sometimes subsequently invents.
2. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
Walter Ott Hume on Meaning
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Hume’s views on language have been widely misunderstood. Typical discussions cast Hume as either a linguistic idealist who holds that words refer to ideas or a proto-verificationist. I argue that both readings are wide of the mark and develop my own positive account. Humean signification emerges as a relation whereby a word can both indicate ideas in the mind of the speaker and cause us to have those ideas. If I am right, Hume offers a consistent view on meaning that is neither linguistic idealism nor positivism but a genuine alternative to these, one that deserves to be taken seriously.
3. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
Lorraine Besser-Jones The Role of Justice in Hume’s Theory of Psychological Development
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Hume’s theory of justice, intricately linked to his account of moral development, is at once simplistic and mysterious, combining familiar conventionalistelements with perplexing, complicated elements of his rich moral psychology. These dimensions of his theory make interpreting it no easy task, although many have tried. Emerging from these many different attempts is a picture of Hume as defending an account of justice according to which justice consists of expedient rules designed to advance one’s self-interest. The mistake of this view, I argue, lies in its narrow focus on the material rather than psychological effects of the conventions of justice. My goal here is to isolate the psychological effects of the rules of justice by analyzing the psychological transformation of the parties who morally commit to justice.
4. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
Graciela De Pierris Hume and Locke on Scientific Methodology: The Newtonian Legacy
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Hume follows Newton in replacing the mechanical philosophy’s demonstrative ideal of science by the Principia’s ideal of inductive proof (especially as formulated in Newton’s Rule III); in this respect, Hume differs sharply from Locke. Hume is also guided by Newton’s own criticisms of the mechanical philosophers’ hypotheses. The first stage of Hume’s skeptical argument concerning causation targets central tenets of the mechanical philosophers’ (in particular, Locke’s) conception of causation, all of which rely on the a priori postulation of a hidden configuration of primary qualities. The skeptical argument concerning the causal inductive inference (with its implicit principle that nature is, in Newton’s words, “ever consonant with itself”) then raises doubts about what Hume himself regards as our very best inductive method. Hume’s own “Rules” (T 1.3.15) further substantiate his reliance on Newton. Finally, Locke’s distinction between “Knowledge” and “Probability” (“Opinion”) does not leave room for Hume’s Newtonian notion of inductive proof.
5. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
Catherine Villanueva Gardner Chastity and the Practice of the World In Hume’s Treatise
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Commentaries on the Treatise have not always been clear as to why Hume includes a discussion of the virtue of female chastity among the apparentlydifferent artificial virtues of justice, promises, and allegiance. Placing Hume’s discussion of chastity within its specific historical location can illuminate its presence and role in Book 3 of the Treatise and demonstrate how chastity is a virtue of social utility. An examination of the “practice of the world” can show how female chastity was a necessary virtue for the emerging “middling” classes of the eighteenth century in their pursuit of economic stability and social status.
6. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
Annette C. Baier Hume’s Deathbed Reading: A Tale of Three Letters
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Adam Smith’s famous account of Hume’s death, in his letter to Strahan, included a reference to what Hume had been reading shortly before his death, Lucian’s “Dialogues of the Dead.” But when one reads those, one becomes puzzled by Smith’s report that Hume had been trying out excuses to delay death, for no such scene occurs in those Lucian dialogues. Fortunately Smith’s was not the only letter written about exactly what Lucian dialogue Hume was reading.
book reviews
7. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
Andrew S. Mason Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
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8. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
James A. Harris The British Moralists on Human Nature and the Birth of Secular Ethics
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9. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
Anita Avramides Understanding Empiricism
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bibliography
10. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
The Hume Literature, 2004 and 2005
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11. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
Index to Volume 32
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12. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 2
Hume Studies Referees 2005–2006
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articles
13. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
David Fate Norton, Dario Perinetti The Bibliothèque raisonnée Review of Volume 3 of the Treatise: Authorship, Text, and Translation
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The review of volume 3 of Hume’s Treatise, a review that appeared in the Bibliothèque raisonnée in the spring of 1741, was the first published responseto Hume’s ethical theory. This review is also of interest because of questions that have arisen about its authorship and that of the earlier review of volume 1 of the Treatise in the same journal. In Part 1 of this paper we attribute to Pierre Des Maizeaux the notice of vols. 1 and 2 of the Treatise published in the spring 1739 issue of the Bibliothèque raisonnée. We then focus on the question of the authorship of the review of vol. 3. In Part 2 of our paper we provide a transcription of the French text of this review. Part 3 is a new English translation of the review. Part 4 provides comparisons between passages from the textof the Treatise, the French translations of these passages in the Bibliothèque raisonnée review, and our back-translations of these same passages. We alsoprovide brief comparisons between our translation of passages from this review and an earlier translation of these passages.
14. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
Jasper Reid The Metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards and David Hume
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This article compares Hume’s metaphysical views with those of his contemporary, the American theologian and philosopher, Jonathan Edwards. It shows how, although the two men developed their theories in isolation from one another, their minds were nevertheless following almost identical paths on several of the most central issues in metaphysics (including the natures of body and mind, personal identity, causation, and free will). Their final conclusions were, however, radically different. In short, wherever Hume came to rest in a skeptical position, Edwards would initially approach the very same position, but would then pull back at the last minute and bring in God to fill the gaps, yielding a Christian system of philosophy with an idiosyncratically Humean flavour.
15. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
Rich Foley Unnatural Religion: Indoctrination and Philo’s Reversal in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
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Many interpretations of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion have labored under the assumption that one of the characters represents Hume’s view on the Design Argument, and Philo is often selected for this role. I reject this opinion by showing that Philo is inconsistent. He offers a decisive refutation of the Design Argument, yet later endorses this very argument. I then dismiss two prominent ways of handling Philo’s reversal: first, I show that Philo is not ironic either in his skepticism or in his theistic reversal. Second, I reject the suggestion that the Design Argument is a natural belief, since it differs significantly from causal and external world beliefs. Finally, I argue that the control the Design Argument exerts is the product of a youthful indoctrination that prevents Philo from consistently maintaining his skeptical position.
16. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
Annette C. Baier How Wide Is Hume’s Circle?: (A question raised by the exchange between Erin I. Kelly and Louis E. Loeb, Hume Studies, November 2004)
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17. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
David Landy Hume’s Impression/Idea Distinction
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Understanding the distinction between impressions and ideas that Hume draws in the opening paragraphs of his A Treatise on Human Nature is essential for understanding much of Hume’s philosophy. This, however, is a task that has been the cause of a good deal of controversy in the literature on Hume. I here argue that the significant philosophical and exegetical issues previous treatments of this distinction (such as the force and vivacity reading and the external-world reading) encounter are extremely problematic. I propose an alternative reading of this distinction as being between original mental entities and copied mental entities. I argue that Hume takes himself to discover this distinction as that which underlies our pre-theoretical sorting of mental entities. Thus, while the Copy Principle is initially treated by Hume as a mere empirical fact, it later comes to play a more substantial explanatory role in his account of human nature. This reading makes Hume’s distinction a more philosophically robust one, and avoids many of the exegetical difficulties of previous interpretations.
18. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
Rolf George James Jurin Awakens Hume from His Dogmatic Slumber. With a Short Tract on Visual Acuity
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After a discourse about the literature on visual acuity before Hume, I discuss how the “size” of visual objects is defi ned and determined. I shall thenpresent circumstantial, but commanding, evidence for the infl uence of James Jurin’s Essay upon Distinct and Indistinct Vision on Hume’s thought. This workcontains well-supported findings incompatible with claims made in T 1.2, “Of the ideas of space and time,” and elsewhere. Specifically, the prominentprinciple of the Treatise, “[w]hat consists of parts is distinguishable into them, and what is distinguishable is separable” (T 1.2.1.3; SBN 27) is shown to befalse. A powerful principle, it is a premise to the most important arguments of the Treatise, but is shunned in the Enquiry and later writings because, I believe,Hume had read Jurin.
19. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
Ryu Susato Hume’s Nuanced Defense of Luxury
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The significance of Hume’s positive attitude towards luxury might have been overemphasized by his commentators. In fact, arguments in favor of “moderate” luxury had already been entertained before the emergence of Hume’s position. Therefore to argue that Hume’s argument entailed the defense of moderate luxury is not to identify in it anything particularly unique. Thus, the first aim of this paper is to clarify the nature of Hume’s contribution to the ongoing luxury debates. This does not consist merely of an assertion of the compatibility of moral virtue with the enjoyment of luxury, but lies rather in Hume’s emphasis on two aspects of the beneficial interaction between morality and luxury. First, the historical process of the introduction of luxury is regarded by Hume as fostering new morals peculiar to the commercial age; and secondly, the enjoyment of luxury is seen as a condition favorable to the maintenance of morals. The second aim of this paper is to shed some new light on an aspect of Hume’s thought that, so far, has been relatively neglected, namely, his distinction between “innocent” and “vicious” forms of luxury, as well as his acknowledgement of the possibility of the emergence of the latter, as well as the former, in the modern commercial world. However, this does not necessarily lead us to a more pessimistic interpretation of Hume’s view of luxury than those accepted thus far; only to the awareness of how difficult and delicate, in Hume’s view, is the maintenance of the balance between the interlinked concepts of industry, knowledge, and humanity.
book review
20. Hume Studies: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
A. E. Pitson Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Debate in Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy
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