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Hume Studies

Volume 32, Issue 2, November 2006

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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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