Hume's Epistemological Evolution

Abstract

Here is a central issue in Hume scholarship: What is the relationship between Hume’s early Treatise of Human Nature and his later Enquiry concerning Human Understanding? Is the Enquiry a mere simplified restatement of the contents of the Treatise, or do the two substantially differ? Here is another critical issue in Hume scholarship: What is the relationship between Hume’s scepticism and his naturalism? How can we reconcile Hume’s extreme brand of scepticism with his positive ambitions of providing an account of human nature? Hume’s Epistemological Evolution argues that these two issues are intimately related. In particular, this book argues that Hume’s Enquiry indeed differs from the Treatise, precisely because he changes his response to scepticism between the two works. Because the Treatise has as its primary focus the psychological naturalistic project, its treatment of epistemological issues arises unsystematically from the psychological investigation. Consequently, Hume finds himself forced into an unsatisfactory response to scepticism founded on the Title Principle . This response is, however, deeply problematic, as Hume himself seems to recognise. In contrast to the Treatise, the Enquiry emphasises the epistemological aspects of Hume’s project, and offers a radically different and more sophisticated epistemology. This framework addresses the weaknesses of the earlier one, and also constitutes a ‘compleat answer’ to two of his most prominent critics, Thomas Reid and James Beattie. Hume’s epistemology thus undergoes an evolution between these two works.

Hume and reliabilism

“…16 While controversial, the centrality of the Title Principle to Hume's response to scepticism has many defenders in the literature. See for instance Garrett in (Garrett, 1997, pp.233-237), (Garrett, 2006), (Garrett, 2015, pp.27-237), and (Garrett, 2016); (Mounce, 1999, p.60); (Kail, 2007, p.70); (Allison, 2008, pp.323-330); (Meeker, 2013, pp.73-81); (Qu, 2014b) and (Qu, 2020); (Schafer, 2014); (Schmitt, 2014, pp.368-375); (Baxter, 2018, pp.388-389), and (Sasser, Forthcoming).…”

“…Even if one wishes to maintain that process reliabilism is a distinctively externalist account, it cannot be denied that it has a core insight that can be adopted by internalist accounts, which is that epistemological justification closely concerns in some respect the truth-conduciveness of doxastic processes. 1 (Qu, 2020).…”

Towards a Humean epistemic ideal: Contested alternatives and the ideology of modern science

“…As I do not have the space here to dwell on the background the Treatise provides, I only indicate that I consider this suggestion consonant with Hsueh Qu's recent work. Qu (2020), rightly I think, points out a crucial difference between the projects of the Treatise and the Enquiry: epistemological issues in the Treatise tend to arise "as offshoots of psychological discussions" (ibid. 5), while the Enquiry is "much more epistemological in nature" (ibid.…”

Hume's Social Epistemology and the Dialogue Form

“…This prompted Hume to compose an 'Advertisement' for Volume II of the next edition of the Essays and Treatises, reminding the reader that the 'juvenile' Treatise had never been acknowledged by its author" (Harris 2015: 443). For a helpful discussion on the extent to which Hume took care to clarify his position (in response to Reid and Beattie) can be found in Qu (2020). Another important example where Hume explicitly attempted to clarify misconceptions, misunderstanding and misrepresentation of his view can be found in his A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh.…”