Hume's Intentions

Abstract

John Passmore (1914–2004) was a renowned Australian empirical philosopher and historian of ideas. In this book, which was originally published in 1952, Passmore's intention was to disentangle certain main themes in Hume's philosophy and to show how they relate to Hume's main philosophic purpose. Rather than offering a detailed commentary, the text provides an account based on specificity and critical scholarship, seeking to complement the other more comprehensive works on Hume's philosophy that had become available around the same time. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in perspectives on Hume and Passmore's philosophical approach.

Alief in Action (and Reaction)

“…I will set these issues aside in the discussion that follows. My humility in advancing any sort of interpretation has been reinforced by the insights gained from reading the following articles and books: Hearn, 1970; Falkenstein, 1997; Passmore, 1952; Loeb, 2002. (Many thanks to Ken Winkler for guidance concerning this literature.…”

Hume's Dual Criteria for Memory

“…The bad repute of this account – it has been described as ‘notoriously weak’ (MacNabb, , 41), ‘most unsatisfactory’ (Price, , 5), and even as ‘inconsistent in epic proportions’ (Passmore, , 94) – owes mostly to Hume's lack of clarity on the relation between the two criteria. Hume is unclear on whether he ultimately maintains or revokes the criterion of correspondence to the past.…”

“…John Passmore interprets Hume's frequent appeals to ‘impressions of the memory’ throughout the Treatise (e.g., T 1.3.4.1 SBN 82‐83; T 1.3.5.1 SBN 84; T 1.3.6.6‐7 SBN 89; T 1.3.9.7 SBN 110; T 2.3.1.17 SBN 406) as inconsistent with his official classification of memories as ideas (Passmore, , 96). However, given that when Hume first introduces the locution he prefaces it by mentioning that he regards memories as equivalent to impressions (T 1.3.4.1 SBN 82‐83), ‘impression of the memory’ should not be interpreted literally, as suggesting that memories are impressions, but instead as shorthand for ‘impression‐equivalent memory idea .’…”

“…Accordingly, Hume scholars account for Humean justification by interpreting some feature that Hume attributes to some beliefs and approves of as being this sort of justification‐conferring feature. Some of the candidates are naturalness (defined as inevitability, irresistibility, and indispensability) (Kemp Smith, , 87, 486); regularity or systematicity with other beliefs (Passmore, , 55, 63–64; Morris, , 90–91); the self‐reflexivity of the belief's source (i.e., the source's generation of beliefs of its own epistemic merit) (Baier, , 90–100); the reliability of the belief's source (Falkenstein, , 47–48; Beebee, , 71–74); stability (Loeb, ); and basis in experience (Boehm, ). It seems highly plausible that, just as many probable beliefs and many beliefs about external objects possess these features – and are hence at least prima facie justified, according to the respective theory – so do many beliefs about isomorphism with the past.…”

Filling the Gaps in Hume's Vacuums

“…As John Passmore notes, there appear to be many intentions. 19 But the one interpretation of Hume that many scholars today favor is that of Hume as a descriptive cognitive scientist, or as a "mental geographer," to invoke once again Hume's phrase from the Enquiry. According to this reading, Hume is principally engaged in an examination of the nature of our ideas and the processes of reasoning, and his discoveries within his domain of inquiry are not meant to have implications for the other sciences.…”