Newtonian and Non-Newtonian Elements in Hume

Abstract

For the last 40 years, Hume's Newtonianism has been a debated topic in Hume scholarship.The crux of the matter can be formulated by the following question: Is Hume a Newtonian philosopher? Answering to this permanent issue has produced two lines of interpretation. I shall call them "traditional" and "critical" interpretations. The traditional interpretation asserts that there are many Newtonian elements in Hume, whereas the critical interpretation seriously questions this.In this article, I consider the main points made by both lines of interpretations, and offer further arguments that contribute to this debate. I shall first argue, in favor of the traditional interpretation, that Hume is sympathetic to many prominently Newtonian themes in natural philosophy, such as experimentalism, critique of hypotheses, inductive proof, and critique of Leibnizian principles of sufficient reason and intelligibility. Second, I shall argue, in accordance with the critical interpretation, that in many cases Hume is not a Newtonian philosopher: his conceptions regarding space and time, vacuum, reality of forces, specifics about causation, and the status of mechanism differ markedly from Newton's related conceptions. The outcome of the article is that there are both Newtonian and non/antiNewtonian elements in Hume.

Universal Gravitation and the (Un)Intelligibility of Natural Philosophy

“…In a Newtonian and anti‐Leibnizian fashion, Hume claims that ‘we can give no reason for our most general and most refined principles, beside our experience of their reality.' (T Intro 9; SBN xviii, my emphasis) (Slavov, , p. 283)Second, and more importantly, Newton's Rule 3 of the Rules for the Study of Natural Philosophy is very congenial to Hume's experimentalism. Newton argues that we can know the properties of bodies ‘only through experiments.'…”

“…In a Newtonian and anti‐Leibnizian fashion, Hume claims that ‘we can give no reason for our most general and most refined principles, beside our experience of their reality.' (T Intro 9; SBN xviii, my emphasis) (Slavov, , p. 283)…”

“…The Hume–Newton relationship has by now been thoroughly examined (e.g., by Capaldi, ; Laudan, ; Jones, ; Force, ; Barfoot, ; Stanistreet, ; Buckle, ; Millican, ; De Pierris, ; Ducheyne, ; Brown & Morris, ; Slavov, ; Demeter, , ; Boehm, ; Hazony & Schliesser, ). Despite the immense amount of scholarship, Hume's Newtonian‐inspired criticism of Leibniz on reason and intelligibility has not been given the attention it deserves.…”

In defense of Newtonian induction: Hume’s problem of induction and the universalization of primary qualities

“…On the other hand, he is critical of core aspects of the Newtonian project, including the nature of absolute space and time, the reality of forces, and the universality of laws. See Schliesser (2007), De Pierris (2012), Hazony andSchliesser (2016), andSlavov (2016) for an assessment of the relation between Newton and Hume. intended to replace Rule III, because it seems to employ mathematical proportions between causes and effects, and Hume refers to the gravitational force as a compositional force, suggesting that gravity is proportional to the causes that are present in the parts of bodies (Hazony and Schliesser, 2016, 690). With the same rule, Hume seems to show that one cannot universalize gravity beyond the realm of our experience.…”

Newton and Hume

“…The rest of this entry will not side either with the traditional or the critical interpretations of Hume's Newtonianism (or with some middle positions, like Schliesser 2008or Slavov 2016. Instead, essential points of confluence and divergence will be discussed.…”