The External World and Our Knowledge of It: Hume's Critical Realism, an Exposition and a Defence

by Fred Wilson

Overview

David Hume is often considered to have been a sceptic, particularly in his conception of the individual's knowledge of the external world. However, a closer examination of his works gives a much different impression of this aspect of Hume's philosophy, one that is due for a thorough scholarly analysis. This study argues that Hume was, in fact, a critical realist in the early twentieth-century sense, a period in which the term was used to describe the epistemological and ontological theories of such philosophers as Roy Wood Sellars and Bertrand Russell.

Carefully situating Hume in his historical context, that is, relative to Aristotelian and rationalist traditions, Fred Wilson makes important and unique insights into Humean philosophy. Analyzing key sections of the Treatise, the Enquiry, and the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, Wilson offers a deeper understanding of Hume by taking into account the philosopher's theories of the external world. Such a reading, the author explains, is not only more faithful to the texts, but also reinforces the view of Hume as a critical realist in light of twentieth-century discussions between externalism and internalism, and between coherentists and foundationalists.

Complete with original observations and ideas, this study is sure to generate debates about Humean philosophy, critical realism, and the limits of perceptual knowledge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442692442
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	10/25/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	640
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

FRED WILSON is a professor emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Note on References xiii

Introduction 3

1 Abstract Ideas and Other Linguistic Rules in Hume 21

A Language and Hume's Moral Theory 23

B Introspective Psychology, Associationism, and Introspective Analysis 47

C How Thought Becomes General: Abstract Ideas, Images, Learning, and Rules of Language 69

D The 'New Hume' versus the 'Old' 88

Appendix Hume and Cognitive Psychology 115

2 The Waning of Scientia 131

A The Aristotelian Framework 132

B Perception 138

I The Problem of Perception 140

II The Aristotelian Solution to the Problem of Perception 144

III Unsolved Problems 145

IV What Next? 145

C Montaigne 147

D Descartes (i): The External World 151

E Descartes (ii): Perception 158

F Abstract Ideas Re-evaluated 163

G Knowledge Re-evaluated 173

H Berkeley (i): Antirepresentationalism 178

I Berkeley (ii): Realism 181

Note: Why, Given Berkeley's Realism, Are Some Appearances Said to Be Real When Others Are Not? 198

J Berkeley (iii): Idealism 204

K Whither Minds? 212

L Truth 241

3 Geometry as Scientia and as Applied Science: Hume's Empiricist Account of Geometry 254

A Extension and Its Idea 257

B Infinite Divisibility 265

C Our Idea of Infinity 269

D Real Extension out of Extensionless Points 272

E Ideal Equality, Ideal Figures: Scientia Criticized 283

4 Hume's Defence of Empirical Science 306

A Hume against Rationalism 307

B Hume's Defence of Scientific Inference 315

Note: Hume's 'Rules by Which to Judge of Causes and Effects' 319

C Science versus Superstition 321

D Science as Cognitive Virtue 326

5 Hume on Testimony and Its Epistemological Problems 332

ATestimony in Hume: Some Epistemological Problems 333

B A Wrong Model of Empiricism 336

C Autonomous Thinkers 340

D Social Context: Language and Testimony 345

E Testing Testimony 350

F The Responsible Knower 360

6 Knowledge 367

A After Scientia: What Knowledge Becomes and Problems with It 375

I Knowledge as Justified True Belief 375

II Coherence and Justification 378

III Objective versus Subjective 381

IV Knowledge by Accident 383

B Reliablism and Externalism 384

C Coherentism 392

D Experience and Justification (i): Radical Contingency 400

E Experience and Justification (ii): Reasonable Acceptance 414

F Experience and Justification (iii): Perception 436

7 Naturalism and Scepticism 447

A Defending Common Sense 447

B The Role of a Principle of Acquaintance in Ontology 455

I Hume and PA 464

II Moore and PA 472

III Reid and PA 489

C The Role of a Principle of Acquaintance in Epistemology 498

I Logical Atomism 499

II Truth Again: First Person and Third Person 510

D Scepticism and Naturalism 518

E The Dream Problem, Again 524

8 Hume's Critical Realism 536

A Once Again: The Charge of Scepticism 538

B Realism New and Critical 542

C Hume's New Realism: The System of the Vulgar; or, Hume's Berkeleyan Realism 546

D Continuity, Continuants, and Identity 562

I Continuing Existence and Continuants 564

II Filling Perceptual Gaps and Continuants 566

III More on Identity 571

IV An Analogous Case: The Missing Shade of Blue 575

V Several Concluding Non-sceptical Remarks 578

E Hume's Causal Inference to Critical Realism 579

F The System of the Vulgar as False, Inevitable, and Reasonable 590

G The World of the Philosophers 598

H A Tentative First Conclusion 608

I Hume's Doubts 615

J The Resolution of Hume's Doubts 622

K The Reasonableness of the System of the Philosophers 627

L Four Objections 633

I Inferring Unperceived Causes 633

II Cleanthes 663

III Lending a Hand to Hylas 673

IV The Enquiry Version 680

M Conclusion. David Hume: Critical Realist 688

Notes 693

Bibliography 771

Index 787