Ideas and Intelligibility: Hume's Conceptual Skepticism
Date of Award
Fall 2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Winkler, Kenneth
Abstract
Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature pursues a naturalistic project of providing an “anatomy” of the human mind alongside the development of a series of skeptical arguments. Implicit in Hume’s philosophy is a distinction between epistemological skepticism and conceptual skepticism. The former aims to show that some class of beliefs lacks epistemic warrant. By contrast, the latter aims to show that a class of beliefs is unintelligible, incomprehensible, or contentless. This dissertation is a study of Hume’s conceptual skepticism in the Treatise. Chapters 1-4 each consider an instance of conceptual skepticism in the Treatise. In Chapter 1, I consider Hume’s view of cognition of objects “specifically different” from the perceptions: objects that are not only numerically distinct from the perceptions that constitute sensory experience but also differ in kind from them. I argue that Hume holds that we are entirely incapable of achieving representations of external objects specifically different from perceptions. In Chapter 2, I consider Hume’s relation to another prominent skeptic of the early modern period: Pierre Bayle. In his Dictionnaire historique et critique, Bayle argued that the notion of matter is incoherent. While Hume’s discussion of space in the Treatise has traditionally been understood as an attempted refutation of Bayle’s arguments for this position, I argue that Hume ultimately accepts a position strikingly similarto Bayle’s in section 1.4.4 of the Treatise, “Of the modern philosophy.” Chapter 3 considers Hume’s theory of causal necessity, focusing on his claim that we “project” necessity onto causally related objects. This claim has been influential in contemporary discussions of modality, inspiring deflationary accounts of our modal commitments. According to the standard reading, Hume’s modal projectivism aims to explain an aspect of ordinary causal judgement: namely, our judging that an effect must follow its cause. Against this, I show that Hume’s projectivism does not aim to explain the content of ordinary causal judgement but rather is a debunking explanation of the distinctively philosophical commitment to mind-independent necessary connections between causally related objects, one which reveals that commitment be an unintelligible product of “trivial” and “irregular” propensities of the imagination. One of Hume’s aims in the Treatise is to provide a comprehensive, genetic account of mental content. Chapter 4 shows that this ambition is in tension with his conceptual skepticism. Hume’s conceptual skepticism leaves him unable to explain how subjects achieve thoughts that he calls “fictions” of the imagination, such as thoughts about substance and enduring selves. In addition todeveloping a new account of Humean fictions, I argue that this tension between Hume’s naturalistic aims and his conceptual skepticism explains what are perhaps the most controversial passages in his corpus: his enigmatic recantation of his theory of personal identity in the “Appendix” to the Treatise. Chapter 5 considers the relationship between Hume’s conceptual skepticism and his epistemological skepticism. I argue that Hume holds that conceptual skepticism can undermine the epistemic merit of a belief. I show that undermining of this kind is ubiquitous in the Treatise and, moreover, that it plays a significant role in Hume’s narration and resolution of a skeptical crisis in T 1.4.7, “Conclusion of this book.” An important aspect of Hume’s considered epistemological position—namely, what I call the "limitation principle," according to which one ought not engage in inquires concerning matters that outstrip one’s conceptual capacities—is a result of the connection between conceptual skepticism and epistemological skepticism. An implication of this chapter is that Hume’s epistemological skepticism cannot be fully understood apart from his conceptual skepticism.
Recommended Citation
Ehli, Bridger, "Ideas and Intelligibility: Hume's Conceptual Skepticism" (2023). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 1169.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/1169
