Hume's Scepticism

Peter Fosl is Professor of Philosophy at Transylvania University. He is co-author of The Philosopher’s Toolkit, third edition (Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming), The Ethics Toolkit (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) and The Critical Thinking Toolkit (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017). He is co-editor of Commonplace Commitments: Thinking through the Legacy of Joseph P. Fell (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), Classic Readings in Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), British Philosophers, 1800-2000 (Gale Research, 2002) and British Philosophers, 1500-1799 (Gale Research, 2002). He is editor of The Big Lebowski and Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). He received a David Hume Fellowship award from IASH, 2013-14, where the work on Hume's Scepticism began.

Peter Fosl’s Hume’s Scepticism is the culmination and most successful accomplishment of a research program in Hume’s scholarship started by Richard Popkin 80 years ago.

• Series Editor’s IntroductionIntroduction: Into Those Immense DepthsPart I: Academic and Pyrrhonian Scepticism, Ancient and Modern1. Hume and Ancient Academic Scepticism 1.1. Doubt in the Old Academy1.2. Probabilism, Fallibilism, and Belief in the Middle and New Academies1.2.1. A Short History of the Sceptical Academy1.2.1.1. The Academy Turns Sceptical1.2.1.2. A Dogmatic Revival1.2.1.3. Another Sceptical Stream1.2.1.4. Scepticism’s Stoic Opposition1.2.1.5. Defining Academic Scepticism against Stoicism1.2.2. Were the Academic Sceptics Dogmatists?1.2.2.1. Non-dogmatic Carneades and Philonian Scepticism1.2.2.2. Dogmatic Carneades and Philonian Scepticism1.3. The Theoretical Sceptics: Clitomachian and Metrodorian Scepticism1.3.1. Non-realism vs. Moderate Realism1.3.2. Criteria and Academic Doxastic Technai1.3.3. Non-epistemic vs. Epistemic Clitomachian Scepticism1.4. Conclusion2. Hume and the Legacy of Academic Scepticism2.1. The Career of Academic Scepticism2.1.1. Augustine, Cicero, and the Persistence of Academic Scepticism2.1.2. Historical-Textual Evidence of the Academics in Hume2.1.3. The Early Modern Recovery: From Theology to Natural Philosophy2.1.3.1. Academicism and the Reformation 2.1.3.2. Emergent Pyrrhonism and Resurgent Academicism2.1.3.3. Scepticism at La Flèche2.1.3.4. Mersenne: Academic Science2.1.3.5. Foucher: The Academic Critique of Cartesianism2.1.3.6. Locke: Academic Sceptical Empiricism2.1.3.7. Huet: The Continuity of Scepticisms2.1.3.8. Bayle: The Sceptical Arsenal of Enlightenment2.2. Hume’s Academic Scepticism2.2.1. Hume’s Self-Described Academic Scepticism2.2.2. Hume and a General Academic Framework2.3. Conclusion3. Hume and Ancient Pyrrhonian Scepticism3.1. Origins: From Pyrrho to Sextus Empiricus3.1.1. Pyrrho and Timon3.1.2. Aenesidemus3.2. The Agogê of Appearances3.2.1. The Fourfold3.2.2. The Teresic Practice of Common Life3.3. Negative Pyrrhonism: Subversion, Suspension, and Silence3.3.1. Tropoi3.3.1.1. Aenesidemus’ Ten Tropes3.3.1.2. Agrippa’s Five Tropes3.3.1.3. Two Tropes3.3.2. Epochê and Isosthenia3.3.3. Aphasia about ta Adêla3.3.4. Critique of Causality: Aenesidemus’ Eight Tropes3.4. Positive Pyrrhonism: Constructive Philosophical Theory3.4.1. Apelletic Method and Philosophy as Painting3.4.2. Sceptical and Platonic Recollection3.4.2.1. The Irony of Recollection3.4.2.2. Theory as Qualified Description3.4.3. Zetetic Philosophy3.4.3.1. Ongoing-Inquiry Zêtesis and Pyrrhonian Hope3.4.3.2. Ongoing-Critique Zêtesis3.4.4. Ataraxia3.5. A General Framework for Pyrrhonian Scepticism3.6. Conclusion4. Hume and the Legacy of Pyrrhonian Scepticism4.1. The Career of Pyrrhonism4.1.1. The Surviving Texts4.1.2. Medieval Quasi-Sceptics4.1.3. Humanism and Fideism in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries4.1.4. Montaigne: The Pyrrhonian Womb of Modern Thought4.1.4.1. Montaigne: Fideism and Finitude4.1.4.2. Montaigne: Epochê and the Tropoi4.1.4.3. Montaigne: Rhetoric and Form4.1.4.4. Montaigne: The Ordinary and the Human4.1.4.5. In the Wake of Montaigne4.1.5. Scepticism and the New Sciences4.1.5.1. Renegotiating Pyrrhonism4.1.5.2. La Mothe le Vayer: Extending Scepticism4.1.5.3. Gassendi: The Bridge4.1.5.4. Bayle and Crousaz: Post-Cartesian Pyrrhonism4.1.5.5. Huet: Socratic Coherence4.1.5.6. Sceptical Minor Notes: Glanvill, Newton, Dryden, Shaftesbury, Bosc4.2. Pyrrhonism in Hume4.2.1. First Plank: Hume’s Access and Exposure to the Outlines4.2.1.1. Five Misleading Citations4.2.1.2. Vernacular Translations and other Sceptical Texts4.2.2. Second Plank: Radicalism, Religion, and a Hermeneutic of Suspicion4.2.3. Third Plank: Hume’s Pyrrhonism and a Complete Sceptical Framework4.2.4. Pyrrhonism as a Path to Academic Scepticism and as Prophylaxis4.3. ConclusionPart II: Hume’s True Sceptical Philosophy5. Phûsis, The Fatalities of Appearance5.1. The Fluvial and the Necessary: The ‘Current of Nature’5.1.1. Sceptical Necessity: ‘A Wonderful and Unintelligible Instinct’5.1.1.1. Undermining Categorical Human Superiority5.1.1.2. Animality and Causal Necessity5.1.1.3. Sceptical and Kantian Necessity5.1.2. Sceptical Contingency: The ‘Loose and Unconnected’5.2. Apelletic Empiricism and the Priority of Hume’s Sceptical Naturalism5.2.1. Nature as Press5.2.2. Moving Nature5.2.3. Stability as Press5.3. The Fatalities of Nature and Human Empereia5.4. Conclusion6. Ethos, The Great Sceptical Guide6.1. Inhabiting the World6.1.1. Custom, Recollection, and Têrêsis6.1.2. Habitual Selves6.1.3. Habitual Reasoning6.1.4. Habitual Feeling6.1.5. Passive and Active Habits6.1.6. The Nature and Contingency of Habit6.1.6.1. The Variability and Uniformity of Morals6.1.6.2. The Contingencies of Science6.1.7. Collective Habits: Custom and Convention6.2. Sceptical Politics6.2.1. The Politics of Doxa6.2.2. Political Isosthenia, Ataraxia, and Moderatio6.3. Scepticism and Religion6.3.1. The Immediate ‘Flow’ of Theism6.3.2. Religion that Humanises and Civilises6.3.3. Natural Propensities but Unnatural Beliefs6.3.4. False Religion’s Pathological Habits: Superstition and Enthusiasm6.3.5. Religion’s Corruption of Common Life6.3.6. Tolerance, Philia, and Mitigated Religion6.4. Conclusion7. Technai, Dogmatism and Hume’s Technologies of Doubt7.1. A Caveat and a Reminder7.1.1. Dogmatic Forgetfulness and Sceptical Hope7.1.2. True Philosophy’s Three-Step Dialectic7.2. Epistemological Dogmatism7.2.1. The Criterion: Evidence, Certainty, Undeniability7.2.2. ‘Above the Winds and Clouds’: The Abstruse, Difficult, and Ephemeral7.2.3. The Technai of Doubt7.2.3.1. Reason: Regresses, Contradictions, Self-Cancellations7.2.3.1.1. Reason in the Treatise: The ‘Total Extinction’ of Evidence7.2.3.1.2. Reason in the First Enquiry: Hume’s ‘Chief Objection’7.2.3.1.3. Inductive Reason: Begging the Question of Nature7.2.3.1.4. Self-Reflexive Purgatives: Sheltering ‘Samson’ under the ‘Throne’7.2.3.2. The Senses: Perceptions as Appearances7.2.3.2.1. The Awful Gap and the Limits of Representation7.2.3.2.2. Relative Ideas of the ‘Specifically Different’7.2.3.2.3. Radicalising the Way of Ideas7.3. Metaphysical Dogmatism7.3.1. External Metaphysics7.3.1.1. Ancient Dogmatic Philosophy7.3.1.2. Modern Dogmatic Philosophy7.3.2. Internal Metaphysics7.3.2.1. The Immateriality of the Soul7.3.2.2. Personal Identity7.4. Conclusion 8. Pathê, Hume’s Non-Dogmatic Philosophy8.1. Hume’s Doxastic Scepticism and Non-Dogmatic Philosophy8.1.1. Belief and Reality’s ‘Title’8.1.1.1. Belief is Sensitive not Cogitative8.1.1.2. Belief in Existence8.2. Three Kinds of Assent8.2.1. Hume’s Gentlemanly Scepticism8.2.2. Academic Belief8.2.3. Probability as Pithanon: Hume the Clitomachian8.2.3.1. Locke’s Twilight Probabilities8.2.3.2. Hume’s Departure from Metrodorian Probabilism8.3. Sceptical Science and Dogmatic Hidden Standards8.4. Conclusion: An End to the VoyageBibliographyIndex