Hume's Theory of Scientific Judgement

Abstract

<p> Sceptical passages in Hume's writings tend to lead readers to assume that he opposes theories of evidence and methods for judging the truth and falsehood of our knowledge claims. But interpretations such as this overlook passages where Hume insists that we have methods of judging the truth of our claims about a priori relations of ideas and matters of fact and real existence. My intention is to make sense of these passages, taking them literally, and thereby avoiding both the sceptical and sceptically based naturalistic interpretations. I do not oppose the view that Hume is sceptical about metaphysical claims, such as our knowledge of the existence of impression-causing objects, but I argue that he is not sceptical of scientific claims in the sense that we have no reasonable basis for judging their truth or falsehood. The point is made by formulating Hume's theory of scientific judgement.</p> <p> The focus of this interpretation is on Hume's conception of philosophical relations, which provides the basis for predication and judgement. Predication arises by the comparison of ideas; a priori judgement is the "agreement or disagreement" of an idea with other ideas, while empirical judgement is the correspondence of an idea with an existing object (impressicn). </p> <p> The bulk of the dissertation formulates the scope and content of each of the seven philosophical relations as they are divided into those judged a priori, those judged by an immediate sense impression, and those judged by empirical reasoning in terms of cause and effect. In each case we find that Hume is neither sceptical of our methods for judging truth, nor is any method grounded in a presuppositional "natural" belief.</p>