Minds, Composition, and Hume's Skepticism in the Appendix

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10694331
AutoresJonathan David Cottrell (0000-0003-0205-7601, Wayne State University, autor de correspondencia), Jonathan Cottrell (Wayne State University)
Año2015
Volumen124
Número4
Páginas533-569
Fecha de publicación2015-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
EditorialDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00318108-3147021
OpenAlexW2279087518
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas38

This essay gives a new interpretation of Hume's second thoughts about minds in the Appendix, based on a new interpretation of his view of composition. In Book 1 of the Treatise, Hume argued that, as far as we can conceive it, a mind is a whole composed by all its perceptions. But—this essay argues—he also held that several perceptions form a whole only if the mind to which they belong supplies a “connexion” among them. In order to do so, it must contain a further perception or perceptions. But when the perceptions in question are all of those belonging to a given mind—as in the section “Of personal identity” and the Appendix—there cannot be a further perception in that mind, and so those perceptions do not form a whole. Hence, Hume's views were inconsistent. This essay argues that, unlike most others, this interpretation explains his retreat to skepticism in the Appendix

Aesthetics · Composition (language) · Epistemology · Identity (music) · Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · Perception · Skepticism · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought