Concerning Hume's Intentions

IN HIS careful and detailed study of the philosophy of Hume,' Kemp Smith has argued that Hume's fundamental purpose in Book I of the Treatise was to lay the foundations of his moral philosophy. Book I, he maintains, can be understood only in its relation to Books II and III, and when the whole of the Treatise is viewed in this light the traditional conception both of Hume's skepticism and of his subsequent desertion of philosophy is said to be seriously mistaken. I intend in this paper to argue that, although Kemp Smith's interpretation of Hume calls attention to important and highly suggestive similarities between Hume's thesis in morals and his thesis concerning causal reasoning, the interpretation cannot be accepted as a convincing account of Hume's intentions. My main purpose is to show that, if Kemp Smith were offering a correct account of Hume's intentions, Hume would in several important ways and at several crucial stages of his argument have said exactly the opposite of what he does in fact say. In short, I shall try to show on the basis of textual evidence that Hume was quite unaware of the extraordinary thesis that could be drawn from the juxtaposition of what he says in different places and in different connections. Let me begin with a few passages from Kemp Smith

Argument (complex analysis) · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy) · Relation (database) · Skepticism · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy