Hume is clearly skeptical about a lot of things:
But he does not have the same attitude towards all of these things. I think he pretty clearly thinks we should give up on speculating about whether the mind is material or immaterial. And he clearly believes there is no reason to believe in miracles, meaning he does not think that anyone should believe in them.
But he also thinks we have no reason to believe in inductive inferences, the uniformity of nature, and causal relations in general. But here he pretty clearly believes in those things and staunchly rejects the suggestion that anyone could give them up, much less that they should do so. In fact, his argument against miracles depends on the assumption that there is overwhelming evidence in favor of laws of nature.
In today’s readings, Hume argues that our thinking about objects in the world outside our minds is hopelessly confused. But he clearly does not believe that Berkeley’s idealism is a possible or sensible option. As he puts it, Berkeley’s arguments “admit of no answer and produce no conviction” (Hume [1748] 2019, 642).
Personal identity and the self are somewhere in the middle. Hume himself seems to be unsure of what, exactly, he thinks. He has a skeptical argument about the self and a cryptic criticism of that argument published in the Appendix to the Treatise (see Hume [1748] 2019, 577–78).
Today’s class is about Hume’s attempts to classify different kinds of skepticism.
Hume draws two distinctions
You would expect the two distinctions to line up such that antecedent skepticism is excessive while consequent skepticism is mitigated. But I’m not sure that’s the way it works.
Descartes’s method of doubt is described as an example of antecedent skepticism. Descartes starts by doubting everything and insists that we show that we are justified in holding a class of beliefs before they are admitted back in. Hume says that this project is hopeless.
By contrast, Hume gives two arguments to illustrate what he calls consequent skepticism. Here, the skeptical conclusions follow from what he regards as the best philosophical thinking about the mind and its relation to the external world.
The first argument raises doubts about our understanding of external objects. On the one hand, we know, he thinks, that sensory experience involves perceiving mental items that he calls perceptions; that is what modern philosophers since Descartes have all agreed on (see Descartes [1641] 2019, 47R). On the other hand, Hume says, we believe that we perceive external objects. We reconcile these beliefs by saying that our mental perceptions resemble the external objects. But since we only have access to the mental perceptions, we have no idea what external objects are really like and so we cannot know that our perceptions resemble them (Hume [1748] 2019, 640–41).
The second argument is based on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. On the one hand, we have good reason for thinking that colors are products of our minds rather than qualities of objects. That has been an established view in modern philosophy since Galileo. At the same time, Hume agrees with Berkeley that we cannot imagine objects that have no colors or other secondary qualities (Hume [1748] 2019, 641–42). Consequently, the best philosophical thinking leads us to the conclusion that we do not understand what external objects are like.
So you would think that Hume’s favored form of skepticism is the consequent kind rather than the antecedent kind. However, it seems to me that Hume’s doubts about induction better fit the antecedent model. Hume tells us that we have to justify our belief that the future will resemble the past and then shows we cannot do it. The challenge does not arise from philosophical theory but is rather posed directly, much as Descartes did with his method of doubt.
Excessive, or Phyrrhonian (named after Pyrrho of Ellis) Skepticism, seeks to show that we should suspend belief when in doubt.
Hume says that this is impossible. Can you suspend belief about whether the future will resemble the past or not? Nope! He suggests that the sensible form of skepticism is what he calls Mitigated Skepticism which recommends that we limit our inquiries to “such subjects as fall under daily practice and experience” (Hume [1748] 2019, 645). What about a philosophical theory that goes outside these limits? “Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion” (Hume [1748] 2019, 646).
While you would expect all instances of antecedent skepticism to be excessive and all instances of the consequent kind to be mitigated, I’m not sure that this is so. First, Hume’s own discussion of induction looks like antecedent skepticism to me. Second, even the consequent skepticism could be excessive if you took its conclusions seriously. You would doubt the external world and perhaps even your own existence!
I think the distinctions cross one another. Mitigated skepticism is supposed to be an attitude that you have towards skeptical conclusions. You are not supposed to let them interfere with daily practice and experience, regardless of whether where the skeptical conclusions come from.