•  82
    Content, Thoughts, and Definite Descriptions
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 64 (1). 1990.
    In this paper,[1] I shall address the much-discussed issue of how definite descriptions should be analysed: whether they should be given a quantificational analysis in the style of Russell’s theory of descriptions,[2] or whether they should be seen instead, at least in some cases, as “genuine singular terms” or “genuine referring expressions”, whose function is to pick out a particular object in order to say something about that very object.
  •  47
    Moral Thinking
    with R. M. Hare
    Philosophical Quarterly 33 (131): 207. 1983.
  •  17
    I—Peter Millican: Humes Old and New Four Fashionable Falsehoods, and One Unfashionable Truth
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1): 163-199. 2007.
  •  186
    Humes old and new: Four fashionable falsehoods, and one unfashionable truth
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1): 163-199. 2007.
    Hume has traditionally been understood as an inductive sceptic with positivist tendencies, reducing causation to regular succession and anticipating the modern distinctions between analytic and synthetic, deduction and induction. The dominant fashion in recent Hume scholarship is to reject all this, replacing the ‘Old Hume’ with various New alternatives. Here I aim to counter four of these revisionist readings, presenting instead a broadly traditional interpretation but with important nuances, b…Read more
  •  1
    Since all inductive inference is equally The main aim of the two definitions of Since all inductive inference is equally The main aim of the two definitions of irrational, there is no consistent basis for irrational, there is no consistent basis for causation is to clarify the meaning of the causation is to clarify the meaning of the drawing any demarcation between drawing any demarcation between concept of concept of “ “necessity necessity” ”, in accordance with , in accordance with scientific …Read more
  •  306
    Hume, causal realism, and causal science
    Mind 118 (471): 647-712. 2009.
    The ‘New Hume’ interpretation, which sees Hume as a realist about ‘thick’ Causal powers, has been largely motivated by his evident commitment to causal language and causal science. In this, however, it is fundamentally misguided, failing to recognise how Hume exploits his anti-realist conclusions about (upper-case) Causation precisely to support (lower-case) causal science. When critically examined, none of the standard New Humean arguments — familiar from the work of Wright, Craig, Strawson, Bu…Read more
  •  6
    R. M. Hare, "Moral Thinking" (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 33 (31): 207. 1983.
  •  82
    Is Hume, or is he not, a realist about what Galen Strawson calls “Causation” (with a capital “C”) and Simon Blackburn calls “thick connexions”, that is, necessary connexions between events that go beyond functional relations of regular succession? With this “New Hume” debate now in its third decade, one might feel entitled to wonder whether there is any determinate answer to be had. Both sides have found plenty of Humean quotations to throw at their opponents, passages which taken in isolation m…Read more
  •  47
    LOCKE famously defines knowledge as “the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas” (Essay IV i 2), but his subsequent discussion significantly extends this somewhat vague and unclear definition. He starts by suggesting that knowledge always concerns one of four types of agreement or disagreement, namely “Identity, or Diversity”, “Relation”, “Co-existence, or necessary connexion”, and “real Existence”--his examples of the first two of these (pe…Read more
  •  235
    Twenty Questions about Hume's “Of Miracles”
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 68 151-192. 2011.
    Hume's essay on the credibility of miracle reports has always been controversial, with much debate over how it should be interpreted, let alone assessed. My aim here is to summarise what I take to be the most plausible views on these issues, both interpretative and philosophical, with references to facilitate deeper investigation if desired. The paper is divided into small sections, each headed by a question that provides a focus. Broadly speaking, §§1–3 and §20 are on Hume's general philosophic…Read more
  •  106
    I advance what might be thought a paradoxical thesis: that the central topic of Hume’s long discussions “Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion” is not, in fact, the idea of necessary connexion. However it is not as paradoxical as it first appears, for I shall claim that the “idea” whose origin Hume seeks is, in a sense, an idea-type of which the specific idea of necessary connexion is but one instance. Various lines of evidence support this claim, but my main argument will rest on its ability to so…Read more
  •  133
    The problem of the morality of abortion is one of the most complex and controversial in the entire field of applied ethics. It may therefore appear rather surprising that the most popular proposed “solutions” to it are extremely simple and straightforward, based on clear-cut universal rules which typically either condemn abortion severely in virtually every case or else deem it to be morally quite unproblematic, and hence permissible whenever the mother wishes. This polarised situation in the th…Read more
  •  127
    Yujin Nagasawa accuses me of attributing to Anselm a principle (the 'principle of the superiority of existence', or PSE) which is not present in his text and which weakens, rather than strengthens, his Ontological Argument. I am undogmatic about the interpretative issue, but insist on a philosophical point: that Nagasawa's rejection of PSE does not help the argument, and appears to do so only because he overlooks the same ambiguity that vitiates the original. My conclusion therefore remains: tha…Read more
  •  254
    Reading Hume on Human Understanding: Essays on the First Enquiry (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2001.
    This companion to the study of one of the great works of Western philosophy--David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748)--provides a general overview of the Enquiry, especially for those approaching it for the first time, and sets it in the context of Hume's philosophical work as a whole. It elucidates, analyzes, and assesses the philosophy of the Enquiry, clarifying its interpretation and discussing recent developments in Hume scholarship that are relevant to the Enquiry. The emi…Read more
  •  12
    I—Peter Millican: Humes Old and New Four Fashionable Falsehoods, and One Unfashionable Truth
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1): 163-199. 2007.
  •  146
    Any argument which attempts to prove God's existence a priori based only on His nature can be termed an "Ontological Argument". Historically, however, the term is inextricably associated with the famous argument presented in Anselm's Proslogion chapter II, and with the later variant advanced by Descartes in his fifth Meditation and subsequently developed by Leibniz. Some have claimed that Anselm's argument was anticipated in the thought either of various classical philosophers (notably Aristotle…Read more
  •  253
    all objects, which are found to be constantly conjoin’d, are upon that account only to be regarded as causes and effects. … the constant conjunction of objects constitutes the very essence of cause and effect … (T 1.4.5.32, my emphasis).
  •  44
    Over the last three years Hume’s use of the term “a priori” has suddenly become very topical. Three discussions, by Stephen Buckle, myself, and Houston Smit, all focusing on Hume’s argument concerning induction in Section IV of the Enquiry, have independently picked up on this question, which seems previously to have gone almost unnoticed.1 That there is an issue here can be seen by examining what Hume says when considering the foundation of our inferences concerning matter of fact; why, for exa…Read more
  •  23
    As a particular enthusiast for the first Enquiry, Hume’s definitive presentation of his epistemology and metaphysics ☺, I eagerly awaited the new Oxford editions for many years (from when they were initially announced under the aegis of Princeton). Although the Selby- Bigge edition of the Enquiries has done good service, most notably in its role of providing a widely agreed convention for references to Hume’s texts, I have always found it a bit strange that it should be generally thought of as a…Read more
  •  26
    The word ‘logic’ as used today is commonly taken to refer to a formal discipline, as indeed it was almost universally from the time of ARISTOTLE until at least the sixteenth century. But the writings of Descartes and his followers (notably Malebranche and the authors of the Port Royal Logic, Arnauld and Nicole) undermined this understanding of the word, preparing the ground for LOCKE to reinterpret it most influentially in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke adopted from the Cartesia…Read more
  •  205
    The centrepiece of Earman’s provocatively titled book Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument against Miracles is a probabilistic interpretation of Hume’s famous ‘maxim’ concerning the credibility of miracle reports, followed by a trenchant critique of the maxim when thus interpreted. He argues that the first part of this maxim, once its obscurity is removed, is simply trivial, while the second part is nonsensical. His subsequent discussion culminates with a forthright challenge to any would-be defe…Read more
  •  599
    The Common-Core/Diversity Dilemma: Revisions of Humean thought, New Empirical Research, and the Limits of Rational Religious Belief
    with Branden Thornhill-Miller
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 7 (1): 1--49. 2015.
    This paper is the product of an interdisciplinary, interreligious dialogue aiming to outline some of the possibilities and rational limits of supernatural religious belief, in the light of a critique of David Hume’s familiar sceptical arguments -- including a rejection of his famous Maxim on miracles -- combined with a range of striking recent empirical research. The Humean nexus leads us to the formulation of a new ”Common-Core/Diversity Dilemma’, which suggests that the contradictions between …Read more
  •  153
    The Devil’s Advocate
    Cogito 3 (3): 193-207. 1989.
    Over the centuries, many different arguments have been used to support the belief in God. These range from the abstruse and theoretical, such as Anselm’s famous Ontological Argument, to the relatively downto-earth and practical, such as Pascal’s Wager; but nearly all of them share a common weakness on which I intend to focus. I shall claim that the theistic arguments typically take for granted that in order to establish the existence of God they have only to establish the existence of a Supreme …Read more
  •  26
    Finding inspiration in Hume
    The Philosophers' Magazine 54 69-74. 2011.
    As time moves on, both our philosophical language and our conceptual frameworks evolve, since they are highly abstract and not closely tethered to the relatively solid ground of ordinary life. So to understand Hume’s thinking, it becomes necessary to “translate” what he says into categories increasingly different from his own.
  •  26
    The traditional extreme sceptic portrayed The traditional extreme sceptic portrayed e.g. by Flew (1961) and Stove (1973): e.g. by Flew (1961) and Stove (1973): Deductivism Deductivism..