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Hume's Skeptical Philosophy and the Moderation of PridePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 108 (6). 2024.Hume describes skeptical philosophy as having a variety of desirable effects. It can counteract dogmatism, produce just reasoning, and promote social cohesion. When discussing how skepticism may achieve these effects, Hume typically appeals to its effects on pride. I explain how, for Hume, skeptical philosophy acts on pride and how acting on pride produces the desirable effects. Understanding these mechanisms, I argue, sheds light on how, why, when, and for whom skeptical philosophy can be usefu…Read more
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Hume's Real RichesHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 39 (1). 2022.Hume describes his own “open, social, and cheerful humour” as “a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year.” Why does he value a cheerful character so highly? I argue that, for Hume, cheerfulness has two aspects—one manifests as mirth in social situations, and the other as steadfastness against life’s misfortunes. This second aspect is of special interest to Hume in that it safeguards the other virtues. And its connection with the first a…Read more
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How Kant Thought He Could Reach HumeIn Camilla Serck-Hanssen & Beatrix Himmelmann (eds.), The Court of Reason: Proceedings of the 13th International Kant Congress, De Gruyter. 2021.
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The Humors in Hume's SkepticismErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 7. 2020.In the conclusion to the first book of the Treatise, Hume's skeptical reflections have plunged him into melancholy. He then proceeds through a complex series of stages, resulting in renewed interest in philosophy. Interpreters have struggled to explain the connection between the stages. I argue that Hume's repeated invocation of the four humors of ancient and medieval medicine explains the succession, and sheds a new light on the significance of skepticism. The humoral context not only reveals t…Read more
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Discussion of Anil Gupta's “Outline of an Account of Experience”Analytic Philosophy 59 (1): 75-88. 2018.
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Does perceptual psychology rule out disjunctivism in the theory of perception?Synthese 198 (8): 7025-7047. 2019.Disjunctivist views in the theory of perception hold that genuine perceptions differ in some relevant kind from misperceptions, such as illusions and hallucinations. In recent papers, Tyler Burge has argued that such views conflict with the basic tenets of perceptual psychology. According to him, perceptual psychology is committed to the view that genuine perceptions and misperceptions produced by the same proximal stimuli must be or involve perceptual states of the same kind. This, he argues, c…Read more
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Discussion of John McDowell's “Perceptual Experience and Empirical Rationality”Analytic Philosophy 59 (1): 99-111. 2018.
Haverford communityHaverford TwpLower Merion Twp, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
1 more
Epistemology |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Skepticism |
Hume: Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Kant: Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Perception |
PhilPapers Editorships
Hume: Epistemology |