•  51
    Prescription, Description, and Hume's Experimental Method
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 24 (2): 279-301. 2016.
    There seems a potential tension between Hume's naturalistic project and his normative ambitions. Hume adopts what I call a methodological naturalism: that is, the methodology of providing explanations for various phenomena based on natural properties and causes. This methodology takes the form of introducing ‘the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects’, as stated in the subtitle of the Treatise; this ‘experimental method’ seems a paradigmatically descriptive one, and it remains unc…Read more
  •  61
    Hume's Internalist Epistemology in EHU 12
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96 (3): 517-539. 2018.
    Much has been written about Kemp Smith's famous problem regarding the tension between Hume's naturalism and his scepticism. However, most commentators have focused their attention on the Treatise; those who address the Enquiry often take it to express essentially the same message as the Treatise. When Hume's scepticism in the Enquiry has been investigated in its own right, commentators have tended to focus on Hume's inductive scepticism in Sections 4 and 5. All in all, it seems that Section 12 h…Read more
  •  143
    Hume's Positive Argument on Induction
    Noûs 48 (4): 595-625. 2013.
    Discussion on whether Hume's treatment of induction is descriptive or normative has usually centred on Hume's negative argument, somewhat neglecting the positive argument. In this paper, I will buck this trend, focusing on the positive argument. First, I argue that Hume's positive and negative arguments should be read as addressing the same issues . I then argue that Hume's positive argument in the Enquiry is normative in nature; drawing on his discussion of scepticism in Section 12 of the Enqui…Read more
  •  526
    Hume's Positive Argument on Induction
    Noûs 48 (4): 595-625. 2013.
    Disputants in the debate regarding whether Hume's argument on induction is descriptive or normative have by and large ignored Hume’s positive argument (that custom is what determines inferences to the unobserved), largely confining themselves to intricate debates within the negative argument (that inferences to the unobserved are not founded on reason). I believe that this is a mistake, for I think Hume’s positive argument to have significant implications for the interpretation of his negative a…Read more
  •  32
    Hume’s (Ad Hoc?) Appeal to the Calm Passions
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 100 (4): 444-469. 2018.
    Hume argues that whenever we seem to be motivated by reason, there are unnoticed calm passions that play this role instead, a move that is often criticised as ad hoc. In response, some commentators propose a conceptual rather than empirical reading of Hume’s conativist thesis, either as a departure from Hume, or as an interpretation or rational reconstruction. I argue that conceptual accounts face a dilemma: either they render the conativist thesis trivial, or they violate Hume’s thesis that ‘a …Read more
  •  35
    Hume on Theoretical Simplicity
    Philosophers' Imprint 23 (1). 2023.
    Hume often praises and appeals to the theoretical virtue of simplicity in his philosophy. Yet there has been relatively little scholarship done on Hume’s conception of theoretical simplicity. This paper will look to rectify this lacuna in the literature. In particular, it will look to answer three questions as they relate to Hume’s philosophy. First, what is theoretical simplicity? Second, why should we favour simpler theories over more complex ones? Third, can a theory be too simple, and if so,…Read more
  •  42
    Predication and Hume's Conceivability Principle
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (2): 442-464. 2023.
    In this paper, I will make the case that an associative account of predication in Hume seems to allow for impossible predicative conceptions—that is, the conceiving of impossible states of affairs involving subjects instantiating properties or qualities—which violate his Conceivability Principle. The natural response is to argue that such conceptions are not clear and distinct, but substantive worries are raised about a number of attempted solutions along these lines. This poses a predicament fo…Read more
  •  21
    The Virtue of Consistency
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 102 (3): 491-503. 2021.
    Consistency is commonly taken to be an interpretive virtue in scholarship, but the rationale behind this assumption is unclear. This paper explores the question of why we should take consistency to be an interpretive virtue; it finds that while considerations of accuracy might render the issue underdetermined, we nevertheless have reason to take consistency to be an interpretive virtue on the basis of considerations of philosophical worth.
  •  4
    Hume and reliabilism
    Belgrade Philosophical Annual 1 (34): 27-51. 2021.
    Hume's epistemological legacy is often perceived as a predominantly negative sceptical one. His infamous problem of induction continues to perplex philosophers to this day, and many of his sceptical worries maintain their interest in contemporary eyes (e.g. with regard to reason, the senses, substance, causation). Yet Hume's positive epistemological contributions also hold significance for philosophy in this day and age. In this paper, I aim to situate Hume's epistemology in a more contemporary …Read more
  •  34
    Hume’s Stoicism: Reflections on Happiness and the Value of Philosophy
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 60 (1): 79-96. 2022.
    ARRAY
  •  64
    This paper will make the case that we can find in Kant’s Second Analogy a substantive response to Hume’s argument on induction. This response is substantive insofar as it does not merely consist in independently arguing for the opposite conclusion, but rather, it identifies and exploits a gap in this argument. More specifically, Hume misses the possibility of justifying the uniformity of nature as a synthetic a priori proposition, which Kant looks to establish in the Second Analogy. Note that th…Read more
  •  48
    Complex Ideas and Hume’s Separability Principle
    Mind 131 (522): 517-534. 2022.
    In this paper, I will argue that a number of Hume’s claims generate a putative inconsistency with regard to complex ideas and independent existence. I first provide a prima facie argument for the existence of this inconsistency. Then, I examine a number of attempts to rescue Hume from this problem, and argue that each of them fails, before proposing my own solution.
  •  236
    Prescription, Description, and Hume's Experimental Method
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 2 (24): 279-301. 2016.
    There seems a potential tension between Hume’s naturalistic project and his normative ambitions. Hume adopts what I call a methodological naturalism: that is, the methodology of providing explanations for various phenomena based on natural properties and causes. This methodology takes the form of introducing ‘the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects’, as stated in the subtitle of the Treatise; this ‘experimental method’ seems a paradigmatically descriptive one, and it remains unc…Read more
  •  219
    Hume's Internalist Epistemology in EHU 12
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 3 (96): 517-539. 2018.
    Much has been written about Kemp Smith’s (1941) famous problem regarding the tension between Hume’s naturalism and his scepticism. However, most commentators have focused their attention on the Treatise; those who address Enquiry often take it to express essentially the same message as the Treatise. When Hume’s scepticism in the Enquiry has been investigated in its own right, commentators have tended to focus on Hume’s inductive scepticism in Sections 4 and 5. All in all, it seems that Section 1…Read more
  •  206
    Hume's (Ad Hoc?) Appeal to the Calm Passions
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 100 (4): 444-469. 2018.
    Hume argues that whenever we seem to be motivated by reason, there are unnoticed calm passions that play this role instead, a move is that is often criticised as ad hoc (e.g. Stroud 1977 and Cohon 2008). In response, some commentators propose a conceptual rather than empirical reading of Hume’s conativist thesis, either as a departure from Hume (Stroud 1977), or as an interpretation or rational reconstruction (Bricke 1996). I argue that conceptual accounts face a dilemma: either they render the…Read more
  •  317
    Hume on Mental Transparency
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (4): 576-601. 2017.
    This article investigates Hume's account of mental transparency. In this article, I will endorse Qualitative Transparency – that is, the thesis that we cannot fail to apprehend the qualitative characters of our current perceptions, and these apprehensions cannot fail to be veridical – on the basis that, unlike its competitors, it is both weak enough to accommodate the introspective mistakes that Hume recognises, and yet strong enough to make sense of his positive employments of mental transparen…Read more
  •  28
    Hume’s Deontological Response to Scepticism
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 6. 2019.
    In this paper, I offer a novel interpretation of THN 1.4.7, which sees his sceptical problem and solution in THN 1.4.7 as taking a broadly deontological structure. Briefly, I read the ‘Dangerous Dilemma’ (THN 1.4.7.6-7) as embodying a false dichotomy between two deontological extremes concerning reflection, that is, thinking carefully about our mental states and faculties. The two horns of the Dangerous Dilemma are as follows: either embracing an absolute duty to constantly and incessantly refle…Read more
  •  20
    Hume's Epistemological Evolution argues that Hume's Enquiry represents a significant departure from the Treatise in respect of its epistemological framework. The Treatise's treatment of skepticism is an unsatisfactory one, as Hume seems to realize, and he therefore forms a new epistemological framework in the Enquiry. Qu's central argument is that Hume's epistemology evolves between these two works.
  •  364
    Hume's Epistemology: The State of the Question
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 57 (3): 301-323. 2019.
    This article surveys the state of the literature on Hume’s epistemology, focusing on treatments of what has come to be known as the ‘Kemp Smith problem’, that is, the problem of reconciling Hume’s scepticism with his naturalism. It first surveys the literature on this issue with regard to the Treatise, moving on to briefly compare the Treatise and the Enquiry in virtue of their epistemological frameworks, before finally examining the literature with regard to the first Enquiry.
  •  315
    Type distinctions of reason and Hume’s Separability Principle
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 28 (1): 90-111. 2020.
    Commentators such as Kemp Smith (1941), Mendelbaum (1974), and Bricke (1980) have taken the distinctions of reason to pose either a counterexample to or a limitation of scope on the Separability Principle. This has been convincingly addressed by various accounts such as Garrett (1997), Hoffman (2011), and Baxter (2011). However, I argue in this paper that there are two notions of ‘distinction of reason’, one between particular instantiations (token distinctions of reason) and one between general…Read more
  •  378
    Laying Down Hume's Law
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 100 (1): 24-46. 2018.
    In this paper, I argue for an interpretation of Hume's Law that sees him as dismissing all possible arguments from is to ought on the basis of a comparison with his famous argument on induction.
  •  251
    Hume's Dispositional Account of the Self
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (4): 644-657. 2017.
    This paper will argue that Hume's notion of the self in Book 2 of the Treatise seems subject to two constraints. First, it should be a succession of perceptions. Second, it should be durable in virtue of the roles that it plays with regard to pride and humility, as well as to normativity. However, I argue that these two constraints are in tension, since our perceptions are too transient to play these roles. I argue that this notion of self should be characterized as a bundle of dispositions to o…Read more
  •  120
    Hume’s true scepticism (review)
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (4): 839-841. 2017.
  •  177
    The Title Principle (Or Lack Thereof) in the Enquiry
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 33 (3): 257-274. 2016.
    The Title Principle is seen by a number of commentators as crucial to Hume’s resolution of skeptical doubts in THN 1.4.7, thus providing an answer to Kemp Smith’s (1941) famous worry regarding the tension between Hume’s skepticism and his naturalism. However, I will argue that in the Enquiry, Hume rejects both the Title Principle and the role of the passions in his epistemology. Those who think that neither the Title Principle nor the passions play a significant role in THN 1.4.7 will likely tak…Read more
  •  288
    The simple duality: Humean passions
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 42 (S1): 98-116. 2012.
    Hume views the passions as having both intentionality and qualitative character, which, in light of his Separability Principle, seemingly contradicts their simplicity. I reject the dominant solution to this puzzle of claiming that intentionality is an extrinsic property of the passions, arguing that a number of Hume’s claims regarding the intentionality of the passions (pride and humility in particular) provide reasons for thinking an intrinsic account of the intentionality of the passions to be…Read more
  •  1159
    Hume’s Doxastic Involuntarism
    Mind 126 (501): 53-92. 2017.
    In this paper, I examine three mutually inconsistent claims that are commonly attributed to Hume: all beliefs are involuntary; some beliefs are subject to normative appraisal; and that ‘Ought implies Can’. I examine the textual support for such ascription, and the options for dealing with the puzzle posed by their inconsistency. In what follows I will put forward some evidence that Hume maintains each of the three positions outlined above. I then examine what I call the ‘prior voluntary action’ …Read more
  •  377
    Hume’s practically epistemic conclusions?
    Philosophical Studies 170 (3): 501-524. 2014.
    The inoffensive title of Section 1.4.7 of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, ‘Conclusion of this Book’, belies the convoluted treatment of scepticism contained within. It is notoriously difficult to decipher Hume’s considered response to scepticism in this section, or whether he even has one. In recent years, however, one line of interpretation has gained popularity in the literature. The ‘usefulness and agreeableness reading’ (henceforth U&A) interprets Hume as arguing in THN 1.4.7 that our belie…Read more