Ruth Weintraub

Scepticism about inference to the best explanation is far less often discussed than scepticism about another ampliative form of inference, enumerative induction. Both of these inference forms are widely used, and scepticism about either can pose an important challenge. This chapter aims to redress the imbalance by giving scepticism about inference to the best explanation the attention it, too, deserves. The chapter’s conclusion is that inference to the best explanation, even to the observable, may be in a worse epistemic position than enumerative induction. The reason for this is that there are sceptical arguments that target inference to the best explanation which do not have inductive analogues, but the converse is not true.

Do we really know the things we think we know? Are any of our beliefs reasonable? Scepticism gives a pessimistic reply to these important epistemological questions - we don't know anything; none of our beliefs are reasonable. But can such a seemingly paradoxical claim be more than an intellectual curiousity? And if it is, can it be refuted? Ruth Weintraub answers yes to both these questions. The sceptical challenge is a formidable one, and should be confronted, not dismissed. The theoretical and practical difficulties it presents - in that the sceptical life cannot be lived, and the doctrine seems self-defeating - are in fact superficial, according to Ruth Weintraub. Her study looks at the sceptical arguments of Descartes, Hume and the ancient Greek sceptic, Sextus Empiricus. The author argues that by drawing on philosophy, rather than science, the sceptical challenge can be answered. _The Sceptical Challenge_ is a bold and original response to scepticism; it represents a new way of looking at the field for philosophers of epistemology.

I have two aims in this chapter. I will argue, first, that Hume’s accounts of the aetiology of the vulgar and the philosophical beliefs about “bodies” are both inadequate. Second, I will develop a much more satisfactory account, at which Hume himself hints, based on the same idea I developed in Chap. 13, pertaining to induction. This will enable me to consider (Chap. 15) the different impacts the two views – Materialism and a more sensible Idealism than Hume’s – have on the justification (or lack thereof) of our ampliatively-acquired beliefs.

In the introduction, I describe the three related aims of the book. The first is to defend the Idealist interpretation of the belief in external objects (“bodies”) Hume ascribes to us in the Treatise against the Materialist interpretation often ascribed to him. The second is to discern some of the far-reaching consequences of this interpretive controversy for Hume’s system: metaphysical implications pertaining to the spatiality of objects, causation and the divisibility of space, psychological implications pertaining to our ability to think certain thoughts and to Hume’s ability to account for some of our beliefs, methodological implications pertaining to Hume’s empiricism and epistemic implications relating to our ampliative (non-deductive) inferential practice. The existence of so many interesting implications attests to the significance of the interpretative controversy.

In this chapter, I contend with several objections to the Idealist interpretation of the belief about “bodies” Hume ascribes to us. I show that its seeming absurdity is dispelled when we note that Hume’s account of meaning allows for ignorance about the meaning of terms; that initial appearances notwithstanding, the interpretation comports well with Hume’s distinction between perceptions and objects and between an External and an Internal World; that the interpretation does not, as some have claimed, render Hume dogmatic. I note one recalcitrant objection, but conclude that overall, the Idealist interpretation is much more plausible than its Materialist rival.

In this chapter, I present the different ways of interpreting the belief in external objects (“bodies”) that Hume ascribes to us. There is here a plethora of interpretations, engendered by the fact that Hume distinguishes between the belief of the ordinary (vulgar) person (including philosophers outside the study) and the “philosophical” belief, and each can be construed in more than one way. Supporting texts exist for each interpretation, and the interpreter has to rule out in a principled way some of them as non-representative, peripheral. My interpretative methodology for deciding between the different interpretations will be to focus on texts in which Hume discusses “bodies” in a systematic way (rather than merely talking about them): section 1.4.2 of the Treatise (“Of scepticism with regard to the senses”) and in the first part of section 12 in the Enquiry (“Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy”).

In this chapter, I defend the Idealist interpretation of the belief about “bodies” Hume ascribes to us (both vulgar and philosophers), according to which we can only think about perceptions, and not, as the Materialist Hume claims, about material bodies. First, I adduce some explicit statements Hume makes that show he endorses the Idealist construal of object terms. Second, I argue that the cognitive/semantic considerations Hume adduces when characterising the belief in “bodies” suggest (after some interpretative work) that we can only think of perceptions. Third, I show that some of the argumentative moves he makes, for instance in his discussion of Nominalism, much better comport with the Idealist interpretation.

In this chapter, I continue to explore the consequences of the Idealist Interpretation for Hume’s Science of Man. Here, I consider how the two interpretations impinge on Hume’s nominalism, his account of the way general terms (‘dog’, ‘man’, e.g.) function in the absence of abstract ideas. (General terms apply to several objects, unlike proper names (‘Fido’, ‘Napoleon’), which (typically) apply to only one.) My main claim will be that the Materialist reading renders Hume’s nominalism a total failure, whereas on the Idealist reading, it is moderately successful.

Do we really know the things we think we know? Are any of our beliefs reasonable? Scepticism gives a pessimistic reply to these important epistemological questions - we don't know anything; none of our beliefs are reasonable. But can such a seemingly paradoxical claim be more than an intellectual curiousity? And if it is, can it be refuted? Ruth Weintraub answers yes to both these questions. The sceptical challenge is a formidable one, and should be confronted, not dismissed. The theoretical and practical difficulties it presents - in that the sceptical life cannot be lived, and the doctrine seems self-defeating - are in fact superficial, according to Ruth Weintraub. Her study looks at the sceptical arguments of Descartes, Hume and the ancient Greek sceptic, Sextus Empiricus. The author argues that by drawing on philosophy, rather than science, the sceptical challenge can be answered. _The Sceptical Challenge_ is a bold and original response to scepticism; it represents a new way of looking at the field for philosophers of epistemology.

In the “diminution argument,” which Hume adduces in the Treatise section “Scepticism with Regard to Reason,” he infers from our universal fallibility that “all the rules of logic require a continual diminution, and at last a total extinction of belief and evidence.” My aim in this paper is, first, to show that on all extant interpretations of the argument, it turns out to be very weak, and, second, that there is in the vicinity a significant sceptical argument in support of the conclusion that all our beliefs are totally unjustified, an argument that cannot be easily dismissed.

The mythical1 hungry ass, facing two identical bundles of hay equidistant from him, has engendered two related questions. Can he choose one of the bundles, there seemingly being nothing to incline him one way or the other? If he can, the second puzzle — pertaining to rational choice — arises. It seems the ass cannot rationally choose one of the bundles, because there is no sufficient reason for any choice.2In what follows, I will argue that choice is possible even when there is no option which is better than the others (section II), and that it is perfectly reasonable to choose an option even when there is no sufficient reason for it (section III). I will then (section IV) point to another puzzling feature of the ..

The interpretation of the belief in external objects (“bodies”) Hume ascribes to us isn’t often discussed, and this is surprising, because the parallel question, pertaining to Hume’s construal of the belief about necessity, is hotly debated. As in the case of causation, the content Hume ascribes to the belief in “bodies” is susceptible to more than one reading. Indeed, there is here a plethora of interpretations, engendered by the fact that Hume distinguishes between the belief of the ordinary (vulgar) person (including philosophers outside the study) and the “philosophical” belief, and each can be construed in more than one way. I defend the Idealist reading for both the vulgar and the philosophers.

Abstract:The question broached in the title may sound odd. It makes sense to ask whether Hume’s empiricism is successful, and whether it is the best way of rendering rigorous the (vague) empiricist view. But is it not obvious that Hume is an empiricist? I shall argue that the answer is negative, at least when we are concerned with methodological empiricism, pertaining to the way inquiry, both scientific and philosophical, must proceed. In support of my claim, I will distinguish between the theoretical question, pertaining to the methodological view Hume endorses, and the practical question, concerned with the way he conducts his inquiry. My conclusion will be that the answer to the first question is contentious, and the answer to the second is negative.

My aim in this paper is to explore some metaphysical and psychological implications of the (contentious) idealist interpretation of the belief in external objects ("bodies") Hume ascribes to us in the Treatise. More specifically, I will argue that the interpretation commits Hume to the claim that space is spatially fragmented, both synchronically and (even more so) diachronically, and renders Hume incapable of allowing for all the spatial thoughts we think we can have. But (perhaps surprisingly) it does not impugn Hume's view of causation.

This paper is not concerned with the (amply discussed) question as to the rational response to peer disagreement. Instead, it addresses a (considerably less often debated) problem to which many views about the (epistemic) significance of disagreement are vulnerable (to some extent or another): self-undermining. I reject several answers that have been proposed in the literature, defend one that has been offered (by meeting objections to it), and show that in its light, the prevalent assumption that the ‘equal-weight view’, a prominent view about disagreement, rationally requires us to suspend judgement about contentious matters, is seen to be too pessimistic.

Expressivism, as applied to a certain class of statements, evaluative ones, for instance, is constituted by two doctrines, only the first of which will concern me in this paper. Evaluative statements, according to this doctrine, aren’t propositional (susceptible of truth or falsity). In this paper, I will argue that one of the vexing problems (that I label the “logical problem”) this doctrine engenders for the expressivist is equally pressing for some cognitivists (who think evaluative statements do have a truth-value). I will present the difficulty and argue that some constructivists, who are cognitivists, cannot contend with it at all, and others must resort to more complex ways than the one available to other cognitivists.

I start by considering Mark Steiner’s startling claim that Hume takes geometry to be synthetic a priori, which engenders the Kantian challenge to explain how such knowledge is possible. I argue, in response, that Steiner misinterprets the (deceptive) relevant passage from Hume, and that Hume, as the received view has it, takes geometry to be analytic, although in a more expansive sense of the word than the modern one. I then note a new challenge geometry engenders for Hume. Unlike Euclidean space, Humean space is finitely divisible, for which several Euclidean axioms and theorems do not hold. I argue, in response, that (crucially for his scientific project) Hume can account for our belief in the truth of Euclidean geometry on the basis of non-Euclidean ideas, although (innocuously for him) not all should be true. I conclude by arguing, on a less optimistic note, that Hume cannot point to a geometry that is true of our (discrete) ideas.

In this paper, I examine the possibility of accounting for the rationality of belief-formation by utilising decision-theoretic considerations. I consider the utilities to be used by such an approach, propose to employ verisimilitude as a measure of cognitive utility, and suggest a natural way of generalising any measure of verisimilitude defined on propositions to partial belief-systems, a generalisation which may enable us to incorporate Popper's insightful notion of verisimilitude within a Bayesian framework. I examine a dilemma generated by the decision-theoretic procedure and consider an adequacy condition (immodesty) designed to ameliorate one of its horns. Finally, I argue in a sceptical vein that no adequate verisimilitude measure can be used decision-theoretically.