P. J. E. Kail

Projection and Necessity in Hume

This paper discusses the metaphor of projection in relation to Hume’s treatment of causal necessity. I argue that the best understanding of projection shows it to be compatible with taking Hume to be a ‘sceptical realist’ about causal necessity, albeit an agnostic one.

Hume's Natural History of Perception

In this paper I compare Hume’s account of the causes of our belief in body in T 1.4.2 ‘Of scepticism with regard to the senses’ (SWRS) with his account of the causes of religious belief in the Natural History of Religion (NHR). I show quite how striking and extensive the parallels are between these texts. This is not to say that Hume thinks that the belief in body and religious belief have exactly the same status or that there are no disanalogies to be found. I gesture toward a key one at the end of this paper, which bears on an old exegetical issue of whether religious belief is ‘natural’. Nevertheless the parallels are so extensive that they are worth dwelling upon. SWRS is a text variously described as ‘tortuous’, ‘extremely difficult’ and ‘perplexing’. A second aspect of this paper is an interpretation of one puzzling feature of this notorious text in light of the comparison with the NHR. Near the beginning of SWRS Hume writes:

Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and Moral Scepticisms

In this paper I discuss Shaftesbury’s moral sense theory in the context of his response to Locke’s philosophy and, in turn, Hutcheson’s adoption of Shaftesbury. After offering with some general background, I first look at the different senses of ‘scepticism’ at play in Shaftesbury’s work. I then narrow the focus to consider how Shaftesbury considered Locke’s attacks on moral nativism as tantamount to pyrhhonism. I then argued that at the bottom of Shaftesbury’s response to Locke lies a form of platonism. I then turn to Hutcheson, who sees Hobbes and Mandeville as a greater threat than Locke, in as much as that they seek to understand all moral practice as nothing but disguised self-interest. I then try to show that, in light of this difference, Hutcheson’s moral sense has a different character and grounds from the sense of Shaftesbury.

Hume's ‘A Treatise of Human Nature’: An Introduction

(148–9, 186, 196, 201); blood transfusions and animal suffering (155–6); Boyle’s charitable activities (175, 199–200); and a host of others. One of the pleasures of the book is Hunter’s extensive bibliographical essay outlining and critically discussing the Boyle literature relevant to each chapter. Hunter’s erudition is obvious but understated, and the result is an extremely helpful survey of a great deal of the literature peripherally connected to Boyle’s life, as well as of that directly relevant to it. There is also a very useful table of ‘Boyle’s Whereabouts 1627–1691’. It is often less than clear just where Boyle was at any given time, and this extended table pins down Boyle’s activities and locations accurately via a wealth of references. Boyle is an impressive figure, both as a natural philosopher and as a philosopher in our sense of the term, and Boyle: Between God and Science is a mine of information for anyone interested in Boyle, or, indeed, in philosophy in the early modern period. Unfortunately, Yale University Press has, in common with too many publishers, made what should have been footnotes into endnotes. Since these notes are relevant, substantial and interesting, the reader must continually turn to the back of the book. Why, in these days of computerized book production, publishers find it necessary to inconvenience readers in this way must apparently remain a mystery. The book is otherwise well produced.