This book reorients our understanding of Hume’s skepticism and naturalism with a new account of Hume’s transformation of the tradition inherited from Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, and Newton. Hume’s skeptical arguments concerning demonstrative knowledge and causation are framed by his radicalization of what the book characterizes as the Cartesian-Lockean presentational-phenomenological model of cognition in opposition to the Leibnizean logical-conceptual model. Hume’s naturalistic understanding of causation, by contrast, rests on the normativity of Newton’s inductive methodology, which involves r ... More

This book reorients our understanding of Hume’s skepticism and naturalism with a new account of Hume’s transformation of the tradition inherited from Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, and Newton. Hume’s skeptical arguments concerning demonstrative knowledge and causation are framed by his radicalization of what the book characterizes as the Cartesian-Lockean presentational-phenomenological model of cognition in opposition to the Leibnizean logical-conceptual model. Hume’s naturalistic understanding of causation, by contrast, rests on the normativity of Newton’s inductive methodology, which involves rejecting the in principle unobservable microstructures postulated by the mechanical philosophy. This emphasis on Newtonian methodology results in a new interpretation of Hume’s argument concerning causation and induction in Treatise, Book I, Part 3, Section 6. On the basis of his radicalized version of the presentational-phenomenological model, Hume calls into question the uniformity principle underlying both Newton’s and his own commitment to the inductive method. A detailed reading of Book I, Part 3 of the Treatise reveals a continuous development of thought culminating in Hume’s concluding skeptical melancholy at the end of Part 4. The way in which Hume maintains radical skepticism concerning causation and induction while simultaneously endorsing the Newtonian method from his naturalistic standpoint reveals that the two conflicting and equally important standpoints are nonetheless mutually complementary. For only the permanent availability of radical skepticism can guard against our enduring temptation to ascend to the supernatural—a temptation against which even the best Newtonian mathematical natural scientists of the time had not been immunized.