Force of Habit

• Published in: Journal of Scottish philosophy Vol. 5; no. 1; pp. 65 - 82
• Main Author: Heathcote, Adrian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press 01.03.2007
• Subjects: Hume, David (1711-1776); Philosophy
• ISSN: 1479-6651; 1755-2001
• DOI: 10.3366/jsp.2007.5.1.65

In 1885 Andrew Seth gave a series of lectures at Edinburgh University on the difference between the Scottish reaction to Hume — as represented by Reid — and the German reaction to Hume — as represented by Kant. In this comparison Reid came off best, since he had made fewer concessions to, what Seth represented as, Hume's thorough-going scepticism. Admittedly Seth took the Treatise as his text, but all of this effort seemed to significantly misrepresent the realist and naturalist elements in Scottish philosophy that came — not from Reid, but from Hume on causation, for example, Hume laboured long to give an account that worked within his naturalistic framework. The account that he gives in the Treatise is rather cumbersome, and at certain points, unclear. But the account given in The Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is elegant and precise. Yet despite that elegance and precision, it cannot claim to be well-understood, and there is no fully satisfactory account of the logic of the argument in the literature. Indeed there is a long tradition of misunderstanding Hume's argument and misattributing to him positions that he did not hold. My aim in this paper is to give a clear reconstruction of Hume's argument, clear enough that what logical flaws there are in Hume's position may stand out. I should be clear at the outset that I intend only to try to reconstruct the argument in the Enquiry, not the Treatise, and only the final edition of the Enquiry (that of 1777) at that. I will only advert to the Treatise when it throws special light on the argument of the Enquiry.