PHIL 437A: Study Questions for Week 5 (Oct. 24-26): Skepticism
1. According to Hume, can we have any idea of objects that exist external to our perceptions? Why or why not?
2. What does Hume mean by "all knowledge degenerates into probability"(T 1.4.1.1)?
3. What does Hume mean when he says that "belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures"(T 1.4.1.8)?
4. According to Hume, how does human nature save us from skepticism?
5. Why does Hume say: "We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but 'tis vain to ask, Whether there be body or not?"(T 1.4.2.1) According to Hume: What is a body? What are the causes that induce us to believe in body? This question raises a deep puzzle about Hume's philosophy: How could we ever come to have the idea of body?
6. What does Hume mean by continued existence? What does he mean by distinct existence? What is the feature of experience that he uses to explain our belief in continued existence? What is the feature of experience that he uses to explain our belief in distinct existence? Why doesn't Hume regard them as good reasons to believe in continued and distinct existence? Pay particular attention to his examples in T 1.4.2.20.
7. Why does Hume think we cannot get the idea of continued or distinct existence from the senses? Why does he think we cannot get it from reason? Where does it come from? How?
8. You should be able to give a summary of Hume's view of the role of senses, memory, reason, and imagination in our beliefs about the continued and distinct existence of bodies.
9. What are the vulgar opinions that Hume rejects about external objects? What are the experiments that Hume uses to cast doubt on the vulgar opinion?
10. What is the opinion of double existence? Why does Hume reject it?
11. Why does Hume expect us to agree with the following claim: "[W]e may observe a conjunction or a relation of cause and effect betwixt different perceptions, but can never observe it betwixt perceptions and objects" (T 1.4.2.47)? Do you agree? Explain.
12. What is the difference between opinions we form after a calm and profound reflection and those that we embrace by instinct or natural impulse (T.1.4.2.51)? Which does Hume favor?
13. What is Hume's remedy to skeptical doubts?
14. What is Hume's account of the cognitive role of substance?
15. According to Hume, what is the ultimate judge of all systems of philosophy? How doe we distinguish between the part of the imagination that is the foundation for all thoughts and actions from the part that Hume thinks misleads us? How can Hume's account of this difference ground normativity for him?
16. According to Hume, what is the supposed distinction between primary and secondary qualities? Why does Hume deny that there are any primary qualities? What is a presupposition of Hume's argument? Hint: Consider his argument against primary qualities as a chicken-egg problem. How might a non-Humean solve this chicken-egg problem?]
17. Fogelin distinguishes two ways that Hume reaches skeptical results: an argumentative strategy and a genetic strategy. Explain the difference.
18. According to Fogelin, what is Hume's distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact?
19. What does Hume mean by "a sceptical solution" to his skeptical doubts?
20. What are the differences between Fogelin and Baier's accounts of Hume's skepticism in Book 1, Part IV?