Hume's Scepticism

Abstract

Since Norman Kemp Smith's 1905 article on “The Naturalism of Hume,” there have been two competing theories on the general nature and import of Hume's philosophy. One is that which Kemp Smith attributes to a long line of English and Scottish philosophers, including his target there, Thomas Hill Green. That theory is that “Hume has no set of positive beliefs, and merely develops to a sceptical conclusion the principles which he inherits from Locke and Berkeley” (S149). The conclusion, to quote the first of the long line, Thomas Reid, is that There is neither matter nor mind in the universe; nothing but impressions and ideas. What we call a body, is only a bundle of sensations; and what we call the mind, is only a bundle of thoughts, passions, and emotions, without any subject.

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