ABSTRACT
One reason the history of philosophy is so often rewritten is that later developments sometimes broaden our view of what earlier philosophers could have meant by what they said. A second reason is that later developments sometimes narrow our view of what earlier philosophers should have said. Something like this has happened, I think, in the case of Hume. According to an influential wave of recent scholarship, Hume is a causal realist-a more or less firm believer in objective necessary connections. In this paper I do what I can to restore (with some important modifications) an earlier portrayal. I do not think that the new portrayal of Hume can be decisively refuted. But I do think it can be shown that the evidence for it is, on the whole, far from compelling, and that defenders of the New Hume have underestimated the power and interest of the more traditional interpretation.
