ABSTRACT
Hume’s preeminent importance for Kant stems not only from having first raised the problem addressed in the Critique of Pure Reason but also from pointing the way to how psychologism might suffice for its solution. This chapter provides a synoptic view of Hume’s empirical psychologism and the enriched conception of association at its heart. In contrast to Berkeley’s isolated efforts, Hume applied his associationist psychologism systematically, so much so that it can plausibly be supposed not only to absorb into imagination all the non-mathematical cognitive roles formerly ascribed to the understanding, but to explicate nature itself by constituting a veritable “cement of the universe.” How this can be and how everything in Hume’s theory of human nature can be supposed to apply to much of non-human animal nature as well are examined, as are the limits and shortcomings of Hume’s system that would prove most significant for Kant. Subjects/authors discussed include relation, association, belief, cognitive affect, animal cognition, cause and effect, the existence of unsensed spaces and times, laws of nature, probability, identity, personal identity, external objects, and Frans de Waal.
