ABSTRACT
This discussion of David Hume’s skepticism will turn upon a series of contrasts – contrasts that cut across each other in various ways: Theoretical vs prescriptive skepticism, Antecedent vs consequent skepticism, and Epistemological vs conceptual skepticism. Hume’s skepticism concerning induction is an example of an epistemological skepticism, for he holds that have no rational grounds to support inductive inferences. Hume’s fundamental task is to provide a naturalistic account of the origin of ideas and the belief that reside in them, and conceptual skepticism, in denying that a term has any coherent idea corresponding to it, thwarts this investigation. Hume’s attitude toward the philosopher’s use of the notion of substance is different and less charitable, and a case can be made that his philosophy employs something like an empiricist criterion of meaning. In his discussion of the ancient philosophy, he speaks of the “unintelligible chimera of a substance”.
