ABSTRACT
Hume thought that we cannot will to believe. He also discovered that not all belief is guided by what we have experienced. Being himself determined to think that belief ought to be so guided, he was further determined to consider what might be done to remedy the fact that it is not so guided. There is some indication that he thought that being impressed with the force of sceptical arguments could serve as a remedy. This book examines the features of Hume’s thought that give rise to this remedial proposal, assesses what his sceptical arguments do to realize it, and considers whether he overplayed those arguments to achieve his goal. In doing so, it develops Humean positions on topics Hume did not discuss in much detail: consciousness, sensible qualities, experience of the very recent past, customary contiguity, identity, and the recognition of publicly observable objects. It also takes issue with Hume’s accounts of space, time, the endurance of unchanging objects, and scepticism concerning knowledge of an external world. This introduction unifies these themes and outlines how they are approached over the course of the book.
