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Hume, Skepticism, and the Search for Foundations

Andrew, James B
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1396628762

Abstract Details

2014, Master of Arts, University of Toledo, Philosophy.
In this paper I present an account of how epistemology should be pursued. I challenge epistemological projects which focus exclusively on how our fundamental beliefs about the world – specifically our beliefs about inductive and mathematical knowledge – can be foundationally justified. To their detriment, these projects often ignore the naturalistic question of why we have these beliefs in the first place. Chapter one begins with an account of David Hume’s doctrine of knowledge, which is read most often as bifurcating knowledge into two epistemological classes. I refer to this bifurcation as the Received View of Hume’s epistemology. On this interpretation, knowledge divides exhaustively into relations of ideas, on the one hand, and matters of fact on the other. Chapter One concludes that attempts to justify either epistemological class unduly overemphasizes the importance of this distinction and risks undermining Hume’s actual epistemological goals. I argue that Hume sought a naturalistic explanation of how humans acquire (inductive and mathematical) beliefs as opposed to an explanation that restricts epistemology to a skeptical project of demonstrating why our beliefs are ultimately unjustifiable. Skepticism plays an important role in Hume’s epistemology, but this skepticism is less important than his more positive naturalistic project to explain how and why we have different kinds of beliefs. I argue that this latter point has significance beyond interpretive studies of Hume as it has normative implications for the study of knowledge in general: epistemologists should not only establish why our beliefs about the world are justified, but also provide a naturalistic explanation of the etiology of our beliefs. This latter project is often ignored – yet restricting epistemology to the foundational search for justifications cannot succeed on its own, for we can only articulate how our beliefs might be justified by expanding epistemology to include an account of how we acquire our beliefs in the first place. To make this broader point, I focus on movements within the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mathematics which attempt to establish an epistemic foundation to justify our knowledge claims. In Chapter Two, I analyze attempts within the philosophy of science to provide a solution to Hume’s problem of induction via some sort of foundational a priori premise or axiom. In Chapter Three, I analyze the logicist and neo-logicist projects within the philosophy of mathematics to provide a foundation for mathematical knowledge – or at least arithmetic – using only basic logical principles. Both of these chapters discuss how these epistemological projects focus exclusively on securing foundations for inductive or mathematical knowledge. Interestingly, both are unsuccessful in achieving their respective justificatory goals. I argue that the ultimate reason for this failure, in both cases, is their exclusive focus on foundations. Thus, in light of these difficulties, Chapter Four concludes by suggesting that epistemology is better served by expanding its project to include a more Humean, naturalistic, and scientific understanding of both inductive and mathematical beliefs in lieu of projects focused exclusively on the epistemic justification of these beliefs. These two projects are “two sides of the same coin,” so to speak. If we want to know what justifies our beliefs we have to know how we come to have our beliefs, and vice versa.
Madeline Muntersbjorn (Committee Chair)
Susan Purviance (Committee Member)
John Sarnecki (Committee Member)
83 p.
Epistemology; Philosophy; Philosophy of Science
David Hume; Epistemology; Induction; Logicism; Skepticism; Naturalism

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Andrew, J. B. (2014). Hume, Skepticism, and the Search for Foundations [Master's thesis, University of Toledo]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1396628762

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Andrew, James. Hume, Skepticism, and the Search for Foundations. 2014. University of Toledo, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1396628762.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Andrew, James. "Hume, Skepticism, and the Search for Foundations." Master's thesis, University of Toledo, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1396628762

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

toledo1396628762
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This open access ETD is published by University of Toledo and OhioLINK.