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1

Familiarity  with  the  work  of  Descartes  (1596-­‐‑1650),  Locke  (1632-­‐‑1704),  Berkeley  (1685-­‐‑1753)  and
Hume  (1711-­‐‑1776)  is  widely  regarded  as  an  essential  pre-­‐‑requisite  for  informed  engagement  in   analytical  philosophy.  This  module  will  concentrate  on   knowledge ,   meaning  and   the  mind  which   have  remained  central  topics  of  philosophical  discussion  from  Descartes  and  Locke  onwards.  It   aims   to   combine   an   accurate   interpretation   of   these   philosophers’   views   with   current   philosophical   debate   about   such   issues   as   the   relation   between   mind   and   body,   innate   knowledge,  whether  words  stand  for  meanings  in  the  mind,  primary  and  secondary  qualities,   personal  identity,  and  how  best  to  deal  with  scepticism.
The  module  will  start  with  an  introduction  to  topics  in   Descartes ’  philosophy,  specifically:
• Sceptical  hypotheses  (the  Dream  Argument  and  the  Evil  Demon)
• The  Cartesian  Circle
• The  Real  Distinction  between  mind  and  body
We  then  go  on  to  consider  some  important  themes  in   Locke ’s   Essay ,  in  particular:
• The  Critique  of  Innate  Knowledge
• Ideas  and  meanings
• Primary  and  secondary  qualities  and  the  Representative  Theory  of  Perception
• Identity  and  Personal  Identity
Berkeley  will  mainly  be  considered  as  a  critic  of  Locke.    So  his  arguments  will  be  taken  under   these  thematic  headings,  rather  than  in  chronological  order.
The  module  will  conclude  with  an  examination  of   Hume ’s  treatment  of  the  topics  of
• causation
• personal  identity
• liberty  and  necessity  (free  will  and  determinism);  and
• the  evidence  for  miracles
The  main  texts  we  will  be  studying  are:
Descartes     Meditations  on  First  Philosophy ,  1641
Locke     An  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding ,  1690
Berkeley
Hume
The  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge ,  1710
Three  Dialogues  between  Hylas  and  Philonous ,  1713
A  Treatise  of  Human  Nature  Book  I,  1739  esp.  Part  IV  Section  VI
An  Enquiry  concerning  Human  Understanding ,  1748  esp.  VII,  VIII,  and  X
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The  aims  of  the  module  fit  in  with  the  general  departmental  aims  for  its  courses,  in  particular:   a)  to  equip  students  with  an  understanding  of  a  range  of  philosophers  and  philosophical  problems,  while   encouraging  as  deep  a  critical  engagement  with  those  philosophers  and  problems  as  is  feasible  in  the  time
available.
A  key  objective  of  the  lectures  is  to  introduce  students  to  the  problems  concerning  knowledge,   mind,  and  meaning  that  Descartes,  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume  tackled  in  a  way  that  stresses   difficulties  in   their  positions  and   weaknesses  in  their  arguments  —  in  other  words,  in  a  critical  way.  I  will  try  to  avoid   being   harshly   dismissive   or   too   unsympathetic,   but   will   for   the   most   part   be   representing   their   philosophical   works   as   gallant   failures.   Such   failures   have   served   to   stimulate   many   attempts   at
improved  treatments  in  the  subsequent  course  of  philosophical  thinking.
In  terms  of  assessment,  the  objective  is  that  students  should  display  the  core  philosophical  skills:   clear  expression;  accurate  exposition;  and  critical  analysis  and  evaluation  of  arguments.
It  is  important  for  students  to  appreciate  that  there  are  in  general  two  different  types  of  topics  in   which  these  skills  can  be  displayed  on  a  course  such  as  the  present  one.  There  are   philosopher-­‐‑based  topics   and   problem-­‐‑based   topics.   The   philosopher-­‐‑based   topics   are   more   scholarly   and   are   concerned   with   questions  of  interpretation.  Descartes,  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume  all  try  to  convince  their  readers  of  the   correctness  of  their  views  by  presenting  reasoned  arguments.  But  in  some  cases  it  is  far  from  easy  to  see   how  their  arguments  are  supposed  to  work  out  —  sometimes,  perhaps,  because  they  just  do  not  work,  on   any   reconstruction.   So   a   philosopher-­‐‑based   issue   of   interpretation   (such   as   “What   exactly   is   Descartes’   argument   for   his   dualism   of   mind   and   body?
” )   can   be   quite   challenging.   Problem-­‐‑based   issues   are   concerned  with  what  is  the  correct  solution  to  some  particular  philosophical  problem.  With  such  an  issue   it  will  not  suffice  to  summarise  the  views  and  arguments  of  one  of  our  philosophers.  For  example,  if  the   question  is  “What  does  the  identity  of  a  person  over  time  consist  in?”,  an  account  of  what  Locke  thought   it  consisted  in  can  only  be,  at  best,  part  of  the  answer.  Even  if  you  should  think  that  Locke  got  it  right,  you   will  need  to  explain  in  your  own  terms  why  he  was  right  —  and  also  why  others  have  been  wrong  in   arguing  he  was  wrong  ...
You  will  find  examples  of  both   philosopher-­‐‑based  and   problem-­‐‑based  issues  in  the  essay  questions  (detailed   in  the  coursework  summary).  The  two  essays  for  the  module  are  on  topics  in  Descartes  and  Locke,  while   the  examination  questions  will  be  mainly  on  topics  concerning  Berkeley  and  Hume.  So  you  can  go  in  for  a   degree  of  specialization  and  concentration  on  a  favoured  philosopher  (or  two),  but  will  need  to  spread   your  attention  over  the  whole  range  of  topics  on  the  course  in  order  to  get  the  most  out  of  the  module.
Two  coursework  essays  are  required,  and  there  will  be  a  two-­‐‑hour  examination  on  pre-­‐‑released  questions
(the  exam  paper  will  be  mainly  on  Berkeley  [Section  A]  and  Hume  [Section  B]).
For  further  details  concerning  coursework  consult  the   Coursework  Summary  for  the  module.
There   is   a   rich   literature   on   the   ‘classics’     of   early   modern   philosophy,   and   so   there   is   a   great   deal   of   potential  reading  associated  with  this  module.  Reading   everything  would  be  a  superhuman  task.  But  it  is   not   too   difficult   to   devise   a   strategy   that   should   provide   you   with   an   adequate   general   grounding   in   topics   in   Descartes,   Locke,   Berkeley,   and   Hume,   with   specific   “hot-­‐‑spots”   you   have   chosen   as   your   special  subjects  for  assessment  where  you  will  want  to  go  in  for  more  intensive  study,  and  more  extensive   reading.
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You  should  read  through  Descartes’   Meditations  —  a  slim  volume  —  in  the  early  weeks,  if  you  have  not   already   done   so.   I   recommend   the   translation   by   Cottingham   (Cambridge   UP)   because   it   is   the   most   recent  translation,  and  also  because  it  includes  useful  selections  from  the   Objections  and  Replies .
By   contrast,   Locke’s   Essay   is   a   thick   book   and   one   that   very   few   people,   professional   philosophers   included,   would   choose   to   read   from   cover   to   cover.   (Many   of   the   published   versions   of   the   Essay   are   indeed  abridgements.  There  is  always  a  danger  with  editorial  abridgement,  since  a  section  deemed  less   important  may  acquire  fresh  significance  in  the  light  of  later  philosophical  debate  —  as  is  the  case  with
Locke’s  views  on  kind-­‐‑terms  and  natural  kinds.)  We  will  tackle  the  book  by  examining  some  of  its  most   interesting  and  important  chapters  (which  will  be  available  on  MOLE).  It  should  be  noted  that  this  focus   on  selected  sections  leaves  open  a  possibility  of  coming  up  with  re-­‐‑interpretations  of  Locke  by  relating   material  in  the  more  celebrated  chapters  to  things  he  says  in  less  visited  parts  of  the   Essay .  So  do  feel  free   to  branch  out  beyond  our  core  readings  of  that  primary  text.
Some  of  the  secondary  literature  on  Descartes,  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume  is  interesting  in  its  own  right,   as  well  as  for  the  light  it  casts  on  our  primary  authors.  In  the  twentieth  century  there  was  a  tradition  of   distinguished   philosophers   —   such   as   A.J.   Ayer,   Geoffrey   Warnock   ( Berkeley ,   1953),   Jonathan   Bennett
( Locke,  Berkeley,  Hume:  Central  Themes ,  1971),  and  Bernard  Williams  ( Descartes:  The  Project  of  Pure  Enquiry ,
1978)  —  engaging  in  philosophy  through  the  medium  of  a  sort  of  debate  with  these  classical  authors.  My   own  favoured  recommendation  from  the  secondary  literature  is  J.L.  Mackie’s   Problems  from  Locke  (Oxford
UP,   1976).   Although   published   over   a   quarter   of   a   century   ago,   this   book   still   stands   out   as   being   particularly  good  at  showing  the  relevance  of  Locke’s  thinking  to  modern  philosophical  debates.
Electronic   sources   are   becoming   increasingly   useful   for   philosophical   texts   and   papers.   In   fact,   all   the   primary  texts  are  available  on  the  Web  as  free  downloads.  It  is  also  important  to  note  that  many  of  the   papers  (in  the  recommended  reading)  published  in  journals  are  available  in  electronic  format.  Making  use   of   the   library’s   access   to   electronic   journals   should   certainly   help   to   reduce   pressure   on   conventional,   hard-­‐‑copy  holdings.  Links  to  major  Internet  sources  are  to  be  found  in  a  folder  on  our  MOLE  site.
Abbreviations
—  as  used  in  references  below  —  and  you  may  well  come  across  them  elsewhere  too:
Essay    =     Locke’s   An  Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding
EHU        =    Hume’s   Enquiry  concerning  Human  Understanding
PHK       =    Berkeley’s   The  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge
THN     =    Hume’s   Treatise  of  Human  Nature
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The   First   Meditation   is   one   of   the   best   known   and   most   striking   passages   in   all   philosophical   literature.    But  its  function  is  not  always  well  understood.    Although  Descartes  uses  sceptical   hypotheses  as  a  device  for  finding  indubitable  foundations  for  human  knowledge,   in  intention  he   is   himself   an   anti-­‐‑sceptical   philosopher .     His   attempt   to   defeat   sceptical   hypotheses   is,   however,   generally  regarded  as  a  failure.    We  shall  be  looking  at  the  sceptical  argument  that  I  cannot  tell   whether   I   am   experiencing   something   real,   because   we   have   experiences   just   like   real   experiences   while   dreaming.     Notice   that   Descartes   himself   ( Sixth   Meditation )   claimed   that   he   had  reason  to  dismiss  this  “exaggerated”  doubt  on  the  grounds  that  ‘dreams  are  never  linked   by  memory  with  all  the  other  actions  of  life  as  waking  experiences  are’.    Others  have  argued,   either   on   conceptual   grounds   (Malcolm)   or   because   of   empirical   evidence   (Dennett)   that   it   is   wrong  to  think  of  dreams  as  experiences  had  during  sleep.    Yet  despite  all  the  attempts  to  rebut   it,  the  sceptical  argument  from  dreaming  remains  surprisingly  difficult  to  refute.
Curley,  E.M.   Descartes  Against  the  Skeptics ,  Oxford:  Blackwell,  1978,  ch  3
Blumenfeld,  D.  &  J.B.  ‘Can  I  know  that  I  am  not  dreaming?’.  In  M.  Hooker  ed,   Descartes:  Critical   and  Interpretive  Essays ,  Johns  Hopkins  UP,  1978,  pp.234-­‐‑55
Bouwsma,  O.K.  ‘Des  Cartes’  skepticism  of  the  senses’,   Mind  54,  1945,  pp.313-­‐‑22
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Malcolm,  N.  ‘Dreaming  and  skepticism’,   Philosophical  Review  65,  1956,  pp.14-­‐‑37.    Reprinted  in
Doney  W  ed,   Descartes ,  Macmillan  (1967).
Brown,  R.  ‘Sound  sleep  and  sound  scepticism’,   Australasian  Journal  of  Philosophy  35,  1957,  pp.47-­‐‑
53
Canfield,  J.V.  ‘Judgments  in  sleep’,   Philosophical  Review  70  (1961),  224-­‐‑30
Putnam,  H.  ‘Dreaming  and  depth  grammar’.  In  R.J.  Butler  ed,   Analytical  Philosophy ,  1962.
Reprinted  in  Putnam’s   Mind,  Language  and  Reality ,  Phil  Papers  Vol  2
Suter,  R.  ‘The  dream  argument’,   American  Philosophical  Quarterly  13,  1976,  pp.185-­‐‑94.
Hunter,  J.F.M.  ‘A  puzzle  about  dreaming’,   Analysis  36,  1976,  pp.126-­‐‑31
Dennett,  D.C.  ‘Are  dreams  experiences?’,   Philosophical  Review  73,  1976,  pp.151-­‐‑71.    Reprinted  in   his   Brainstorms  (1978),  129-­‐‑48.
Wachbrit,  R.  Dreams  and  representations:  a  new  perspective  on  dreaming  and  Cartesian   skepticism,   American  Philosophical  Quarterly  24,  1987,  pp.171-­‐‑80
Botterill,  G.  ‘The  Internal  Problem  of  Dreaming:  Detection  and  Epistemic  Risk’,   International
Journal  of  Philosophical  Studies  16,  2008,  pp.139-­‐‑160.
The  problem  for  Descartes  has  never  been  more  elegantly  formulated  than  by  Antoine  Arnauld
( Fourth  Objections ;  Cottingham,  p.106)  when  he  said  that  there  was  a  worry  as  to:
‘how  the  author  avoids  reasoning  in  a  circle  when  he  says  that  we  are  sure  that  what  we  clearly   and  distinctly  perceive  is  true  only  because  God  exists.    But  we  can  be  sure  that  God  exists  only   because  we  clearly  and  distinctly  perceive  this.  Hence,  before  we  can  be  sure  that  God  exists,  we   ought  to  be  able  to  be  sure  that  whatever  we  perceive  clearly  and  evidently  is  true.’
One  attempt  to  defend  Descartes  against  the  charge  of  circularity  has  it  that  the  existence  of  a   non-­‐‑deceiving  God  assures  us  that  we  can  rely  on  our   memory  of  what  we  think  we  have  clearly   and  distinctly  perceived,   current  clear  and  distinct  perception  being  self-­‐‑validating.  We  will  see   there  is  considerable  textual  support  for  this  view,  but  it  does  create  other  problems,  hardly  less   serious  than  circularity,  for  Descartes’  overall  strategy.
Descartes  et  al.  Cottingham’s  version  of  the   Meditations ,   Objections  and  Replies ,  pp.102-­‐‑6.
Stout,  A.K.  ‘The  basis  of  knowledge  in  Descartes’,   Mind  38,  1929,  pp.330-­‐‑42  and  pp.458-­‐‑72.    An   abridged  and  revised  version  is  reprinted  in  W.  Doney  ed  [1967],   Descartes ,  Macmillan.
Doney,  W.  ‘The  Cartesian  circle’,   Journal  of  the  History  of  Ideas  16,  1955,  pp.324-­‐‑38
Frankfurt,  H.G.  ‘Memory  and  the  Cartesian  Circle’,   Philosophical  Review  71,  1962,  pp.504-­‐‑11
Frankfurt,  H.G.  ‘Descartes’  validation  of  reason’,   American  Philosophical  Quarterly  2,  1965,   pp.149-­‐‑56.    Reprinted  in  W.  Doney  ed,   Descartes ,  Macmillan:  1967,  pp.208-­‐‑26.
Kenny,  A.   Descartes ,  1968,  ch  8
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Curley,  E.M.   Descartes  Against  the  Skeptics ,  1978,  ch  5
Williams,  B.   Descartes:  The  Project  of  Pure  Enquiry ,  1978,  chs  5  &  7
Wilson,  M.D.   Descartes ,  London:  Routledge,  1978,  ch  III.4   van  Cleve,  J.  ‘Foundationalism,  epistemic  principles  and  the  Cartesian  circle’.  In  J.  Cottingham   ed,   Descartes ,  Oxford  Readings:  1998.
This   is   a   major   topic   which   connects   with   issues   that   will   be   discussed   in   the   Philosophy   of
Mind  (PHI202),  and  elsewhere.  Rejection  of  Cartesian  dualism  is  a  standard  point  of  departure   in  modern  philosophy  of  mind  (e.g.,  see  Ryle,  1949;  Smith  &  Jones,  1986).  Dualism  is  held  to  be   unacceptable  on  several  grounds:
§ because   it   makes   a   mystery   of   mental-­‐‑physical   causal   interaction   (the   most   popular   objection);
§ because  it  involves  a  category  mistake  (Ryle);
§ because   minds   cannot   be   individuated   in   the   way   that   physical   bodies   can   be
(Strawson);
§ because  it  generates  an  insoluble  problem  of  knowledge  of  other  minds;
§ or  because  it  makes  the  gradual   evolution  of  mental  capacities  an  impossibility.  Descartes   claims  to  have  a  compelling  argument  for  the  ‘Real  Distinction’.
But,  as  we  shall  see,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  spell  out  exactly  what  this  argument  is  supposed  to  be  —   or   where   in   the   Meditations   it   is   to   be   found.   The   impression   that   we   gain   from   reading   the   primary  texts  is  that  Descartes  remained  convinced  of  the  thesis,  but  changed  his  mind  about   how  best  to  argue  for  it.
Ryle,  G.   The  Concept  of  Mind ,  London:  Hutchinson,  1949,  ch  1.  (Reprinted  1963,  Harmondsworth:
Penguin.)
Smith,  P.  &  Jones,  O.R.   The  Philosophy  of  Mind ,  Cambridge  UP,  1986,  ch  3
Carruthers,  P.   Introducing  Persons ,  London:  Croom  Helm,  1986,  chs  2-­‐‑3,  and  5
Dennett,  D.C.   Consciousness  Explained ,  London:  Allen  Lane,  1991,  ch  2,  pp.21-­‐‑42
Kenny,  A.  1968.   Descartes ,  ch  4
Malcolm,  N.  ‘Descartes’s  proof  that  his  essence  is  thinking’ ,   Philosophical  Review  74,  1965,   pp.315-­‐‑38.
Reprinted  in  W.  Doney  ed,   Descartes ,  Macmillan:  1967.
Wilson,  M.D.  ‘Descartes:  the  epistemological  argument  for  mind-­‐‑body  distinctness’,   Nous  10,
1976,  pp.3-­‐‑15.  Reprinted  in  J.  Cottingham  ed,   Descartes ,  Oxford  Readings:  1998.
Wilson, M.D. ‘Cartesian dualism’. In M. Hooker ed, Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays ,
Johns Hopkins UP: 1978.
Wilson, M.D. 1978. Descartes , ch VI
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Schiffer, S. ‘Descartes on his essence’, Philosophical Review 85, 1976, pp.21-43
Donagan, A. ‘Descartes’s “synthetic” treatment of the real distinction between mind and body’.
In Hooker M ed , Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays , Johns Hopkins UP: 1978.
Hooker, M. ‘Descartes’s denial of mind-body identity’. In M. Hooker ed, Descartes: Critical and
Interpretive Essays , Johns Hopkins UP, 1978.
Williams, B. Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry , 1978, ch 4
Curley, E.M. Descartes Against the Skeptics , 1978, pp.193-206.
Locke, D. ‘Mind, matter, and the Meditations ’, Mind 90, 1981, pp.343-66
Richardson, R.C. ‘The “scandal” of Cartesian interactionism’, Mind 91, 1982, pp.20-37
Cottingham, J. ‘Cartesian trialism’, Mind 94, 1985, pp.218-230
Cottingham, J.
‘Cartesian dualism: theology, metaphysics, and science’. In J. Cottingham ed.,
The Cambridge Companion to Descartes , Cambridge UP: 1992, pp.236-57
Murdoch, D. ‘Exclusion and abstraction in Descartes’ metaphysics’, The Philosophical
Quarterly 43, 1993, pp.38-57
Garber, D. Descartes Embodied , Cambridge UP, 2001, Part III
8

9

John Locke, 1632-1704
Some  Notes  on  his  Life  and  Times
1632 Born on August 29 th in Wrington, Somerset
1647-1652 Attended Westminster School
1649 Charles I beheaded
1649-1660 The “Commonwealth”: Parliamentary Rule and Cromwell’s Protectorate
In 1652 Locke entered Christ Church, Oxford and in 1655 was awarded with the Bachelor of Arts degree.
In 1660 he met Robert Boyle (famous now for his law concerning pressure, volume and temperature of gases), and assisted Boyle in some of his experiments. In that year Locke was also appointed lecturer in Greek
(later he was appointed lecturer in Rhetoric).
1667-1681 Personal Physician and Secretary to Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury
1668: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
In 1671 he started writing the Essay concerning Human Understanding
In 1674 he was appointed to a Medical “Studentship” at Oxford. (All the fellows of Christ Church College are, rather quaintly, called students.)
1683-89
1684
Voluntary exile in Holland
Deprived of Oxford appointment by Royal Decree
In 1689 Locke returned to England in the wake of that quiet “revolution” in which the British throne was offered to William of Orange and Mary.
In 1690 the first edition of the Essay concerning Human Understanding is published.
In 1690 Locke also publishes, anonymously, Two Treatises of Government .
1696-1700 Locke held an appointment as commissioner at the Board of Trade
1704 Locke died at Oates, High Laver in Essex
10

We shall be concentrating on the work for which Locke is chiefly famous, his Essay concerning
Human Understanding . And in fact we will only be able to examine some major topics in this large and rich text. Its basic structure is given by its division into four books, the subjects of which are:
Book I: Attack on Innate Knowledge
Book II: Ideas
Book III: Words
Book IV: Knowledge and Belief
(Unfortunately, we won’t have time to penetrate into Book IV on this module.)
Locke’s objectives, as stated in I.i.3, are to explain:
(1) the origins of ideas
(2) the extent of our knowledge
(3) the nature of faith and opinion
But what are ‘ideas’?:
‘... I have used it to express ... whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking...’ EHU I.i.8
Locke claimed his terminology was both clear enough, and quite harmless. From a letter to
Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester:
‘Having thoughts and having ideas with me mean the same thing...’
If that really was all Locke was committed to, then it would seem that all he could be accused of was a long-winded way of speaking. Where others say ‘Anna is thinking’ Locke offers the stylistic variant ‘Anna is-having-ideas’. The phrase ‘is-having-ideas’ should no more incline us to suppose that ideas are independent items, than saying ‘I did it for Anna’s sake’ (rather than just: ‘I did it for Anna’ — and in contrast with ‘I did it for Anna’s cat’) should be taken as implying that Anna’s sake is something other than Anna and potentially independent of her and her well-being (in the way that her cat is ).
But notice he seems to be saying something quite different from this in II.i.1, where ideas serve a
theoretical function as internal (mental) objects of thought:
“1.  Idea  is  the  object  of  thinking.
Every  man  being  conscious  to  himself  that  he  thinks;   and  that  which  his  mind  is  applied  about  whilst  thinking  being  the  ideas  that  are  there,  it  is   past  doubt  that  men  have  in  their  minds  several  ideas,-­‐  such  as  are  those  expressed  by  the   words   whiteness,   hardness,   sweetness,   thinking,   motion,   man,   elephant,   army,   drunkenness,  and  others:  it  is  in  the  first  place  then  to  be  inquired,  How  he  comes  by  them?
I   know   it   is   a   received   doctrine,   that   men   have   native   ideas,   and   original   characters,   stamped  upon  their  minds  in  their  very  first  being.  This  opinion  I  have  at  large  examined
11

already;  and,  I  suppose  what  I  have  said  in  the  foregoing  Book  will  be  much  more  easily   admitted,  when  I  have  shown  whence  the  understanding  may  get  all  the  ideas  it  has;  and  by   what   ways   and   degrees   they   may   come   into   the   mind;-­‐   for   which   I   shall   appeal   to   every   one’s  own  observation  and  experience.”
Since he believed all knowledge, and indeed all the ideas that are the material of human knowledge, to be derived from experience, it is not surprising that Locke starts the Essay with an attack on innate knowledge. But the sharply polemical tone of Book I is striking. Who was he arguing against? Descartes? But Descartes is not so much an advocate of innate knowledge as of innate ideas — which, admittedly, may be a source of knowledge if clearly and distinctly perceived. It is still of interest to consider how strong Locke's arguments against innate knowledge are. Do they work against modern innatist theories (e.g., Chomsky’s)? Or are these just too different from the views that Locke was attacking to be considered as potential targets?
Locke J Essay , Bk.I
Lowe EJ , Locke on Human Understanding , Routledge: 1995, ch 2
Aaron RI (1955) John Locke , Pt Two ch II
Woozley AD (1960) Introduction to the Fontana edition of Locke’s Essay , 3 No Innate
Principles, 16-24.
Wall G Locke’s attack on innate knowledge, Philosophy 49 (1974), pp.414-9. Reprinted in
Tipton IC ed (1977), Locke on Human Understanding , 19-24
Harris J Leibniz and Locke on innate ideas, Ratio 16 (1974), 226-42. Reprinted in Tipton IC ed
(1977), Locke on Human Understanding , 25-40
Mackie JL 1976. Problems from Locke , ch 7
Atherton M (1983) Locke and the issue over innateness, How Many Questions? Essays in
Honor of Sidney Morgenbesser . Reprinted in V. Chappell ed, Locke , Oxford Readings: 1998.
Jolley N Leibniz and Malebranche on innate ideas, Philosophical Review 92 (1988), pp.71-91
Carruthers P 1992. Human Knowledge and Human Nature , ch 4
(See also references in the bibliography in Tipton IC ed, Locke on Human Understanding , p.165.)
Topics for discussion
-- Did Locke prove no knowledge is innate? Was Descartes his main target?
-- Can the theory that we have innate knowledge only be defended by stretching the concept of knowledge?
12

The distinction between primary and secondary qualities was of central importance to the philosophy of the Scientific Revolution because the world as described by scientific theory seemed very different from the world as revealed by ordinary experience. At one time a standard view of Locke and Berkeley took it that Locke argued that secondary qualities (unlike primary qualities) were not really in the objects because they were dependent upon the observer, and that
Berkeley refuted the distinction by showing that the same applied to primary qualities. However, attention to Essay II.viii reveals that this is a misinterpretation of Locke. Is it a misinterpretation that Berkeley was guilty of?
Locke J Essay , II.viii
Berkeley G PHK , paras. 9-20
Galileo G (1623) Extract from The Assayer/Il Saggiatore , in Drake S, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo , pp.273-9
Boyle R (1666) The Origin of Forms and Qualities According to the Corpuscular Philosophy — in Stewart MA ed (1991), Selected Philosophical Papers of Robert Boyle , esp. pp.18-53.
Alexander P Boyle and Locke on primary and secondary qualities, Ratio 16 (1974), 51-67.
Reprinted in Tipton IC ed (1977), Locke on Human Understanding , 62-76.
Bennett J Substance, reality and primary qualities, American Philosophical Quarterly 2 (1965).
Reprinted in Martin CB & Armstrong DM eds., Locke and Berkeley , Macmillan, pp.86-124
Bennett J . Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes , Oxford UP: 1971, ch IV
Curley EM Locke, Boyle and the distinction between primary and secondary qualities,
Philosophical Review 81 (1972).
Jackson R Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities, Mind 38 (1929).
Reprinted in Martin CB & Armstrong DM eds., Locke and Berkeley , Macmillan, 53-77.
Mackie JL 1976. Problems from Locke , ch 1
Lowe EJ , Locke on Human Understanding , Routledge: 1995, pp.47-59
Campbell J Locke on qualities, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (1980), 567-85. Reprinted in V. Chappell ed, Locke , Oxford Readings: 1998.
Stroud B Berkeley v Locke on primary qualities, Philosophy 55 (1980), 149-66
Maull NL Berkeley on the limits of mechanistic explanation. Turbayne CM ed (1982), Berkeley:
Critical and Interpretive Essays , 95-107
13

Wilson MD . Did Berkeley completely misunderstand the basis of the primary-secondary quality distinction in Locke?, in Turbayne CM ed (1982), Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays ,
108-23.
Smith AD Of primary and secondary qualities, Philosophical Review 99 (1990), pp.221-54
Topics for discussion
-- Berkeley says ‘an idea can be like nothing but an idea’. Does this demolish Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities?
-- “...the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves, but the ideas produced in us by these secondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all.” ( Essay II.viii.15) Why does Locke think this? And can his view still be defended?
Unfortunately, Locke is not as explicit about the process of perception in the Essay as he might have been. But it has standardly been thought that he held a Representative Theory, according to which what we directly and immediately perceive are always internal items ( ideas ) which represent or resemble the objects that cause them in us. The snag with this view is that it leads to the veil of perception problem : how can we know that ideas represent or resemble objects if we only perceive ideas, never objects themselves?
Woozley (1960) questions the standard attribution of a Representative Theory to Locke. Mackie (1976) questions whether such a theory need be the hopeless mistake it has often been thought to be.
Mackie JL 1976. Problems from Locke , ch 2
Lowe EJ , Locke on Human Understanding , Routledge: 1995, ch 3
Jackson R Locke’s version of the doctrine of representative perception, Mind 39 (1930).
Reprinted in Martin CB & Armstrong DM eds., Locke and Berkeley , Macmillan, 125-54.
Woozley AD 1960. Introduction to the Fontana edition of Locke’s Essay , 4 The New Way of
Ideas, 24-35.
Bennett J 1971. Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes , Oxford UP, chs. 3 & 5
Matthews HE 1971. Locke, Malebranche and the representative theory, Locke Newsletter 2, 12-
21. Reprinted in Tipton IC ed (1977), Locke on Human Understanding , 55-61.
Mackie JL 1985. Locke and representative perception, Logic and Knowledge: Selected Papers I,
214-24. Reprinted in V. Chappell ed, Locke , Oxford Readings: 1998.
Ayers M 1993. Locke: Epistemology and Ontology , Vol I Part III, Perceptual Knowledge
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Topics for discussion
-- Did Locke hold a Representative Theory of Perception? Is that theory clearly wrong?
-- Locke’s use of the term ‘idea’: does it involve questionable theoretical commitments?
Unacceptable “reification”?
Book II ch.xvii of the Essay (though only added in the 2nd edition) is one of the most important chapters in the whole of philosophical literature. Its central concern is the identity over time of persons, but Locke places the topic in the context of a ground-breaking examination of identity
(continued existence) in general. His basic contention is that the identity of some sort of thing depends upon what the idea of that sort of thing is. So the identity-conditions of persons can
(and, according to Locke, do) differ from the identity conditions for physical bodies or souls
(spiritual substances). Notice that Locke’s concern over the identity of persons is driven by the thought that persons are the locus of moral responsibility (would it be fair to hold someone accountable for something of which no recollection remained?) and, above all, the subjects of
Divine Judgement. Locke’s own account of personal identity in terms of consciousness seems unsatisfactory. But perhaps that is because it is too simplistic, rather than basically mistaken.
One puzzling feature of Locke’s account is that on his view persons do not seem to be substances at all. So it is not clear that they should have the sort of identity-conditions that Locke attempts to lay down. (E.g., suppose we thought that being a person was a state that a human being could be in. In that case, the identity-conditions would surely belong to the human being.
In other words, being the same person would be a matter of being the same human being, so long as one was in a state of personhood .)
Locke, J. Essay , II.xxvii
Hume. D. THN I.iv.vi
Reid, T. Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man , Essay III, chs. 4 & 6.
Flew, A. ‘Locke and the problem of personal identity’, Philosophy 27, (1951), pp.53-68.
Reprinted in Martin CB & Armstrong DM eds., Locke and Berkeley , 155-78.
Hughes, M.W. ‘Personal Identity: A Defence of Locke’, Philosophy 50, 1975, pp.169-187.
Helm, P. ‘Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity’, Philosophy 54, 1979, pp.173-185.
Allison, H.E. Locke’s theory of personal identity: a re-examination, Journal of the History of
Ideas 27, (1976), pp.41-58. Reprinted in Tipton IC ed (1977), Locke on Human Understanding ,
105-22.
Noonan, H. Locke on personal identity, Philosophy 53, (1978), pp.343-51
Lowe, E.J. Locke on Human Understanding , Routledge: 1995, ch 5
Mackie, J.L.1976. Problems from Locke , chs. 5 & 6
Alston, W.P. and Bennett, J. Locke on people and substances, Phil Review 97 (1988), 25-46
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Ayers, M. 1991. Locke Volume II: Ontology , Part III, pp.205-92
Winkler, K.P. Locke on personal identity, Journal of the History of Philosophy 29 (1991), pp.201-26. Reprinted in V. Chappell ed, Locke , Oxford Readings: 1998.
(See also the references in the bibliography in Tipton, I.C. ed. [1977], Locke on Human
Understanding , p.166.)
Topics for discussion
* How well does the rest of what Locke has to say about identity cohere with his views on the identity of persons?
* Was Locke right to maintain that ‘Nothing but consciousness can unite remote existences into the same person’?
If the ideas used in thought were only direct copies or stored versions of the ideas received in experience (perception or ‘reflexion’), then empiricism would indeed be a cripplingly restrictive doctrine. For experience is always experience of something particular , whereas thoughts can be general and will usually involve us in thinking of something as a thing of some kind . In other words, thought involves the deployment of concepts — and how are concepts to be derived from experience? For example, the sight of her father may be familiar to a child, but how does she come to entertain the thought that her father is a man . She knows her cat Tiddles, but how does she come to grasp that Tiddles, like Tabby next door, is a cat ; or that all cats are animals ? Locke was well aware that he needed to deal with this issue, and he thought that he could do so by claiming that the mind, by means of a process of abstraction , has a power of forming abstract general ideas from comparisons between particular ideas:
"The  use  of  words  then  being  to  stand  as  outward  marks  of  our  internal  ideas,  and  those   ideas   being   taken   from   particular   things,   if   every   particular   idea   that   we   take   in,   should   have   a   distinct   name,   names   must   be   endless.   To   prevent   this,   the   mind   makes   the   particular   ideas,   received   from   particular   objects,   to   become   general;   which   is   done   by   considering   them   as   they   are   in   the   mind   such   appearances,   separate   from   all   other   existences,  and  the  circumstances  of  real  existence,  as  time,  place,  or  any  other  concomitant   ideas.   This   is   called   ABSTRACTION,   whereby   ideas   taken   from   particular   beings,   become   general  representatives  of  all  of  the  same  kind;  and  their  names  general  names,  applicable   to  whatever  exists  conformable  to  such  abstract  ideas.  Such  precise,  naked  appearances  in   the   mind,   without   considering,   how,   whence,   or   with   what   others   they   came   there,   the   understanding  lays  up  (with  names  commonly  annexed  to  them)  as  the  standards  to  rank   real   existences   into   sorts,   as   they   agree   with   these   patterns,   and   to   denominate   them   accordingly.  Thus  the  same  colour  being  observed  to  day  in  chalk  or  snow,  which  the  mind   yesterday  received  from  milk,  it  considers  that  appearance  alone,  makes  it  a  representative   of   all   of   that   kind;   and   having   given   it   the   name   whiteness ,   it   by   that   sound   signifies   the
16

same  quality  wheresoever  to  be  imagin’d  or  met  with;  and  thus  universals,  whether  ideas   or  terms,  are  made."   Locke, Essay II.xi.9
Berkeley was severely critical of Locke’s doctrine of abstraction, and he devoted most
(paragraphs 6-24) of the Introduction to The Principles of Human Knowledge to an attack on ‘the opinion that the mind hath a power of framing abstract ideas or notions of things’. Many philosophers have taken Berkeley’s critique to be a decisive refutation of the Lockean view.
Hume, for example, eulogised Berkeley’s rejection of abstract ideas as “one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in the republic of letters” ( THN ,
I.I.vii).
But is it so clear that Locke’s theory of abstraction is a mistake? Berkeley’s most famous objection, the ‘killing blow’ of paragraph 13 of the Introduction to PHK , seems at best rather unfair (because he pounces on a rather casual formulation in a passage in which Locke is actually emphasising how difficult it is to have a clear grasp of such a general idea as the idea of a triangle ). Mackie has suggested that if we reformulate Locke’s theory in terms of selective attention , it is actually quite reasonable and defensible.
Here, as elsewhere, much depends on what we take Locke to mean by an ‘idea’. It is certainly tempting to think of ideas as images. If we do that, then abstraction would seem to be a mental
‘cutting and pasting’ operation — cutting out all those features in which examples of a kind can differ, and pasting together the features in which they are similar. That way of thinking about abstraction certainly seems problematic — either we have a composite image which is composed out of mutually incompatible features (which seems quite impossible even as a mental item), or we have too little left to paste together to make up any determinate image at all. So perhaps we would be doing more justice to Locke if we did not think of abstract ideas as images or copies of original sensory ideas. As usual, this move makes Locke’s view less easy to refute, but at the cost of making it obscure whether he has any particular theory of abstraction at all.
Locke, J. Essay II.xi-xii, III.iii.6, IV.vii.9
Berkeley, G. 1709. An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision , paras. CXX-CXXVII.
Berkeley, G.
PHK, Introduction
Hume, D. THN , I.I.vii ‘Of abstract ideas’
Beardsley, M.C. ‘Berkeley on abstract ideas’, Mind 52 (1943). Reprinted in Martin CB &
Armstrong DM eds., Locke and Berkeley , Macmillan, 409-25.
Mackie, J.L. 1976. Problems from Locke , ch 4
Lowe, E.J. Locke on Human Understanding , Routledge: 1995, ch 7
Bennett, J. 1971. Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes , Oxford UP, chs. 1-2
Warnock, G.J. 1953. Berkeley , ch 4
Tipton, I.C. 1974. Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism , ch 5.
Flage, D.E. ‘Berkeley on abstraction’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 24 (1987), 483-501
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Topics for discussion
* Did Berkeley misunderstand Locke’s doctrine of abstraction?
* Did Berkeley prove that there can be no general ideas corresponding to general terms?
“Wo rds in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing, but the ideas in the mind of him that uses them ” Locke, Essay III.ii.2
In effect Locke proposes the first explicit encoding-decoding theory of communication:
1 Thinking: people have thoughts in the form of ideas
2 Encoding: they put them into words
3 Receiving: other people hear the sounds they make
4 Decoding: they associate these words with ideas in their own minds
If the Receiver’s ideas match the Sender’s ideas a successful communication has occurred.
Locke’s view of meaning has been widely regarded in 20th century analytical philosophy as hopelessly mistaken. It is, however, by no means dead and buried, since versions of it are repeatedly rediscovered with new terminology (e.g.: images, representations, mental models) to designate the psychological items that are supposed to be the real vehicles of meaning.
Locke Essay III.i-iii & vi
Hume THN , I.I
Hume EHU , secs. II-III
Bennett J [1971], Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes , Oxford UP, chs. I & IX
Blackburn S Spreading the Word ch.2
Kretzmann N ‘The main thesis of Locke’s semantic theory’, Philosophical Review 77 (1968), pp.175-96. Reprinted in IC Tipton ed, Locke on Human Understanding , pp.123-40.
Hacking I 1975. Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy?
, Section A, esp. ch.5
Ashworth EJ Locke on language, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1984), pp.45-73.
Reprinted in V. Chappell ed, Locke , Oxford Readings: 1998.
Pears D 1990. Hume’s System , ch I
Lowe EJ , Locke on Human Understanding , Routledge: 1995, ch 7
Lowe EJ 1996. Subjects of Experience , ch. 6.
Topics  for  discussion
-- Is Locke’s basic claim concerning meaning, that the primary function of words is to signify ideas, completely mistaken?
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-- ‘Hume and Locke had the same theory of meaning, but only Hume applied it to philosophical issues.’ Discuss.
What do we mean by words for general kinds of which there can be many particular instances or samples — like ‘water’, ‘gold’, ‘lead’, ‘kangaroo’, ‘pine’, ‘tomato’? Do we mean by such words to include in the kind anything that has certain detectable features or properties? Or do we rather mean something that has a certain internal composition — such as a molecular structure or a genotype — which is causally responsible for the properties that things of that kind (typically) have? Locke calls the former — the cluster of observable properties — the nominal essence of a sort; he calls the latter — the underlying structure or mechanism in virtue of which things of a kind have the powers and properties that they do — the real essence . Locke acknowledges that there is a temptation to make our words for kinds stand for real essences, but he stoutly maintains that all that such words can mean is the nominal essence, since we have ideas of that, but are hopelessly ignorant of real essences — if, indeed, there are any:
“9.  Not  the  real  essence,  or  texture  of  parts,  which  we  know  not.
Nor  indeed  can  we   rank  and  sort  things,  and  consequently  (which  is  the  end  of  sorting)  denominate  them,  by   their  real  essences;  because  we  know  them  not.  Our  faculties  carry  us  no  further  towards   the  knowledge  and  distinction  of  substances,  than  a  collection  of  those  sensible  ideas  which   we   observe   in   them;   which,   however   made   with   the   greatest   diligence   and   exactness   we   are   capable   of,   yet   is   more   remote   from   the   true   internal   constitution   from   which   those   qualities  flow,  than,  as  I  said,  a  countryman’s  idea  is  from  the  inward  contrivance  of  that   famous  clock  at  Strasburg,  whereof  he  only  sees  the  outward  figure  and  motions.  There  is   not   so   contemptible   a   plant   or   animal,   that   does   not   confound   the   most   enlarged   understanding.  Though  the  familiar  use  of  things  about  us  take  off  our  wonder,  yet  it  cures   not  our  ignorance.  When  we  come  to  examine  the  stones  we  tread  on,  or  the  iron  we  daily   handle,  we  presently  find  we  know  not  their  make;  and  can  give  no  reason  of  the  different   qualities  we  find  in  them.  It  is  evident  the  internal  constitution,  whereon  their  properties   depend,  is  unknown  to  us:  for  to  go  no  further  than  the  grossest  and  most  obvious  we  can   imagine  amongst  them,  What  is  that  texture  of  parts,  that  real  essence,  that  makes  lead  and   antimony  fusible,  wood  and  stones  not?  What  makes  lead  and  iron  malleable,  antimony  and   stones   not?   And   yet   how   infinitely   these   come   short   of   the   fine   contrivances   and   inconceivable  real  essences  of  plants  or  animals,  every  one  knows.  The  workmanship  of  the   all-­‐wise   and   powerful   God   in   the   great   fabric   of   the   universe,   and   every   part   thereof,   further   exceeds   the   capacity   and   comprehension   of   the   most   inquisitive   and   intelligent   man,  than  the  best  contrivance  of  the  most  ingenious  man  doth  the  conceptions  of  the  most   ignorant  of  rational  creatures.  Therefore  we  in  vain  pretend  to  range  things  into  sorts,  and   dispose  them  into  certain  classes  under  names,  by  their  real  essences,  that  are  so  far  from   our  discovery  or  comprehension.  A  blind  man  may  as  soon  sort  things  by  their  colours,  and
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he  that  has  lost  his  smell  as  well  distinguish  a  lily  and  a  rose  by  their  odours,  as  by  those   internal   constitutions   which   he   knows   not.   He   that   thinks   he   can   distinguish   sheep   and   goats   by   their   real   essences,   that   are   unknown   to   him,   may   be   pleased   to   try   his   skill   in   those   species   called   cassiowary   and   querechinchio;   and   by   their   internal   real   essences   determine  the  boundaries  of  those  species,  without  knowing  the  complex  idea  of  sensible   qualities  that  each  of  those  names  stand  for,  in  the  countries  where  those  animals  are  to  be   found.”   Essay , III.vi.9
Does Locke offer any arguments that have any force against the ‘new essentialism’ of Kripke and Putnam? Or are his arguments not really so convincing?
Notice that Locke’s main claim is that we cannot mean by a kind-word the real essence for that kind because we don’t know what it is . He repeatedly supports this by urging that we must sort or distinguish things by their nominal essences . That may well be true, but it doesn’t establish his central contention. Note how he runs these two things together:
“Nor  indeed  can  we  rank  and  sort  things,  and  consequently  (which  is  the  end  of  sorting)   denominate  them,  by  their  real  essences;  because  we  know  them  not.”
But they are to be distinguished. For a criterion or way of telling that something is of kind K may very well not be the same as what it is for something to be of kind K.
For example, it may be that the best way for an ornithological observer of telling whether a bird is a male thrush or a female thrush is by the colour of its plumage. But, clearly enough, what makes a male thrush male and a female thrush female is not the respective colours of their plumage, no matter how reliably that feature is correlated with sex in thrushes.
Locke’s Essay III.vi
; III.ix (esp. §12), III.x.
Mackie, J.L. Problems from Locke , ch.3
Atherton, M. The inessentiality of Lockean essences, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1984),
277-93. Reprinted in V. Chappell ed, Locke , Oxford Readings: 1998.
Ayers, M. 1991. Locke Volume II: Ontology , Part I
Kripke, S. (1970) ‘Naming and necessity’, in G. Harman & D. Davidson eds., Semantics of
Natural Language. Reprinted as Naming and Necessity , Blackwell: 1980.
Putnam, H. (1975) ‘The meaning of “meaning”’, in K. Gunderson ed., Language, Mind and
Knowledge . Reprinted in Putnam’s Mind, Language and Reality , pp.215-71
Smith, A.D. ‘Natural Kind Terms: A Neo-Lockean Theory’, European Journal of Philosophy 13
(2005), pp.70-88.
20

21

Brief biographical notes
1704: Berkeley graduated at Trinity College, Dublin (in year Locke died)
1707-13 and 1721-4: Resident in Trinity College as a Fellow, holding various offices and appointments (e.g., as Librarian, as Junior Dean, as Lecturer in Greek, and in Hebrew, and in
Divinity, as Senior Proctor)
1726: His youngest brother, Thomas, was condemned to death for bigamy. It is not known whether the sentence was carried out. (See A.A. Luce, The Life of George Berkeley , Nelson:
London, 1949, p.27 and p.185)
1734-52: In Ireland as Bishop of Cloyne
1709 An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision
1710 A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
1713 Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
1721 De Motu
1732 Alciphron
1734 The Analyst
1744 Siris
22

Berkeley maintained that material substance does not exist and that the things we recognize as ordinary objects are all, in fact, nothing but collections of ideas. As he put it, to be is to be perceived or to be a perceiver — esse est percipi aut percipere . Although Berkeley claimed to be a defender of common sense (and also an opponent of scepticism and atheism ), most people are convinced his idealism is inconsistent with common sense belief in the independent and continuous existence of objects. However, it isn’t as easy to prove this, as you might at first suppose.
The Main Argument?
What may be regarded as his main argument for immaterialism is presented in very compressed form in para.4 of PHK :
“It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But, with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For, what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations? and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these , or any combination of them, should exist unperceived?”
Unpacking the rhetorical questions, we get the following argument:
1) Ordinary objects are things we perceive.
2) The only things we perceive are ideas .
3) So, ordinary objects are (collections of) ideas. [from 1) and 2)]
4) Ideas cannot exist unperceived, or outside a mind.
5) So, objects cannot exist unperceived, or outside a mind. [from 3) and 4)]
In The Principles of Human Knowledge he did little to defend the crucial premise 2) in this argument — presumably supposing that other readers of Locke would be prepared to accept it.
He did, however, argue for it at some length in the first of the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous .
Berkeley’s ‘Master Argument’
You should also take a look at the remarkable argument of paragraph 23 of PHK (an argument also repeated in the Three Dialogues ):
“But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and nobody by to perceive them. I answer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it. ... But do not you yourself perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is nothing to the purpose: ... it does not shew that you can conceive it possible the objects of your thought may exist without the mind. To make out this, it is necessary that you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy. ...”
This has been called Berkeley’s ‘Master Argument’ because he himself says “I am content to put the whole upon this issue” (PHK para.22). There seems to be something very tricky or sophistical about this argument. But what exactly is wrong with it?
23

PHK , paras. 1-24, paras. 34-40, paras. 45-55.
Berkeley, G. Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous , First Dialogue
Russell, B. History of Western Philosophy , London: Allen & Unwin, 1946, Bk III, ch XVI
Warnock, G.J. [1953] Berkeley , ch 6
Cummins, P.D. ‘Berkeley’s likeness principle’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 4 (1966). Reprinted in C.B. Martin & D.M. Armstrong eds, Locke and Berkeley: a collection of critical essays , London:
Macmillan, 1968, pp.353-63.
Gallois, A. ‘Berkeley’s Master Argument’, Philosophical Review 83 (1974), pp.55-69.
Bennett, J. Locke, Berkeley and Hume: central themes , Oxford: Clarendon, ch VI
Tipton, I.C. Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism , London: Methuen, 1974, ch 2 & ch 5
Grayling, A.C. Berkeley: The Central Arguments , London: Duckworth, 1986, ch 2
Issues for Discussion
•
Is Berkeley a defender of common sense against philosophical extravagance?
•
How should Hylas have responded to Philonous?
“ Phil . ... Take here in brief my meaning. It is evident that the things I perceive are my own ideas, and that no idea can exist unless it be in a mind. Nor is it less plain that these ideas, or things by me perceived, either themselves or their archetypes, exist independently of my mind, since I know myself not to be their author, it being out of my power to determine at pleasure, what particular ideas I shall be affected with upon opening my eyes or ears. They must therefore exist in some other mind, whose will it is they should be exhibited to me. ... From all which I conclude, there is a mind which affects me every moment with all the sensible impressions I perceive . And from the variety, order, and manner of these, I conclude the author of them to be wise, powerful, and good, beyond comprehension . ...
“ Hyl . I think I understand you very clearly; and own the proof you give of a Deity seems no less evident, than it is surprising.”
Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous , Second Dialogue
A standard view of the place of God in Berkeley’s philosophy has been that, according to Berkeley, God sustained the continued existence of the world. This view would have Berkeley arguing as follows:
♦
Objects exist when not perceived by humans or other finite spirits.
♦
But objects cannot exist unperceived. — — —
♦
Therefore, they must be perceived (or be in the mind of) some other non-human (and nonfinite?) spirit.
One problem with this argument is that it is not clear how Berkeley could have thought himself entitled to its first premise. How could he know objects exist when he and other people are not perceiving them?
Jonathan Bennett has suggested we can find in Berkeley’s texts another, quite different argument for
God’s existence which is not open to this objection. I will be suggesting a third (and novel) interpretation of the argument, as presented in Botterill, 2007.
Mabbott, J.D.‘The place of God in Berkeley’s philosophy’, Journal of Philosophical Studies 6, 1931, 18-
29.
Bennett, J. 1965. ‘Berkeley and God’, Philosophy 40, 1965, 207-21.
Furlong, E.J. ‘Berkeley and the tree in the quad’, Philosophy 41, 1966, pp. 400-408.
(All reprinted in C.B. Martin & D.M. Armstrong eds, Locke and Berkeley: a collection of critical essays ,
London: Macmillan, 1968, pp. 364-79, 380-99, & 400-408.)
Bennett, J. Locke, Berkeley and Hume: central themes , Oxford: Clarendon, ch VII .
24

Tipton, I. ‘Descartes’ demon and Berkeley’s world’, Philosophical Investigations 15, 1992, pp.111-130.
Botterill, G. ‘God and First Person in Berkeley’, Philosophy 82, 2007, pp.87-114.
Issues for Discussion
•
How can Berkeley be confident that objects exist when not perceived by humans?
•
Is Berkeley’s God just a benevolent version of Descartes’ Demon?
25

26

27

DAVID  HUME
Major  Publications
1739
Bk I Of the Understanding; Bk II Of the Passions
1740
Bk III Of Morals; Appendix
1740
: Copy rediscovered in
1933; authorship by Hume is probable, but not absolutely certain.
1748
( originally
)
[often referred to as ‘the first Enquiry’]
1752
[often referred to as ‘the second Enquiry’]
1754-62
1777
1779
‘Hume possessed powers of a very high order; but regard for truth formed no part of his character. ... His mind, too, was completely enslaved by a taste for literature ... that literature which, without regard for truth or utility, seeks only to excite emotion.’ John
Stuart Mill
Hume has a very distinctive, mannered, and highly polished style of writing. He was a professional author and wrote in order to attract a wide readership. In fact, he wasn’t at all successful with the Treatise , the early work usually regarded as his philosophical masterpiece. (Though note that Hume himself rated the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals his best work.)
Hume’s cleverness and quick-wittedness are readily apparent in everything he wrote. But you need to be on your guard against Hume’s irony — he often prefers to say the very reverse of what he actually means.
Hume’s desire for literary fame, which he frankly acknowledged in his autobiography, has sometimes been held against him and used as grounds for questioning his sincerity , in the way J.S. Mill does in the quotation above. However, I suggest these accusations of insincerity and of writing merely for effect fail to do justice to Hume. His philosophical views are, after all, pretty uncompromising and it would be a more fitting judgement to say that he erred on the side of being too thorough-going in his empiricism.
There was one area in which Hume was — quite deliberately — less than straight with his readers, and that was religious belief. There can be little doubt that
Hume was actually an atheist. He wanted to defend atheism, but not in such a way as to attract all the controversy and trouble that might ensue, and so he had to conceal his atheism as a hidden message, decipherable by his more acute readers, but not presented in such a way as to offend the faithful. See the First Enquiry Sections X-XI;

and of course the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , in which it is surely Philo, the philosopher, who is speaking for Hume.
‘In the Age of Reason, Hume set himself apart as a systematic anti-rationalist. Most of what passes for knowledge, he taught, is not achieved by the faculty of reason but by custom and habit; and most knowledge is not perfectly certain but, at best, probable.
The realm of reason is, therefore, restricted to the relations of ideas, as in pure logic and pure mathematics, and it is only in that realm that absolute certainty is achievable.
All other knowledge belongs to the realm of matter of fact: “all our reasonings in the conduct of life”; “all our belief in history”; “all philosophy, excepting only geometry and arithmetic.” And all our knowledge of matter of fact is determined by our inference from cause to effect. This relation, then, provides the key to the remainder of the Treatise , and is the only idea extensively treated in the Abstract .’
Mossner, E.C., The Life of David Hume , Oxford: 1980, pp.126-7
1 Sceptical Naturalism
Hume is a sceptic, of sorts. His position is sometimes referred to as sceptical naturalism or naturalistic scepticism . What this amounts to is that, in the case of whole classes of belief that we ordinarily take for granted, Hume agrees with the sceptic that we cannot provide any adequate justification for our beliefs. But this does not have the significant implications one might suppose, because it is a purely academic or philosophical result . There would be no use proclaiming: “These beliefs are unjustified, so we ought to abandon them”. For belief itself is a natural phenomenon . So it is not to be commanded by philosophical argument. We may find that there is no answer to sceptical arguments. But that doesn’t mean that we will stop believing in the continued existence of external objects: we just can’t help believing .
See, for example, the following passages:—
The opening paragraph of THN I.IV.II:
“We  may  well  ask,   What  causes  induce  us  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  body?
but
‘tis  in  vain  to  ask,   Whether  there  be  body  or  not?
That  is  a  point,  which  we  must   take  for  granted  in  all  our  reasonings.”   and also:
“The   Cartesian   doubt,   therefore,   were   it   ever   possible   to   be   attained   by   any   human   creature   (as   it   plainly   is   not)   would   be   entirely   incurable;   and   no   reasoning   could   ever   bring   us   to   a   state   of   assurance   and  conviction   upon   any   subject.”   EHU XII Part I
Hume’s sceptical naturalism is sometimes admired. It seems a subtle position.
But is it really coherent? Above all, is Hume’s overall position coherent? For surely he is engaging in reasoning with the purpose of affecting the beliefs that he and his readers hold. This would seem to presuppose that reasoning, philosophical or otherwise, is not entirely powerless to influence belief.
2 Aggressive Empiricism
Hume uses his empiricism in a strikingly more aggressive way than Locke did. In the
Treatise , at least, Hume’s fundamental principle is:
‘ No idea without an antecedent impression.
’
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[NB: — It also appears in Hume’s texts in the form of various corollaries, e.g.: ‘If you cannot point out any such impression , you may be certain you are mistaken, when you imagine you have any such idea.
’]
Hume insists that a word is only meaningful if there is some idea that it stands for. This, of course, was also Locke’s official doctrine ( Essay BkIII). But Locke was apt to be more easily satisfied that there was such an idea. Using his distinction between impressions and ideas Hume demands that we be able to track an idea back to its source in our impressions. If we can’t do that, he concludes that the word lacks meaning; or perhaps (cf. causation and necessary connection) that we are in error about what it really means.
His arguments for the fundamental principle — no idea without an antecedent impression — are:
1) For every simple idea there is a simple impression. Since ideas never come first, impressions must produce ideas rather than vice versa .
2) If you cannot have impressions, you cannot have the corresponding ideas. This is shown by the cases of those who are blind and deaf — and, in general, by any case of experiential deprivation or limitation (cf. the taste of pineapple).
Does Hume confuse genetic questions with analytic questions? This has been a familiar objection to his whole procedure, and it has been urged with particular force by Bennett . However, it should be pointed out that the criticism seems less pertinent if one considers that Hume conceives himself to be engaged in psychology rather than the development of a theory of meaning.
2.1 Distinguishing Impressions from Ideas
It is often remarked that in Descartes, Locke and Berkeley any appearance of the term
‘idea’ is dogged by a percept/concept ambiguity. (As if the very same sort of mental objects could be passively received in perception and actively manipulated in thought and imagination.) Hume does at least attempt to draw a distinction that might avoid this ambiguity:
“All  the  perceptions  of  the  human  mind  resolve  themselves  into  two  distinct   kinds,  which  I  shall  call  IMPRESSIONS  and  IDEAS.” (THN, I.I.I, first sentence)
Now, it might be possible to draw such a distinction in an external way by saying that impressions and ideas have different causal histories, or different relations to other states, or different functions. But this is not Hume’s way. He tries to give an internal, psychological criterion:
“The  difference  betwixt  these  consists  in  the  degrees  of  force  and  liveliness  with   which   they   strike   upon   the   mind,   and   make   their   way   into   our   thought   or   consciousness.  Those  perceptions,  which  enter  with  most  force  and  violence,  we   name   impressions   ...     By   ideas   I   mean   the   faint   images   of   these   in   thinking   and   reasoning...”
So, in general, ideas are copies of impressions . Of course, there is the usual empiricist wrinkle concerning simple and complex ideas to be considered, so that
Hume’s version of Locke’s doctrine that we are incapable of originating such a thing as a single simple idea is:
“...   That   all   our   simple   ideas   in   their   first   appearance   are   deriv’d   from   simple   impressions,   which   are   correspondent   to   them,   and   which   they   exactly   represent.”
He attempts to support this general empiricist theory about the mental contents available with a couple of points:
1) The developmental claim that in children impressions must precede ideas (‘To give a child an idea of scarlet or orange, of sweet or bitter, I present the objects...’)
30

2) Where perceptual faculties, and hence impressions are lacking (‘one born blind or deaf’), so are the corresponding ideas. And where we cannot have the appropriate impressions for other reasons, we are debarred from the ideas too: ‘We cannot form to ourselves a just idea of the taste of a pine-apple, without having actually tasted it.’
Is this good evidence for Hume’s theory concerning the derivation of ideas?
See J. Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes , ch.IX for critical comment.
Bennett: ‘Hume offers an empirical theory as though it were an a priori one; and the theory which he offers turns out to be largely irrelevant to the matters which he wants it to illuminate. ... The crucial trouble is that Hume's theory is genetic rather than analytic: he expresses it as a theory about what must occur before there can be understanding, rather than about what understanding is, or about what it is for an expression to have a meaning.’ (p.230)
Issues for Discussion:
Should we agree with Bennett's criticism?
Will ‘force and liveliness’ do as a mark to distinguish impressions from ideas?
2.2 A Counterexample? An Exception that Proves the Rule? : The Missing
Shade of Blue
“Suppose ... a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years, and to have become perfectly well acquainted with colours of all kinds, excepting one particular shade of blue, for instance, which it has never been his fortune to meet with. Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one, be plac’d before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest; 'tis plain, that he will perceive a blank, where that shade is wanting, and will be sensible that there is a greater distance in that place betwixt the contiguous colours, than in any other.”
References:
Treatise I.I.I;
Enquiry II & III;
J. Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume , ch.IX
THN I.I.I
3 The Treatise (Bk I) and the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
There are some significant differences:
• The Enquiry is better organized and easier reading
• The Treatise’s ambition to be the ‘Newton of Moral Science’ is dropped
• The more metaphysical and/or problematic parts of THN — in particular I.IV.II
(Belief in the continued and independent existence of objects) and I.IV.VI
(Personal identity) — are omitted
It is a moot point whether the Enquiry should be regarded as just a simpler presentation, designed to appeal to a wider audience; or whether Hume actually changed his mind about some of the more difficult topics in the Treatise (such as
I.IV.II and I.IV.VI). We will directly compare Hume’s parallel discussions of ‘liberty and necessity’ (or free will and determinism ) in Treatise II.III.I-II and Enquiry VIII.
Hume  on  personal  identity
31

“... I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. ... The mind is a kind of theatre where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different; whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity.” THN I.IV.VI
In I.IV.VI of the Treatise Hume attempts to explain away our belief in the continued existence of persons as a mistake that results from confounding a series of changing perceptions with a continuously existing self. This abandonment of personal identity appears somewhat less startling when one compares I.IV.VI with I.IV.II and realizes that Hume does not acknowledge the genuine existence of any continuants at all.
There is a suspicion that in I.IV.VI Hume was guilty of the gross error of demanding that identity requires exact similarity over time — e.g., when he says "We have a distinct idea of an object, that remains invariable and uninterrupted thro' a suppos'd variation of time; and this idea we call that of identity or sameness ." Is there something of more worth than this in his account of personal identity? Or was he only too right when he confessed in the Appendix "I am sensible, that my account is very defective"?
Hume THN , I.IV.II & I.IV.VI
Appendix , pp.633-6 in Selby-Bigge
Bennett, J . 1971. LBH , ch XIII
Penelhum, T.
1955 Hume on personal identity, Philosophical Review LXIV, 571-89.
Reprinted in Chappell VC ed, Hume , 213-39.
Pears, D.
1990. Hume’s System , chs 8-9
Cummins, P.D.
1973. Hume’s disavowal of the Treatise , Philosophical Review
LXXXII, 371-9
Haugeland, J.
1998. Hume on personal identity. In J. Haugeland, Having Thought ,
(Harvard UP, 1998), pp.63-71.
Broackes, J. 2002. Hume, belief, and personal identity. In P. Millican ed., Reading
Hume on Human Understanding , Oxford: Clarendon, 2002, pp.187-210
Issues for Discussion
• Is what Hume has to say about personal identity a natural consequence of his treatment of the continued existence of any object over time?
• To judge from what he wrote in the Appendix to the Treatise Hume seems to have been dissatisfied with his treatment of personal identity. Should he have been?
For many this will be the most important of all Hume’s contributions to the history of philosophy. It is one of the most heavily discussed topics in philosophy. So inductive
32

reasoning also gets discussed on a number of other courses in the Department — e.g.
Knowledge, Justification & Doubt in the first year and Philosophy of Science in the first and third years.
Indeed, Hume’s problem has sometimes been held to reveal a limitation in the whole empiricist programme, on the grounds that one thing which cannot be learnt from experience is that past experience will be a reliable guide to the course of future experience .
A standard way of introducing ‘the problem of induction’ is to say that any inference from the observed to the unobserved must involve a sort of inductive leap or is
“ampliative” (i.e., in the conclusion something is added which is not given in the premises). So inductive reasoning (even though we constantly rely upon it) is not valid by the standards of deductive logic, since one can deny the conclusion while asserting the premises of such reasoning without formal contradiction. But if that is so, then the question can be raised of what makes it rational to believe the conclusions of inductive inferences?
(This modern formulation of the problem of induction only gives a part of Hume’s argument that inductive inferences cannot be rationally justified, which takes the form of a dilemma. See Millican’s paper below for an extremely careful reconstruction.)
There have been many subsequent attempts to justify inductive inference (too many for us to survey them all). Hume himself thought that we just have to accept that there are some beliefs which we are so constituted that we are bound to form them, even if we cannot justify them.
But I will suggest that the problem of induction has been radically misconceived because philosophers have not questioned Hume’s characterisation of how inductive reasoning actually works. (Note that in fact Hume himself talks about ‘the inference from the impression to the idea’, rather than ‘inductive reasoning’.)
Hume THN , I.III.VI ‘Of the inference from the impression to the idea’
Hume EHU , Sect.IV & Sect.V Pt.I
Hume ?? The Abstract
Russell, B . 1912. The Problems of Philosophy , ch 6
Strawson, P.F
. 1952. An Introduction to Logical Theory , ch 9.II.
Popper, K.R
. 1972. Objective Knowledge , ch 1
Swinburne, R.
ed. The Justification of Induction (contains the chapter from Russell and also Paul Edwards’ paper on ‘Russell's doubts about induction’)
Stove, D.C. 1965. Hume, probability, and induction. Philosophical Review 74, pp.160-77 (reprinted in V.C. Chappell ed, Hume , pp.187-212)
Millican, P.
2002. Hume’s sceptical doubts concerning induction. In P. Millican ed.,
Reading Hume on Human Understanding , Oxford: Clarendon, 2002, pp.107-173
Issues for Discussion
(but not for examination on this module)
• Have Strawson and Edwards shown that the Problem of Induction is a “pseudoproblem”?
33

• Has Popper solved Hume’s Problem of Induction?
Hume has standardly been taken to be the founder of the Regularity Theory of
Causation — i.e., the view that there is nothing more to causation than a certain regularity of succession between cause-type and effect-type events. This interpretation of Hume has recently been challenged by several writers — particularly Galen
Strawson, in his The Secret Connexion . Strawson makes some interesting points, but as I argued in my review of his book ( Philosophical Books 1990, pp.203-5), he does not succeed in making a convincing case against the standard interpretation. The most interesting question, then, still remains the philosophical one: is there more to causation than regularity of succession? The answer to this question will have a wide impact within philosophy, since so many other concepts can be argued to involve a causal component (e.g. perception, memory, action).
Hume EHU , sec. VII
Hume THN , I.III esp. secs. II, VI, XIV
Bennett, J.
1971. LBH , chs XI & XII
Robinson, J.A.
1962. Hume’s two definitions of “cause”, Philosophical Quarterly
XII, 162-71. Reprinted in Chappell VC ed, Hume .
Ducasse, C.J.
1966. Critique of Hume’s conception of causality, Journal of
Philosophy LXIII, 141-8.
Mackie, J.L.
1974. The Cement of the Universe , ch 1 ‘Hume’s Account’, pp.4-28.
Strawson, G .1989. The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism, and David Hume ,
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Pears, D . 1990. Hume’s System , chs 5-7
Carroll, J.
1990 The Humean tradition, Philosophical Review XCIX, 185-219
Craig, E.
2002. The idea of necessary connexion. In P. Millican ed., Reading Hume on Human Understanding , Oxford: Clarendon, 2002, pp.211-29
Strawson, G.
2002. David Hume: objects and power. In P. Millican ed., Reading
Hume on Human Understanding , Oxford: Clarendon, 2002, pp.231-57
Read, R. & Richman, K.A
. eds. 2000. The New Hume Debate , Routledge.
Issues for Discussion
• Discuss Hume’s critique of ‘necessary connexion’.
• ‘... necessity is something that exists in the mind, not in objects...’ (Hume). Give a critical assessment of the argument Hume advances for this conclusion.
• Is a Regularity Theory of Causation defensible?
• Is it a distortion to regard Hume’s treatment of causation as the first version of the
Regularity Theory?
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“I hope, therefore, to make it appear that all men have ever agreed in the doctrine both of necessity and of liberty, according to any reasonable sense, which can be put on these terms; and that the whole controversy, has hitherto turned merely upon words.”
EHU VIII
In both the Treatise (II.III.I-II) and section VIII of the Enquiry Hume attempts to persuade his readers of what he calls ‘the doctrine of necessity’ — what we would term determinism . He is quite convinced that there is no such thing in the world as
‘chance’; any instance in which we might be tempted to think that there is, is just a case in which we are ignorant of the causes at work.
There is, however, an apparently striking difference between the two treatments. In the terminology that William James was later to introduce, Hume appears to be a hard determinist in the Treatise and a soft determinist in Enquiry VIII.
This change is actually not too difficult to explain. In the Treatise Hume says that because everything is caused there is no such thing as ‘liberty’, whereas in the
Enquiry he commits himself to the reconciling project of showing that there can be both ‘liberty’ and universal causation (‘necessity’). The change is just a change in what he means by ‘liberty’: in the Treatise he had understood ‘liberty’ to signify absence of causation . He never wavers from the view that there is no liberty in this sense . In both works he is also insistent that causal determinism — so far from undermining morality — is a fundamental requirement for our moral attitudes towards agents, because it is only in so far as actions are reliably caused by traits of agents’ characters that the agents themselves can be appropriately held to account.
Overall, then, Hume is definitely a compatibilist . This is, of course, the standard view. However, it is also thought that Hume originated an argument (which I call the Contrastive Argument ) later to be found in other compatibilist philosophers — notably Mill, Schlick, and Ayer. But I argue that this is not so, and that in fact the
Contrastive Argument is (for good reasons) not to be found in Hume.
Botterill, G. 2002. Hume on Liberty and Necessity. In P. Millican ed., Reading Hume on Human Understanding , Oxford: Clarendon, 2002, pp.277-300. Also:-
Ayer, A.J.
1954. Philosophical Essays (London: Macmillan).
Hobart, R.E.
1934. ‘Free Will as Involving Determination and Inconceivable
Without It’, Mind XLIII, pp.1-27.
Penelhum, T.
1975. Hume , (London: Macmillan).
Russell, P.
1983. ‘On the Naturalism of Hume’s “Reconciling Project”’, Mind XCII, pp. 593-600.
Russell, P.
1988. ‘Causation, Compulsion, and Compatibilism’, American
Philosophical Quarterly 25, pp. 313-21.
Schlick, M.
1939. Problems of Ethics , translated by D. Rynin (New York: Prentice-
Hall).
Stroud, B.
1977. Hume , (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul)
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Is acting freely just a matter of not being subject to coercion and constraint?
In Section X of the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding Hume argues that, on balance of probability, we should always reject any reports of allegedly miraculous occurrences. This argument is interesting in itself, and also interesting for a topic too rarely addressed in epistemology — namely, what justification we have for accepting beliefs on the testimony of other people.
Here is the kernel of Hume’s argument:
‘A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country.
There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.
The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), “that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.” When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.’
EHU  X
Broad, C.D.
1916. Hume’s theory of the credibility of miracles. Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society XVII, pp.77-94
Flew, A.
1959. Hume’s check. Philosophical Quarterly 9, pp.1-18
Swinburne, R.
1970. The Concept of Miracle , Macmillan
Coady, C.A.J.
1973. Testimony and observation. American Philosophical Quarterly
10, pp.149-55
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Gaskin, J.C.A.
1978. Hume’s Philosophy of Religion (London: Macmillan), ch.8.
Hambourger, R. 1980. Belief in miracles and Hume’s Essay. Nous 14, pp.587-604
Mackie, J.L. 1982. The Miracle of Theism , Oxford: Clarendon, ch.1
Sobel, J.H.
1987. On the evidence of testimony for miracles: a Bayesian reconstruction of David Hume’s analysis. Philosophical Quarterly 37, pp.166-86.
Garrett, D.
1997. Cognition and Commitment in Hume’s Philosophy (Oxford UP), ch.7.
Garrett, D. 2002. Hume on testimony concerning miracles. In P. Millican ed.,
Reading Hume on Human Understanding , Oxford: Clarendon, 2002, pp.301-34
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How should ‘miracle’ be defined?
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Is Hume’s main argument consistent with his inductive scepticism?
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Is evidence from testimony subordinate to evidence from experience?
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