Justifying Hume's Epistemology

This monograph situates itself in the debate between the sceptical and the naturalistic interpretations of Hume. While the traditional debate regarding this issue has focused on the tensions between Hume's scepticism and his naturalism, I argue that this has somewhat ignored the tensions between the two and Hume's positive epistemology (i.e. an epistemology that investigates and establishes the justification for our beliefs). Naturalism threatens to preclude any positive epistemology, and scepticism threatens to reduce it to emptiness, eliminating the possibility of drawing any meaningful normative distinctions. In short, the tension between Hume's naturalism and scepticism can be expanded to include a third party: his epistemology.;The first part of the thesis resolves tensions between Hume's naturalism and his epistemology; the second part of this work resolves tensions between Hume's scepticism and his positive epistemology; and the monograph closes with a case study of Hume's infamous argument on induction, arguing that it perfectly exemplifies all three aspects of Hume's philosophy. By reconciling Hume's positive epistemology with both his naturalism and scepticism, the monograph likewise reconciles Hume's naturalism with his scepticism. In arguing that naturalism allows for a positive epistemology, the project also allows for a negative epistemology, i.e. scepticism; in arguing that Hume's positive epistemology defeats excessive scepticism, the project thereby justifies Hume's naturalism as well as his positive epistemology in the face of his scepticism.