Abstract

David Hume's theoretical philosophy was long dominated by the interpretation of him as a skeptical empiricist as found in the writings of Read, Beattie, Green etc. Although this has changed substantially the last half-century – especially with the advent of the «New Hume Debate» – there is much work that remains to be done, especially in regard to his analysis of causal induction. In this essay I argue that Hume's analysis of, and arguments surrounding, causal induction should not be read as an attempt at doing skeptical metaphysics and/or epistemology, but rather as an early form of cognitive psychology. I argue this thesis in three steps. In the first two sections I analyze Hume's account of his general and more specific project in the Treatise and the first Enquiry and show that Hume takes himself to be doing empirical and experimental psychology. I then turn to Hume's specific argumentation concerning causal induction, where I show that rather than establishing a skeptical position, his arguments prefigure contemporary poverty of stimulus-arguments for innate cognitive mechanisms unexplainable by general-purpose means, and that he can fruitfully be situated along other Scottish thinkers in advancing an early conception of the Duplex Mind.