Isaac Chan’s Reviews > An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding > Status Update

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reason and sustained intellectual activity. Indeed, this is the goal of a human life.

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in the Enquiry, anyway.

I am surprised that the Academic (NeoPlatonists) became sceptics - was Plato himself a sceptic? My read is that although Plato was definitely wary on asserting certainty on most subjects, due to pure intellectual humility in the face of inherent complexity and nuance of many topics, it is also clear that a key tenet of his philosophy was that it is possible to know the Forms via ...

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camp. This is a helpful compass, although I still see problems in reconciling degrees-of-probability views with the philosophy that we cannot infer causation from past observations. I still see it as a cheap 'ploy' by Hume to maintain his atheism, as I outlined in my review of 'Of miracles', but I am willing to change my mind on this as I learn more. I will have a chance to revisit 'Of miracles' later on...

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Hume helpfully distinguishes between (and Millican, more helpfully, directs my attention to) Pyrrhonism and Academic scepticism. Millican explains that Pyrrhonism tilts more towards absolute scepticism (according to Millican!) whereas the Academics allowed for certain judgments being more PROBABLE than others, according to the evidence. Millican says that Hume ultimately places himself more in the latter...

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observations or samples. This strikes at the heart of 1 of my thoughts (as I outlined in my review of the 'Abstract') - I would love to see a modern econometrician respond to Hume.

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propositions are not logically joined - they require a medium (IF one is to hold that they are joined via reason, which Hume does not). My question is whether modern Humean research, or any rationalist philosophers after Hume, has shed any light on this medium.

Millican comments that Hume, understandably, does not mention statistical science as a form of reasoning to infer causation from past ...

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out to me that it is far from logical for the latter proposition to follow from the former.

Hume says that it is far from 'intuitive' for the latter proposition to logically follow. I get what he's saying, but I would like to query him on his choice of the word 'intuitive'. I do not wish to squabble over definitions, and in fact I think it is the mark of an unserious thinker to do so, but I would point...

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what is the foundation of experience?' '...... you mothafucka'

I now firmly understand the demarcation between the 2 propositions: 'Such and such effects have always been conjoined with such and such objects/ events', and 'Such and such effects will always follow from such and such objects/ events'. The latter is always inferred from the former, and in fact it is common sense to do so, but Hume points ...

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The agenda is clearer to me now, as to why we ask the central question 'Why do we hold that every object in existence must have a cause?' The ever-deeper probing of the foundation of our thought is clear: From 'What is the foundation of all our judgments concerning matters of fact?' 'Cause and effect.' 'Well then, what is the foundation of our judgments of cause and effect?' 'Experience.' 'Well then, ...

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interest, etc: and these concepts can help me succeed in the phenomenal world.