Imagination and Skepticism in the Treatise of the Human Nature:
An analysis on two readings about Hume's Sceptical Crisis
In the last section of the first book of Treatise of Human Nature (1.4.7) Hume assesses the results of his investigation until now and finds reasons to doubt the solidity of his philosophy. However, the passage contains interpretative difficulties of its own that lead two commenters, Garrett and Fogelin, to disagree over the assent of the author regarding the doubts and the status of his philosophy after the experience of the skeptical crisis on this section.
The objective of the present work is to discuss the causes of the skeptical crisis of 1.4.7 and its relation to the development of humean thought through the exposition of these interpretetations, one emphasizing the skeptical aspects and another mitigating it, of the same passage and its global consequences to the author’s philosophy. In the end, we would intend to judge which of the two brings forth the more adequate interpretation of humean thought, by focusing on the role of imagination.