“Nothing but Sophistry and Illusion”: Metaphysical Speculation before Hume

Hume’s situates his philosophy of common life in the broad context of ancient and modern treatments of human capacities. The Treatise contains an explicit discussion “Of the Antient Philosophy” and “Of the Modern Philosophy” (Book 1; Part IV; Sections III and IV, respectively), though his views on both permeate this Part and Book. The elements that concern Hume include how previous philosophers have accounted for the nature of matter, the intelligibility of nature, and explaining how or if people reliably sense matter. The most telling question concerns the reliability of the senses and the tendency of previous philosophers to entertain “skepticism with regard to the senses” (1.IV.II) because that is where human capacities intersect with the broader world. Previous thinkers provided an account of nature that allowed people to depend upon the accuracy of the senses or perhaps not to rely upon them. The previous accounts of first things require a penetration into the hidden recesses of nature and a showing of how people fit into that stream of nature (or do not). These are questions of metaphysics, a word of opprobrium for Hume (see, e.g., EHU 165, T 268). Hume criticizes these previous treatments to reveal the true sphere of human knowledge. He continues the work of “some late philosophers in England, who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing” (T xvii), yet he furthers and radicalizes this work to reveal a footing both less and more sure.