A Humean Pattern of Justification

150. A HUMEAN PATTERN OF JUSTIFICATION Interpretations of Hume have tended to fall into two categories: naturalistic and sceptical. Those which fall into the former category see Hume as letting justification rest upon a system of natural beliefs which can neither be supported nor overthrown by reason. Those in the latter category see Hume's point as being essentially negative, that all attempts at justification either within or without a framework of natural belief are doomed. My aim in this paper is to argue that neither naturalistic nor sceptical interpretations do justice to Hume. Instead closer attention must ' be paid to a general pattern- of justification which Hume uses, a pattern which does not rely on "natural beliefs" and which, obviously, since it is a pattern of justification, is not sceptical. My approach will be to avoid either of these two extremes by concentrating on a pattern of justification which equates justification with rationality. However, in order to do this, it will be necessary, first of all, to provide some account of what Hume means by rationality, especially as concerns its connection with truth. As we shall see, Hume's notion of justification requires that some basis in the truth be provided whenever we believe something to be worthy of acceptance. Second, it will be necessary to introduce the factor of foundations. As I see it, a foundation, for Hume, is a mechanism or some component of a mechanism for the production of belief in epistemic areas or of evaluation in moral and aesthetic areas. The concept of foundation is an explanative, not a justificatory, notion. But, although all references to foundations are made for the purpose of explaining why someone has a certain belief or makes a certain 151 evaluation, some foundations in addition provide a basis for justifying a belief or evaluation. I My main contention is that, for Hume, all justification depends on a judgment's truth. Truth is the sole criterion of justification. Since truth lies at the base of Hume's practice of justification, some account of his views on it must be given. At the outset, it is vitally important to pay attention to the notions of truth and falsehood and the related notions of the truth-values, true and false. As I shall argue, when these terms function as part of Hume's semantic vocabulary, they serve to indicate what sorts of things can have a truth-value in the sense of having specifiable kinds of truth-conditions. On the other hand, when they function primarily as epistemic terms for Hume, they serve to indicate that the truthvalue of some item can be known or established. Consequently, Hume must first distinguish the semantic class of entities that are potential bearers of the truth-values "true" or "false", and then he must distinguish from among the members of this class those which have the epistemic status of having known truth or falsehood, i.e. , an ascertained truth-value. Let us, then, first consider Hume's semantics in order to find out what sorts of items he believes have truthvalues and what sorts of truth-conditions these items may have. In an important passage in the Treatise, Hume implicitly draws the distinction between the semantic and epistemic considerations mentioned above: Reason is the discovery of truth or falsehood. Truth or falsehood consists in an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact. Whatever, therefore, is not susceptible of this agreement or disagreement, is incapable of 152. being true or false, and can never he an object of our reason (T458). What sorts of things are incapable of this agreement or disagreement? Hume continues by. giving this reply: Now 'tis evident our passions, volitions, and actions, are not susceptible of any such agreement or disagreement; being original facts and realities, compleat in themselves, and implying no reference to other passions, volitions, and actions. 'Tis impossible, therefore , they can be pronounced either true or false, and be either contrary or conformable to reason (T458) . Hume obviously intends a contrast to be drawn between items which are original facts and realities and those which are not.These original...