The World as Something Real and Durable

Abstract

AbstractHume’s theory of the external world deploys a complex background of cognitive gaps and operations of the imagination. Hume denies that sensible representation or causal reasoning give us the idea of external world. He proposes two accounts of how the imagination produces the idea of body, one based on the coherence of perceptions and on causal reasoning, the other based on the represented resemblance or constancy of perceptions. The two accounts are nested. The second is fundamental but beset with more difficulties, because it includes the problematic idea of identity and the corresponding, constitutive principles of the imagination. Our idea and belief of body do not achieve true cognitive stability. They take two forms, vulgar and philosophical, neither of which we can fully vindicate, even though the first is at least consistent. This makes the idea and belief of an external world, while non-negotiable, a source of scepticism.