Hume and ancient scepticism

Abstract

I propose a comparison between David Hume and the ancient forms of scepticism. An apropriate historical mold to understand Hume's scepticism is Academic Sceptic Philosophy. A historical analysis shows that, in fact, there exist certain, important similarities between Hume and Carneades. Nevertheless, there is a false clue on the strongest proximity point between these two philosophers, probabilism from one of them, and probabilism from the other one. The closeness between Humean believing and Carneadean believing turns out to be suspicious also. Pyrrhonism provides another apropriate hitorical mold. Hume's probabilism, included in his theory of causality, is closely related to the Pyrrhonic doctrine of commemorative sign. Other points of proximity between Hume and Sextus Empriricus are: the idea of following Nature; the defense of common life, non-dogmatic beliefs, and the empirical origin of our thoughts. As Humean scepticism, Pyrrhonic scepticism is a form of empiricism. In the face of this state of affairs, it only remains to conclude that the latter is quite similar in many aspects to academic scepticism. And Humean scepticism is quite close to Pyrrhonism also.