Hume and Contemporary Epistemology

Scott Stapleford is Professor of Philosophy at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, Canada. His publications for Routledge include Logic Works: A Rigorous Introduction to Formal Logic (with Lorne Falkenstein and Molly Kao, 2022), Hume’s Enquiry: Expanded and Explained (with Tyron Goldschmidt, 2021), Berkeley’s Principles: Expanded and Explained (with Tyron Goldschmidt, 2016), and three edited collections: Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles (with Kevin McCain and Matthias Steup, 2023), Epistemic Dilemmas: New Arguments, New Angles (with Kevin McCain and Matthias Steup, 2021), and Epistemic Duties: New Arguments, New Angles (with Kevin McCain, 2020).Verena Wagner is Professor of Philosophy of Mind at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. She works at the intersection of philosophy of mind and epistemology, focusing on the nature of mental states and attitudes involved in the process of making up one’s mind, particularly the suspension of judgement. Her publications include Agnosticism as Settled Indecision (2022, Philosophical Studies), and two articles in Routledge collections: Epistemic Dilemma and Epistemic Conflict (2021) and Zetetic Seemings and Their Role in Inquiry (2023). She is co-editor of the Routledge collection Suspension in Epistemology and Beyond (with Alexandra Zinke, 2025).

• Introductory Note Scott Stapleford and Verena Wagner Part I: Knowledge 1. A Humean–Practicalist Conception of Knowing Stephen Hetherington 2. Why Hume’s Notion of Demonstration Must Reduce to Probability: A Prelude to Quine Stefanie Rocknak Part II: Doxastic Attitudes 3. Hume on Pyrrhonian Scepticism and Suspension of Judgement Verena Wagner and Scott Stapleford Part III: Reason and Reasons 4. The Priority of Passive Reasoning Jonathan Cottrell 5. In Search of Hume’s Anti-Rationalism Karl Schafer 6. Hume and the Unity of Reasons Eva Schmidt Part IV: Scepticism 7. Signs, Wonders and Hume: From Humean Scepticism about Miracles and Reason to Contemporary Sceptical Hypotheses and Back Again Kevin Meeker 8. Avoiding the Unexpected Circuit: Humean Improvements on Standard “Cartesian” Skepticism Yuval Avnur Part V: Hinge Epistemology 9. Humean Skepticism and Entitlement Santiago Echeverri 10. Hume and Wittgenstein on Naturalism and Scepticism Duncan Pritchard Part VI: Naturalized Epistemology 11. The Advancement of Naturalized Epistemology: Reflections on Hume, Quine and Anderson Angela M. Coventry Part VII: Modal Epistemology 12. Conceivability as the Standard of Metaphysical Possibility Miren Boehm Part VIII: Moral Epistemology 13. Hume, Deontological Epistemology, and an Ethics of Belief Qu Hsueh 14. Natural and Artificial Epistemic Virtues Sarah Wright 15. Humean Vice Epistemology: The Case of Prejudice Mark Collier Part IX: The Epistemology of Testimony 16. Hume and the Epistemology of Testimony Dan O’Brien

“This valuable collection presents a more holistic picture of Hume’s epistemology, one that pays due attention to his skepticism without neglecting other, more constructive elements. In addition to providing many interpretive insights, the essays combine to make a powerful case that epistemologists can still benefit from thinking with Hume.”Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews