Hume's Difficulty

Donald L. M. Baxter is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut.

• Introduction 1. Interpreting Hume as Metaphysician and Sceptic 2. Moments and Durations 3. Steadfast Objects 4. Identity 5. Representing Personal Identity 6. Hume’ Difficulty about Identity

"It is no wonder that the main approaches to so many central philosophical topics—from causation to motivation, from concepts to morals—include one often dubbed "Humeanism" about the topic; for Hume brought both originality and penetration to almost every philosophical issue he addressed. Until the work of Donald Baxter, however, the originality and penetration of Hume’s accounts of time and identity were rarely appreciated. Indeed, as Hume’s Difficulty: Time and Identity in the Treatise makes clear, a long line of distinguished commentators has systemically misunderstood them." --Don Garrett (New York University)"Clearly and cogently reasoned, every chapter contains a challenging treatment of often neglected doctrines of Treatise, Book I. Above all, the book offers what is, to my mind, the best available interpretation of Hume’s perplexing theory of the structure of time. Moreover, the work clearly shows that this notion of time is inseparable from Hume’s account of the genesis of the idea of identity, and through that, belief in the continued existence of body, material and immaterial substances, and personal identity. The book also proposes an innovative and attractive interpretation of the flaw in the account of belief in personal identity recorded in the Appendix. It has made me rethink all of these topics and changed my mind on more than one of them." --Martha Brandt Bolton (Rutgers University)