Towards a Copernican Reading of Hume

Abstract

Here is the suggestion that certain phenomena are made possible by the mind's activities rather than those activities being a mere attempt to copy the nature of an antecedently given reality. In particular, he seems to be suggesting that the concept of natural necessity (and derivatively the phenomenon of natural necessity) is made possible by certain very general facts of human nature. Granting the vagueness of these suggestions, I think they can be called without too much injustice to our philosophic intuitions about the sort of revolution Kant is credited with. This paper will argue that despite certain textual evidence to the contrary, the main thrust of Hume's outlook can be seen to point towards a Copernican view.