DAVID HUME AND THE CRITIQUE OF MAINSTREAM WESTERN RATIONALITY
DAVID HUME AND THE CRITIQUE OF MAINSTREAM WESTERN RATIONALITY

Summary/Abstract: Hume has offered a substantive critique of classic rationalism and his objections to the mainstream principles of rationality are often very convincing. But do they amount to a set of sufficient reasons for abandoning the mainstream ideal of rationality for a new, empiricist and conservative, one? I shall argue that Hume’s approach, as defended by Donald Livingston in his famous book Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium, appears to be both promising and (still) much too tentative, insufficiently articulated and vague. On one hand, Hume’s arguments detect correctly many intellectualist errors, but, on the other hand, the suggestions made for replacing the mainstream ideal of rationality with something new are not developed and clarified enough to be convincing.

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