NDPR Scott Stapleford and Verena Wagner (eds.) Hume and Contemporary Epistemology

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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2025.09.7 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews

Scott Stapleford and Verena Wagner (eds.), Hume and Contemporary Epistemology, Routledge, 2025, 346pp., $144.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781032495026.

Reviewed by Bridger Ehli, Indiana University Bloomington

The traditional story of the development of modern philosophy is a good, if inaccurate, story not least because it finds a compelling antagonist in the figure of Hume. According to that story, the importance of Hume’s philosophy lies in his development of a boundless skepticism in the guise of a science of human nature. In addition to clashing with our ordinary understanding of our epistemic position, this skepticism undermines his own more targeted contributions to normative epistemology, such as his arguments against the rationality of religious belief. It is only by later philosophers such as Kant and Reid, so the...