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Professor Don Baxter, "Assent in Sextus and Hume"

September 5, 2014
All Day
347 University Hall

Don Baxter is a Professor at the University of Connecticut.

Abstract: How is it possible for Hume to be both withering skeptic and constructive theorist? I recommend an answer like the Pyrrhonist answer to the question how it is possible to suspend all judgment yet engage in active daily life. As Frede explains, Sextus distinguishes two kinds of assent: one suspended across the board and one involved with daily living. The first--active endorsement--is an act of will based on appreciation of reasons; the second--passive acquiescence--is a causal effect of appearances. Hume, influenced by Cudworth, makes the same distinction between belief as an act ?of the cogitative part of our natures? and as an act of the ?sensitive? part, and extends the sort of assent involved in the Pyrrhonist?s daily life to theoretical matters as well. Hume is a skeptic in arguing both that active endorsement is never merited and that passive aquiescence cannot be avoided.