Was Hume a Skeptic?

Vasilyev V.
First pub. in: Вестник Московского университета. Серия 7: Философия; Номер: 6, — 2014.

In this paper I argue against a common opinion, according to which Hume believed that it is impossible to defeat skepticism theoretically, and, consequently, that he was a true skeptic. I try to show that Hume believed in the possibility of reconciling contradictions in our knowledge, and that during all of his life he struggled to avoid real skepticism. At the end of this paper I consider the “mitigated skepticism”, which Hume approved, and briefly discuss his positive methodology.