Hume on the Epistemological Status of Metaphysical Statements

Stanley Tweyman
Humanities and Graduate Philosophy, York University, Toronto, Ontario

Abstract

My paper examines critically the widespread view that Hume confines meaningful propositions to those which are analytic (a priori), and those which are synthetic empirical, thereby rejecting synthetic a priori propositions as meaningful. What I show is that Hume does recognize certain metaphysical synthetic a priori propositions as meaningful, thereby dispelling the traditional view that Hume rejects all synthetic a priori propositions as meaningful.

Presentation