Cathay Liu, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
“Descartes’ Priority of Geometry over Algebra”

    Descartes’ view of mathematics is different from contemporary views. Since the development of pure mathematics, it is not uncommon to believe that mathematical disciplines work with objects or concepts that have no direct spatial or geometrical interpretation. Various branches of mathematics have developed without concern for our geometrical intuitions. But Descartes’ mathematical views and practices seem to be the reverse of our current ones. Rather than find spatial interpretations for algebraic relations, Descartes gives our Euclidian spatial relations an algebraic representation. We do not now think, as Descartes’ did, that the geometry of space constrains the development of other mathematical realms.
    For Descartes, the significance of geometry outweighed the algebraic procedures he used to solve problems. Insofar as any algebra was to be used, its significance derived only from the geometrical interpretation that was given to the numeric quantities and the algebraic operations. Typical explanations of Descartes’ mathematical practice and emphasis on geometry dismiss the geometrical prominence of Descartes’ work. These accounts of Descartes’ attentiveness to geometric construction do not explain why he was so committed to the geometrical dominance over his algebraic methods, nor do they seek to find alternative explanations. Consequently, they miss not only Descartes’ epistemological reasons for the priority of geometry to algebra, but also the significant metaphysical identification of mathematical objects with matter. For example, in his “Descartes’ Project for a Mathematical Physics,” (1980), Gaukroger argues that the significance of Descartes’ mathematical work is that he managed to liberate abstract algebraic entities by giving them an existence of their own. The indeterminate content of algebraic objects in the intellect can be represented and made determinate in a variety of different ways, only one of which is geometrically. According to Gaukroger it is through the mediation of geometry that algebra is mapped onto the physical world. This is an important point in his interpretation because Gaukroger takes it to mean that the use of mathematics in physics does not in any way commit Descartes to the idea that physics in inherently mathematical.
    In contrast, I argue that Descartes’ view about the relationship between algebra and geometry is a direct result of his identification of matter as the subject of mathematics. For Descartes, mathematics concerns only the things that can be quantified. The only things that can be quantified, I argue, rely on being extended. In the case of geometry, the relations and proportions of extension are considered through any of the attributes of matter. The attributes of matter are the dimensions along which there can be some quantity (e.g., motion and length), and gives the particular object we are interested in quantifying. In the case of algebra, the relations of some particular quantities are considered. These quantities are what have been counted, measured, or determined along some specified dimension of extension (e.g., particular measures of speed and particular measures of length as determined though a given or arbitrarily specified unit measure). Specified dimensions of extension that allow for some quantity to be given are just the attributes of extension used in geometry. Both algebra and geometry are grounded in extension.
    I argue that because Descartes metaphysically grounds mathematics in extension in this way, geometry must be epistemologically prior to algebra. Geometry is prior to algebra because it is the mathematical discipline that makes the most fundamental distinctions of extended objects. It is only after these distinctions are made using some attribute of matter that a quantity along some dimension can be given.
    Grounding the priority of geometry to algebra in this metaphysical and epistemological framework has several advantages. The metaphysical view helps to delimit exactly what we have knowledge of when we are engaged in any type of mathematical activity. The epistemological view helps make clear the only difference between geometry and algebra. In fact, understanding what little metaphysical difference there is between geometry and algebra is the key to understanding why geometry is prior to algebra.

Andreea Mihali, Wilfrid Laurier University
“Cartesian Freedom”

    In the Cartesian corpus there are three main senses of freedom of the human will: freedom of spontaneity, freedom of indifference and freedom of perversity. [Descartes does not use the terms “freedom of spontaneity” and “freedom of perversity.” However, he does use the term “spontaneum” (AT IV, 175; CSMK 246). “Freedom of perversity” is a phrase Anthony Kenny coined to refer to the indifference that in the 1645 Letter to Mesland Descartes describes as “the positive power which we have to follow the worse although we see the better” (AT IV, 174; CSMK 245).] This paper inquires into Descartes’ reasons for using these three distinct types of freedom. I argue that Descartes needs a threefold concept of freedom because he works with two separate models of control, one based on the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) and another based on agent causation. Parts II and III will contain analyses of these two models of control while Part IV consists of concluding remarks.
    The first model of control Descartes works with makes access to alternative possibilities a condition for freedom of the will and is an incompatibilist position on free will. The Cartesian use of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities consists of being able to give or withhold assent to a perception of the intellect. Descartes is interpreted in this paper as saying that we can always choose otherwise; that our choice of whether or not to give or withhold our assent is not predetermined and that we are free. The Source model, mostly used in incompatibilist approaches, requires that the agent be the ultimate source of her actions: a necessary condition for action must originate with the agent. Source is the criterion Descartes uses to distinguish between different mental processes: (1) between ideas and volitions; (2) between different categories of ideas (innate, adventitious and invented); and (3) between authentic and inauthentic volitions.
    Descartes states in the Discourse that there is nothing that is truly in our power except our thoughts. This means that we are in control of our thoughts. Taking “control” in an incompatibilist Source way, we control our thoughts because a necessary condition for each and every one of our thoughts originates with us. There are three main aspects of a thought that are subject to our control: its occurrence, its content and the attitude we can take towards it. The occurrence and content of a thought fall under Source, while the occurrence of a thought and the attitude we can take towards it fall under PAP.
    PAP accounts for our role as decision-makers, while Source accounts for our role as accomplishers of our decisions: we cause a certain thought-the most obvious type of control involved is Source; we choose the attitude a certain thought contains the most obvious type of control involved is PAP; we cause a certain thought’s content-the most obvious type of control involved is Source. However, when we cause a certain thought, we could have abstained from so doing (PAP); when we choose an attitude, it is the agent who does the choosing so the thought originates with us, we are its Source; and finally, when we put together components of a new thought, we could have abstained from so doing or we could have opted for a different way of combining the elements involved (hence PAP).
    I argue that this interplay between PAP and Source coupled with the actual circumstances in which the agent finds herself give rise to different ratios: while both these principles apply to the will, depending on the circumstances, one of them will be more apparent than the other from a first-person perspective. The result is Descartes’ three different concepts of freedom of the will: freedom of perversity, where PAP is prominent and Source is in the background; freedom of indifference, where PAP and Source are roughly equal; and freedom of spontaneity, where Source is prominent and PAP is in the background.
    The cooperation between these two models of control makes Descartes an incompatibilist: in article 37 of the first part of the Principles Descartes states that our having the alternative to choose whether or not to assent to clear ideas makes us authors of our own actions and more praiseworthy than if we could not but assent (AT VIIIA 18-19; CSM I, 205). Descartes’ reference to our being the “authors” of our own actions means that we are the ultimate Source of our actions. In conclusion, Descartes’ complex treatment of the freedom of our will is due to the complexity of the subject matter, and, although not devoid of difficulties, it is cogent and interesting.

Alison Peterman, Northwestern University
“On Spinoza’s Alleged Explanatory Physicalism”

    Spinoza is committed to the scrutability of nature and the human being as a part thereof; he espouses a parallelism of mind and body whereby the laws governing both are analogous or identical; and he occasionally employs physical principles or concepts while trying to elucidate features of the mind. As a result, it is commonly claimed that Spinoza espouses a kind of explanatory materialism or physicalism. The most recent such attribution is Steven Nadler’s 2008 article “Spinoza and Consciousness,” where Nadler argues that Spinoza’s view that mental phenomena are “grounded in the structure of the human body” aligns Spinoza with contemporary embodied cognition theorists. Jonathan Bennett argues that in Spinozistic explanation “the body calls the tune, ” and Rice and Barbone align Spinoza with “logical physicalism. ” These scholars share the conviction that though Spinoza does not believe that there is only matter in the world, or that extended substance is more fundamental than thinking substance - that is, that he is not an out-and-out materialist - he does make use of concepts and principles drawn from the explanation of the nature and behavior of bodies to explain mental phenomenon. Further, they argue, he takes this practice to be licensed philosophically by features of his metaphysical and epistemological system like mind-body parallelism and mode identity. Finally, they agree that this gives Spinoza a currency that cannot be found in many of his contemporaries, especially with respect to questions about the relationship between the mind and the body.
    In this paper, I offer reasons to reject all three of these related claims. Spinoza is committed to epistemological parity among the attributes, both explicitly, in his texts, and by his deepest metaphysical and epistemological positions. Any invocation that Spinoza makes of physical concepts in discussing features of the mind is purely propaedeutic and does not provide us with any real knowledge of the nature of the mind. Further, he makes analogous use of ethical and political concepts in thinking about bodies; this, too, is a crutch, which provides us with no knowledge of the body. At a certain level of inquiry, then, using the analogy of laws furnished by parallelism is useful. But Spinoza does not think this gives us any knowledge at all of the nature of an attribute; knowledge of the nature of thought or extension cannot be had by considering what they have in common. I also argue that the “explanatory materialist” position entails that Spinoza was far more confident in our knowledge of bodies than he in fact was, as evidenced by his dissatisfaction with the content and methods of Cartesian physics. In particular, Spinoza argues that far from being able to develop our knowledge of mind and the mind-body union by considering bodies in isolation, bodies cannot be understood without taking into account the nature of the mind-body union, since a human being - the subject of the knowledge of physical laws - is both a mental and a physical thing. Finally, I claim that Spinoza on this interpretation is even richer as a contemporary interlocutor, perhaps less because of his affinity with established positions in contemporary philosophy of mind than because of the unique perspective and tools that this aspect of his system offers. It is a weakness of physicalism, explanatory or otherwise, that it considers our knowledge of the nature and laws of bodies to be relatively unproblematic compared to, and independent of, our knowledge of minds - a weakness which, I argue, Spinoza perceived.

Uygar Abaci, University of Pennsylvania
“Leibniz and Kant on the Syntheticity of Existential Propositions”

    I take up two related questions. The first is whether Leibniz takes existential propositions to constitute an exception to the in-esse principle that in every true affirmative proposition the predicate is contained in the subject. This is a question of serious interest in Leibniz scholarship. Some scholars defend the view that Leibniz is required to hold such an exception for the sake of a consistent account of God’s freedom in creation and the contingency of the actual world; others argue that neither does the text of Leibniz verify the claim of exception, nor does he need to appeal to such an exception in order to solve the problem of contingency.
    My position on this question ultimately converges with the latter view but with an important qualification that also gives some credit to the former. Fundamental to my position is Leibniz’s mature view on what kind of predicate existence is. Starting from the 1680’s Leibniz comes to conceive of existence not as a property which adds something intrinsic and novel to the essence, but as an extrinsic denomination which only supervenes on the intrinsic qualities of the essence that make it involved in the best of all possible worlds. As such, existence is not a predicate that can be contained in the definition or concept of anything except that of God. And the in-esse, understood strictly as the containment of the predicate in the subject, does not apply to existential propositions. However, I argue that there are both textual and philosophical grounds for a less strict interpretation of the in-esse, namely, as a natural extension of the principle of sufficient reason suggesting that all true predication has some basis in the nature of things. Given that existence is an extrinsic denomination but one that is supervenient on the intrinsic nature of a thing, the in-esse, understood broadly as some connection between the predicate and the subject, also applies to existential propositions.
    The second question has a broader historical importance: Does Leibniz anticipate Kant’s claim that every existential proposition is synthetic? (A598/B626) I argue that he does. Kant conceives of syntheticity in two different senses, so his claim has two distinct aspects. First, in the ’Introduction’ of the Critique, he presents a logical conception of syntheticity, and calls a proposition synthetic when the predicate lies entirely outside the subject and yet stands in connection with it. (A7/B11) The logical aspect of Kant’s aforementioned claim is warranted by his thesis that existence is not “a real predicate” or a “determination” that could possibly be contained in the subject. (A599/B627) Given Leibniz’s treatment of existence as an extrinsic denomination, it is clear that he anticipates the logical aspect of Kant’s claim. Second, the “Analytic” implies a cognitive criterion of syntheticity, which could be formulated as the necessary involvement of intuitions, pure or empirical, in the givenness of synthetic truths to cognitive subjects. Kant takes existential propositions to be synthetic in this cognitive sense too, for he allows existence assertions only if the object in question is given through an actual sensation. (B266) I suggest that Leibniz, at least partly, anticipates Kant also here, when in the New Essays he endorses Locke’s tripartite distinction between the ways we know the existence of things: “ we know our own existence by intuition, that of God by demonstration, and that of other things by sensation” (Bk II, Ch IX, 2). Leibniz’s commitment to the demonstrability of God’s existence and thus to the intuition-independence of its assertion is where his alignment with Kant on existential statements breaks, as the latter rejects the theoretical demonstrability of God’s existence insisting both that all existence is logically extrinsic to the concept of anything, that of God included, and that all existence assertions, without exception, are intuition-dependent. In a way, Kant radicalizes Leibniz’s mature views on existence and existential propositions.

T. J. Kasperbauer, Texas A&M University
“Substance, Will, and Spirit in Berkeley”

    Berkeley’s view of substance as spirit has been described by Stephen Daniel in terms of a system of notions or signs enabled by God. A recent discussion of Berkeley’s account of volition by Jeff McDonough and Sukjae Lee has also notably revolved around the proper interpretation of Berkeley’s God-enabled system of notions. Although neither McDonough nor Lee explicitly advocate Daniel’s interpretation of Berkeley’s idea of substance, their various assertions of God’s role in perception, imagination, and volition certainly have the potential for informing debates over substance. Likewise, although Daniel’s exegesis is not primarily aimed at volition, his novel interpretation of Berkeley’s view of substance has implications for McDonough and Lee’s discussion of God’s relation to minds and their volitional activity. My focus is on how these discussions mutually enlighten one another.
    Lee’s occasionalist interpretation of Berkeley’s God holds that human volitions must be aligned with God’s laws. So even Berkeley’s statements about our actively perceiving by turning our eyes to the sun (NB 672a) or picking up a flower (DHP 196) requires God’s “willing certain sensible ideas” on the occasion that our attempted actions do in fact cohere with the laws of nature. The “active” part is merely volitional, that is, not yet effective, in bringing about the turning of our gaze or picking up the flower. A major component of Daniel’s interpretation of Berkeley’s view of substance is that volition and perception are inseparable, a feature that seems blatantly incongruent with Lee’s distinction between volitions and the perceived efficacy of volitions. I argue, however, that Lee’s discussion of the effects of volitions is only benignly discrepant with Daniel’s account, and is actually favorable to McDonough’s.
    Daniel sees a connection between Berkeley, Stoic epistemology, and Ramist logic in that for Berkeley volition and perceptions have a mutual relationship in identification and existence: as he notes, “Just as ideas exist as differentiated determinations of will, so volitions are differentiated by the ideas they identify. ” Labeling the activity or passivity of certain volitions or perceptions, on this account, is always “derivative” of the more primary project of identification and association of things in the world, understood only in terms of the subsistent activity by which things are perceived. Unlike McDonough’s concurrentism, however, which holds that Berkeley is being extremely literal when he states, “We move our Legs our selves” (NB 548), Lee’s interpretation shares with Daniel’s interpretation a commitment to the derivative nature of statements about the specific perception of a leg moving. The reason for Lee’s distinction between volition and the power or efficacy of volition is precisely what Lee sees as the necessary dependence on God’s laws and the system of notions for talk of volition to make sense at all. For both Daniel and Lee, the perception of a leg moving is entirely dependent on God’s eternally enabling and assisting the movement of the leg to align with an appropriate volition that it should move, whereas for McDonough God’s enablement is prior to a human agent actually moving the leg.
    This adjudication of the debate over volition as it relates to substance shows how the consequences of divergent views of substance could illuminate much of Berkeley’s philosophy of mind. Although both Lee and McDonough are operating under the traditional notion of substance, Lee’s occasionalism seems to share certain crucial features with Daniel’s interpretation of Berkeley’s view of substance. Further exploration of the derivative statements we can make of minds could even potentially help delineate the role of volition in imagination or sin not directly linked to bodily movements.

Matthew McAndrew, Emory University
“Baumgarten’s Theory of Cognitive Perfection”

    Alexander Baumgarten is best known today for coining the term “aesthetics.” In the conclusion of his 1735 dissertation, Meditationnes philosophicae de nonnulis ad poema pertinentibus, Baumgarten proposes a new science dedicated to sensible cognition, i.e. perception. He calls this new science “aesthetics.” However, while he is generally recognized as the founder of modern aesthetics, the details of Baumgarten’s aesthetics are far less well known and are often misunderstood. For example, Baumgarten is frequently described as a follower of Christian Wolff. Lewis White Beck writes that Baumgarten was “the most competent - and in the long run perhaps the only philosophically important - adherent of the Wolffian philosophy” (Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors 283). Manfred Kuehn, in his intellectual biography of Kant, describes Baumgarten as “a Wolffian who moved closer to Leibniz than did any of his other Wolffian contemporaries” (Kant: A Biography 91). John Zammito states, “What needs to be underscored is that Baumgarten was a Wolffian” (Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology). These are but a few prominent examples. The claim that Baumgarten was a Wolffian, indeed an orthodox one, is ubiquitous. Unfortunately, it is also quite wrong. Although Baumgarten adopts the terminology and method of German Schulphilosophie, his aesthetics fundamentally breaks with the philosophical tradition of Leibniz and Wolff.
    In this paper, I argue that Baumgarten was not a follower of Wolff, at least not in any conventional sense. Baumgarten’s aesthetics aims to provide the principles for the perfection of sensible cognition. However, the concept of perfect sensible cognition is fundamentally at odds with the philosophy of Leibniz and Wolff. Like Leibniz, Baumgarten holds that there is no real difference between perception and thought. Ideas differ only in terms of clarity and distinctness. Those of perception are confused and oftentimes obscure; those of discursive thought are clear and above all distinct. Nonetheless, Baumgarten states that sensible cognition, i.e. perception, can be perfect. Its lack of distinctness is no bar to its perfection. There is no precedent for this position in the philosophy of Wolff, let alone that of Leibniz. The confusion that necessarily attends cognition through the senses is regarded by both philosophers as a deficiency - one which is to be ameliorated through further analysis. By ascribing perfection to sensible cognition, Baumgarten radically revises the Leibnizian-Wolffian doctrine of clear and distinct knowledge. He maintains that sensible cognition is necessarily confused but no longer considers this lack of distinctness to be a defect. Indeed, such cognition can be perfect in its own right.
    My paper examines how Baumgarten redefines the notions of clarity and distinctness in order to accommodate the perfection of sensible cognition. He first raises the prospect of perfect sensible cognition in his 1735 dissertation, and further explains it in the Metaphysica. The Empirical Psychology (Part III) of the Metaphysica contains the cognitive theory that underlies Baumgarten’s aesthetics. Here we find that his reinterpretation of clarity and distinctness belongs to an even more sweeping redefinition of how the perfection of cognition is generally measured. Truth, the traditional standard of cognitive perfection, is replaced in Metaphysica by significance, which measures the intensity with which cognition affects the soul. This is among the most radical features of Baumgarten’s aesthetics, and indicates just how far it departs from the tenets of Wolffianism.
    My paper consists of two parts. In the first, I examine Baumgarten’s Meditationnes and his notion of perfect sensible cognition. I show how Baumgarten redefines the concepts of clarity and distinctness in order to allow for the perfection of sensible cognition. In part two, I turn to the Metaphysica and explain how this redefinition entails a new subjective conception of cognitive perfection.

Miren Boehm, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
“Vivacity, Reality and Justification in Hume’s Account of Causal Reasoning in the Treatise”

    Hume famously concludes that “ ’tis impossible for us to satisfy ourselves by our reason” why we draw the causal inferences we do, supposing the unobserved to conform to the observed (T 1.3.6.11). Most interpreters today agree, however, that Hume is not skeptical of causal inferences as such. While some dispute that his discussion is epistemological at all, arguing that Hume is merely concerned with the causation of causal reasoning and not with its justification, others maintain that there is in Hume in fact a positive account of the justification of causal inferences or causal beliefs. This paper agrees with the latter group but offers a different interpretation of Hume’s grounds for endorsing causal beliefs. I argue that Hume’s new account of justification starts at the beginning of T 1.3 with a characterization of reality as it is for the mind with the aim of generating a phenomenological criterion of justification. The core of my interpretation is the claim that force and vivacity play an epistemological role for Hume, not just a psychological one.
    Experience, Hume insists throughout, is our only guide or standard for those beliefs we place in the unobserved, but he makes clear in T 1.3 that memory (or the observed past or experience) is simply a matter of force and vivacity for the mind. The mind can only distinguish ideas of memory from ideas of the imagination in terms of force and vivacity. When explaining belief in the unobserved, Hume argues that the standpoint of natural philosophy or the standpoint of an independently existing world is useless. It is the present impression, with its distinctive force and vivacity which is requisite for belief. Early in T 1.3 Hume characterizes the force and vivacity of the senses and memory as a primitive, foundational belief. Later in T 1.3 Hume portrays the force and vivacity of the senses and memory as reality. And in Hume’s complete account of the mechanism of causal inference the alignment in consciousness of the ideas of memory with the present impression and the idea provided by the imagination triggers the present impression to transfer to the imaginary idea a share of its force and vivacity-a share of its reality-thus constituting it as belief.
    Hume explicitly distinguishes the structure or mechanism of causal belief from other belief or opinion-generating mechanisms. He compares causal belief with fictions of the imagination, making it plain that the fundamental difference between the fictions of the fancy and causal belief is that the vivacity of fictions issues from the imagination, whereas in causal belief it derives from the senses or memory. The vivacity of fictions does not have the right ancestry and credentials. Causal belief is indeed, not “the product of the imagination,” as it is usually portrayed to be. The imagination supplies only the content of belief or the idea. But as Hume explicitly says, any idea is the idea of existence. What is most fundamental about causal belief is belief, which is the taking of an existence as real, and this sense of reality is the force and vivacity of the present impression and the memory.
    So whence the normativity in Hume’s psychology of belief? I argue that the source of normativity for Hume in T 1.3 is the mind’s sense of reality. The reality of the past and the present for the mind is a force and vivacity distinctive of the memory and the senses. This sense of reality has and must have authority for us. This does not mean that our beliefs are immune to error. We can and should correct our beliefs by appealing to general rules and principles. But even our corrections must rely on what we take to be real, on the sense of reality of the senses and memory which is the standard of reality for the mind. We can’t justify belief by appealing to what lies outside the mind, the unobserved or the future. If belief is justified, and it is clear that Hume believes it to be so, then we must search for its justification where belief resides. At one point in his discussion Hume adopts the standpoint of natural philosophy in an attempt to shed light on the nature of belief, but he immediately rejects this standpoint claiming that “the phenomenon of belief… is merely internal” (T 1.3.8.8). My suggestion in this paper is that the source of its justification is internal to belief; indeed, it is essential to it, namely its vivacity or its sense of reality which it acquires from the senses and memory.

Jason R. Fisette, New School for Social Research
“Old Naturalism in Hume’s ‘New Creation’: The Analogy of Moral Values to Secondary Qualities Reconsidered”

    Hume’s analogy of our sentiments of virtue and vice to secondary qualities is widely read as a projection and error theory of moral value. However, the strength of this standard reading turns largely on the assumption that Hume’s use of the primary/secondary quality distinction implies his endorsement of the empiricist worldview motivating it-and this assumption is problematic. A reexamination of the analogy, as well as of the moral psychology cashing out his metaethical commitments, suggests rather that Hume is looking to make room for a conception of nature between the providential naturalism of Hutcheson (from whom he appropriates the analogy) and the so-called disenchanted naturalism inspired by Boyle and Locke. This presentation situates the invocation of the analogy in the context of Hume’s consequent rediscovery of something like the Aristotelian idea of second nature, a reappraisal adding to a growing body of literature reinterpreting his views on practical reason.
    Two issues pose particular challenge to received wisdom about Hume’s supposedly skeptical intentions in comparing morals to colors and smells. First, such an interpretation risks a-historicism. Hutcheson, to whom Hume is indebted for the analogy, was a pronounced moral realist who did not take moral qualities’ perceptual dependence on human sensibility to lessen in any way their objective reality. Indeed, Hutcheson advanced the analogy as a vindication of a defensible moral realism, one insisting upon the practicality of moral values against rationalists like Clarke and Wollaston, and their objectivity against egoists like Hobbes and Mandeville. Although Hutcheson’s confidence that he had safeguarded ethical objectivity was underwritten with a theological guarantee that Hume could not accept, it was also tendered in part on the basis of a healthy questioning of the Lockean way of ideas that Hume did accept.
    The second issue, accordingly, centers on the section of the Treatise entitled “Of the Modern people.” Here Hume echoes the Hutchesonian refusal to concede that secondary qualities are less real than primary ones, where less real is relative to a scientific conception of nature in which phenomenal qualities figure only as extrinsic. And his resistance springs from skepticism-not of the reality of secondary qualities, but of the viability of the project of grounding the practices surrounding our color judgments, say, in the sorts of entities prized by modern philosophy, of the very idea that our confidence should be touched or shaken by such considerations. The dissonance presented by these two sets of issues goes unrecognized by commentators who persist in reading the analogy as a straightforward indictment of ethical realism. In fact, the analogy signals the presence in Hume’s moral theory of a conception of second nature.
    Hume’s moral psychology offers further evidence of the idea of second nature, where that means a realm of norms derived neither from a spooky metaphysics nor from causal mechanism but native to the sorts of social and self-interpreting animals that we humans are. Analysis shows that reception of his treatment of the passions, and hence of his account of practical reason, suffers from at least four deficiencies. (1) When Hume declares that reason is the slave of the passions, he has a specific construal of reason in his crosshairs: that of the moral rationalists who, with an eye to mathematical demonstration, took our truth-grasping cognitive faculty to be engaged only when we abjure the promptings of sensibility. Hume is happy to speak of reason once he has pried the term away from these interlocutors, as in his discussion of the continuity of reason in animals and humans. (2) A careful reading of Book II of the Treatise recovers a Humean analysis of the psychology of human agency (and ultimately of moral evaluation) that turns on a socially-mediated conception of character, an analysis in which causal “desire+belief” mechanisms do not figure as genuinely explanatory or justifying grounds. Specifically, scrutiny of the principle of the double association of impressions and ideas reveals Hume explaining human mindedness otherwise than in the physicalist terms of the nascent natural sciences. (3) Hume’s positive account centers on the idea of character, in which he maintains that while reasons for action flow from ideationally-infused indirect passions, that sensibility is itself normatively structured by a habituation to virtue. (4) Virtue, for Hume, is a matter of response to a situation such that the measure of our actions is their proportionateness to what the circumstances requires. Although our sense of rightness springs from the principle of sympathy, a careful study indicates that Hume takes sympathy to be a proto- or pre-moral response that must be corrected by reason to attain normative standing. The intellectual credentials of reason are shown to be those legitimated through the critical reflective practices of the community.
    The presentation concludes that Hume possesses a much more enlarged understanding of nature than an interpretative tradition prejudiced by its own positivism has recognized. For Hume there is no sense in which the reality of morals is impugned by saying they rest in human nature. I therefore urge reconsideration of the famous metaphor often interpreted as licensing a projection and error theory of moral value. Our perceptions of the world are normatively structured because to be human is to be initiated into our ethical life in second nature-raising in a manner a new creation. Hume’s image, as Annette Baier surmises, is not a projectural but an architectural metaphor. Artisan materials are such as to build vaults, and nature is such as to be made moral.