3. Method
In his Introduction to the Treatise, Hume bemoans the sorry state of philosophy, evident even to "the rabble without doors," which has given rise to "that common prejudice against metaphysical reasonings of all kinds" (T, xiv). He hopes to correct this miserable situation by introducing "the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects," establishing "a science of human nature" that will put philosophy on a "solid foundation" of "experience and observation" (T, Introduction).
Hume's positive, naturalistic project has much in common with contemporary cognitive science. Recent readers have paid more attention to these aspects of his philosophy than his earlier critics apparently did. As a result, no contemporary Hume scholar entirely accepts the traditional view that Hume was solely a negative philosopher whose goal was to make manifest the sceptical consequences of the views of his empiricist predecessors. But there remains considerable disagreement about the role and extent of scepticism in his philosophy, and disagreement about its relation to the naturalistic elements of his system. What Hume says about his aims and method helps clarify these issues.
In An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume says that he will "follow a very simple method," which will nonetheless bring about "a reformation in moral disquisitions" like that already accomplished in natural philosophy, where we have been cured of "a common source of illusion and mistake" -- our "passion for hypotheses and systems." To make parallel progress in the moral sciences, we should "reject every system...however subtle or ingenious, which is not founded on fact and observation," and "hearken to no arguments but those which are derived from experience" (EPM, 173-175).
Th ...