Hume on dreams and reality

Abstract

I first outline the controversy surrounding Hume's ontology which is essentially the question: is Hume a realist or an idealist? The realists or 'New Humeans' claim that Hume's natural beliefs allow one to have confidence that there is an external world of objects in causal relation even though reason shows this belief to be unfounded. They further argue that one can form relative ideas of the external world. Finally they claim that evidence for this interpretation is found mostly in the Enquiry, thus they argue that the latter text is superior to the Treatise. The idealists claim that Hume is at base a radical sceptic who if he has any ontological commitments they are the idealist assertion that only perceptions exist. They also tend to favour the Treatise over the Enquiry. After providing a critical overview of both of these arguments, which also includes the question regarding Hume's alleged projectivism, I then show how the analysis of dreams in Hume's empiricism breaks the stalemate that has occurred in this controversy surrounding Hume's ontology. I show that the natural belief in dreams points the argument towards an idealist interpretation of Hume. In the concluding section I summarize the findings of the dissertation and provide answers to some anticipated objections.