The Idealist Interpretation Renders Hume More of an Empiricist

The aim of this chapter is to argue that on the Materialist reading, Hume (of the first book of the Treatise) is significantly less of an empiricist than he is on the Idealist reading, and that on several interpretations of his methodological view, the Materialist reading renders his intellectual conduct less consistent with the epistemology he endorses than does the Idealist reading.