The Limits of the Mechanical and the Primacy of the Phenomenal: The Case of William Cullen and David Hume

This paper suggests that there are deep affinities between William Cullen’s philosophical chemistry and David Hume’s philosophical psychology. These affinities can be explicated relying on Stephen Gaukroger’s suggestion that the limitations of mechanical philosophy gave rise to an alternative explanatory strategy in terms of phenomenal properties. If viewed from this angle, the affinities between Cullen and Hume seem natural: they were working on the implementation of this new strategy in natural and moral philosophy.