Old Causes and New Effects : An application of distant reading to the New Hume Debate

The Scottish philosopher David Hume is today considered as the father of respectedphilosophical theories in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political theory. Histhought has given rise to contrasting interpretations, especially about the problem ofcausality. Praised in the nineteenth century as the forerunner of a reliable scientificmethod, Hume’s philosophy is considered still today as the foundation of Positivistscience, even if in the last forty years several contrasting interpretations of Hume’saccount of causality have appeared. The goal of the present project is to test two ofHume’s interpretations (the Positivist and the Realist ones) using text analysis and toweight the support each receives from distant reading. While the outcome of the testis not decisive to assess the correctness of any of the interpretations, other elementsare offered to complement the standard views on Hume already provided by closereading. In particular, a language of possibility emerges as the counterpart ofphilosophical scepticism.