AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

This paper focusses on the problem of doxastic normativity in Hume i.e., on what basis does Hume approve of some methods of belief-formation over others, given his radically sceptical conclusions about the possibility of justified belief? Without an answer to this question, Hume seems left with no basis for discriminating between better and worse belief-forming methods, but clearly he seems to think he can.

I review a variety of existing approaches to the problem, including approaches based on irresistibility, stability, liveliness, practical or moral desirability and love of truth. I argue that, while many of these proposals identify factors which play important roles in Hume’s approved belief-forming methods, none of them is sufficient to characterise the basis on which Hume discriminates between such methods.

I put forward a proposal according to which Hume discriminates between belief-forming methods based on their “apparent reliability” in predicting and controlling events and argue that the proposed criterion avoids the problems identified with existing approaches. I also compare this proposal to other reliability-based proposals in the literature, arguing that the sceptical nature of the proposed criterion distinguishes it from those proposals in a way that is more consistent with Hume’s sceptical philosophy.

Finally, I identify the source of normativity for the criterion as the ability to anticipate and control events, which contributes in its turn to the practical benefits accruing from the` successful execution of our designs. On this account, the normativity of Hume’s belief-forming criterion is ultimately derived from its contribution to practical success, but its particular role in contributing to that success results in its own particular form of “relative normativity”– belief-forming mechanisms are judged good or bad according to their apparent reliability in anticipating and controlling events.

Leibniz often uses a mirror analogy to explain his monads. Referring to a monad as a simple substance, he writes in a typical passage: “each simple substance is a perpetual, living mirror of the universe” (M 56). Although Leibniz’s mirror analogy is well-known, it is not well understood. Accordingly, the goal of my talk is to show how Leibniz’s mirror analogy can shed light on his monadic metaphysics. Unlike other commentators, my strategy is to draw on Leibniz’s writings on perspectiva because it is now clear that Leibniz had expertise in a branch of mathematics known as perspectiva and that his mirror analogy is based on his work in perspectiva.

My talk is divided into three parts. First, I outline a fact that Leibniz learned from perspectiva, which is that any point on a body can be projected onto a drawing in such a way so as to preserve its relations to other points on the body. I then claim that Leibniz took this fact to imply that there is an equivalence between a body and its perspectival representations. I close by sketching how this equivalence can make sense of Leibniz’s thesis that a body is an aggregate of monads.

Descartes’ rejection of the resemblance between sensory ideas and extramental objects and the inferior status of the former in his epistemology makes researchers believe that Descartes takes resemblance as the principle for veridical representation of intellectual ideas. On top of that, they attempt to explicate the nature of resemblance through property-sharing and identity, which is upheld by the scholastic reading of Descartes’ distinction between formal being and objective being. I contend that resemblance as the principle of representation cannot be sustained as it is theoretically incompatible with Descartes’ substantial dualism and universal conceptualism, and it is textually ungrounded. On top of that, I propose my reading of the objective being according to which it only denotes ideas’ ontological status.