Abstract

In section 1.4.4 of the Treatise, “Of the modern philosophy,” Hume offers a skeptical argument concerning the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. The argument in that section is often understood to aim to undermine the modern philosophy’s account of body, according to which bodies lack paradigmatic secondary qualities, by showing that it has “extravagant” skeptical consequences. I argue that Hume does not reject the core commitments of the modern philosophy. His aim in T 1.4.4 is not to undermine any particular account of body but rather to establish the deeply rooted inadequacy of our cognition of external bodies.