The necessity of any action, whether of matter or of mind, is not, properly speaking, a quality in the agent, but in any thinking or intelligent being, who may consider the action. (E 8.22 endnote [F]) Some recent interpreters have cast doubt on the extent to which passages such as these reflect a genuine subjectivism on Hume’s part.25 But in terms of its influence on epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of science, this ‘anti-realism’ about causation, along with his inductive scepticism, constitutes his most prominent legacy.
