Kontradykcje

The topic of the book by Zuzana Parusniková is David Hume’s way of dealing with the challenge of scepticism as it emerged in the post-Cartesian philosophy [1] . According to one of the main claims expounded in the book, Hume was the only philosopher of the Enlightenment who took up the challenge of the radical Cartesian scepticism and the resulting phenomenalism with full awareness of possible consequences of this step and without any recourse of the recently repudiated metaphysics [2] . Parusniková’s approach to Hume’s epistemology is structured around three pillars, i.e. the Cartesian, the empiricist, and the Pyrrhonian. Accordingly, the narrative of the book is constructed around these three axes.   The argument of the book begins with an extensive account of the emergence of the idea of the autonomous rational mind, which, having gotten rid of the constraints of the theological and metaphysical cognitive regime, has been presented by Descartes as capable of gra