Reason and experience in David Hume´s specie-flow mechanism

ARIADNA CAZENAVE

Enfoques

Universidad Adventista del Plata. Secretaría de Ciencia y Técnica

Año: 2020 vol. 32 p. 71 - 85

1514-6006

In his "economic writings", David Hume developed one of the first versions of the "specie-flow mechanism". This formulation earned him a place in the literature on the history of economic thought, which tried to place it in the context of the economic discussions prevailing in the transition from mercantilist to liberal doctrines. However, this literature did not pay enough attention to the author´s philosophical motivations and the role that his "economic writings" played in his philosophical project. In this paper, we address this field by studying how the specie-flow mechanism evokes problems that Hume had faced in his inquiry into the nature and origin of the notion of causal law. This will allow us to discuss the role that Hume tried to assign to "experience" and "reason" in the elaboration of knowledge in general and of economic phenomena in particular.