Hume

I am tired of hearing people say, as if it were uncontroversial, that they are “Humeans” about laws and causation, where they mean to defend the “regularity theory”. That was not Hume’s view, as has been amply demonstrated. They are claiming the authority of a great philosopher for a position he did not hold (in fact, I know of no great philosopher who held this view). What they are following is Ayer’s version of Hume not the real Hume. So they should declare themselves not Humeans but positivists. But that doesn’t sound so laudable since the fall of positivism. They should at least acknowledge that many people reject this version of Hume as well as the doctrine falsely attributed to him.