Abstract

The atomist Hume inherited by classical American pragmatism is a false Hume. I trace the origins and reception of the atomist Hume in the pragmatic tradition and the correction of this reading in modern Hume scholarship, and then argue (1) that in the Treatise Hume assumes that we first encounter wholes, not parts, in experience, (2) that the distinction of parts is possible only after the experience of wholes, and (3) that their distinction as well as their separation is not real, pace James, but hypothetical.