Hume as Skeptic AND Causal-Inductive Realist

In a seminar on causation with Alyssa Ney we began, naturally enough, with Hume. In particular we came to consider differing interpretations of Hume according to whether he did or did not believe that causation was "out there" in the world, not *just* in our heads and whether he thought induction could yield warranted belief.

One piece of evidence offered on behalf of a more traditional interpretation which takes Hume to deprecate induction is the fact of the self-ascribed "skepticism". He calls his own results "skeptical". Some thought that should be the end of the matter, but I don't think so. It seems to me that Hume's main target is not common sense so much as *rationalism*. He is certainly skeptical of the claims of the rationalists. So "skeptical" could be used with restricted scope and be roughly equivalent to "empiricist". In support of that possibility here's one definition of "skeptic" from the OED.
"those who deny the competence of reason, or the existence of any justification for certitude, outside the limits of experience."

That's roughly equivalent to a species of "empiricism" and seems to indicate my hypothesis is at least thus far a live option. I think this lends support to Beauchamp and Rosenberg's take on Hume. Currently reading Winkler's "The New Hume".