This article presents an overall view of Hume's philosophy as it can be found in the Treatise. It shows that Hume's position can be called a nonreductionist naturalism. Hume's philosophy is a philosophical anthropology: it begins with a discussion of what is typically human in human understanding, i.e., knowledge and probability or the belief-systems of science and philosophy. Then, morality and politics are retraced as to their origin in emotions and desires. In the final part of the article it is (...) explained in what sense Hume can be called a nonreductionist naturalist. (shrink)

Annette Baier's aim is to make sense of David Hume's Treatise as a whole. Hume's family motto, which appears on his bookplate, was True to the End. Baier argues that it is not until the end of the Treatise that we get his full story about truth and falsehood, reason and folly. By the end, we can see the cause to which Hume has been true throughout the work. Baier finds Hume's Treatise of Human Nature to be a carefully crafted (...) literary and philosophical work which itself displays a philosophical progress of sentiments. His starting place is an overly abstract intellectualism that deliberately thrusts passions and social concerns into the background. In the three interrelated books of the Treatise, his self-understander proceeds through partial successes and dramatic failures to emerge with new-found optimism, expecting that the exact knowledge the morally self-conscious anatomist of human nature can acquire will itself improve and correct our vision of morality. Baier describes how, by turning philosophy toward human nature instead of toward God and the universe, Hume initiated a new philosophy, a broader discipline of reflection that can embrace Charles Darwin and Michel Foucault as well as William James and Sigmund Freud. Hume belongs both to our present and to our past. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scepticism About Persons in Book II of Hume’s TreatiseDonald C. AinslieBook ii of Hume’s Treatise—especially its first two Parts on the “indirect passions” of pride, humility, love, and hatred—has mystified many of its interpreters.1 Hume clearly thinks these passions are important: Not only does he devote more space to them than to his treatment of causation, but in the “Abstract” to the Treatise, he tells us that Book II (...) “contains opinions that are altogether as new and extraordinary” (T 659) as those found in Book I. And, he says, these opinions constitute “the foundation” (T 646) for his treatment of morals and politics in Book III.2 The mystery arises, however, because in the actual text of [End Page 469] Book II Hume never spells out what makes his opinions on the passions “new and extraordinary,” nor why they are foundational for his moral theory.Thus some of his interpreters, notably Norman Kemp Smith, conclude that Hume was simply mistaken in his assessment of his treatment of the passions. While his accounts of the will and of motivation (in the early Sections of Part iii of Book II) are significant, Kemp Smith takes the extended analysis of the indirect passions to spring merely from his misplaced enthusiasm for associationist psychology. As such, the philosophical lessons to be learned from the first two Parts of Book II are slim.3 Páll Árdal, in contrast, tries to construct for Hume what he seems to have omitted—a philosophical rationale for his obvious interest in the indirect passions. Árdal starts by drawing attention to the role these passions play in Hume’s moral philosophy, in particular, his repeatedly connecting the indirect passions to the moral sentiments of approval and disapproval. Árdal concludes that Hume means to equate the moral sentiments with particular kinds of indirect passions. The first two Parts of Book II are of interest, on Ardal’s reading, because it is there that he shows us how moral sentimentalism can be founded on something more fully naturalistic than Hutcheson’s somewhat mysterious “moral sense.”4I argue against Árdal’s interpretation in §2. But this reopens the problem of accounting for Hume’s interest in the indirect passions. I offer my view in §§3–5 where, like Árdal, I provide a reconstruction of Hume’s discussion of these passions in order to show how it has an underlying philosophical motivation. My claim is that Hume relies on the indirect passions to explain how we form beliefs about persons as bearers of features that make them into who [End Page 470] they are. It is by feeling an indirect passion towards someone that we think of her as more than accidentally related to some quality, such as her country, her riches, her family, or even her character traits. In support of my interpretation I point to the many parallels Hume draws between the indirect passions and the associative mechanism he offers to explain our forming causal beliefs (I.iii). And I suggest that, just as Hume’s associative explanation of causal beliefs is necessitated by his scepticism about intrinsic “necessary connexions,” so also his associative mechanism for our beliefs about persons—the indirect passions—is necessitated by a certain kind of scepticism about persons. This is not the scepticism about persons that we find in “Of personal identity” (I.iv.6), where Hume argues against the view that our perceptions inhere in a simple soul; it is rather a scepticism about there being intrinsic features of persons that define them as who they are.But, before I explain in more detail what my claim amounts to, it will help to have available a brief description of the mechanism that Hume’s takes to explain the indirect passions.1. THE MECHANISM FOR THE INDIRECT PASSIONSA passion, for Hume, is a simple impression felt in response to various circumstances. Because of their simplicity, we cannot define passions by putting their characteristic feeling into words; instead, Hume thinks, we can only delineate “such circumstances, as attend them” (T 277). Passions are indirect if those circumstances include as an outcome the focusing of attention onto a person... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:More About Hume's Debt to Spinoza Wim Klever In a recent contribution to the question of Hume's relationship to SpinozaIadvocatedamoreorlessSpinozisticinterpretationofthefirst bookofA Treatise ofHumanNature.1 Ofthe Understanding, sowasmy claim, is not only very close to De natura et origine mentis (Ethica, second part) as far as its main affirmations are concerned; the convergence ofexternal and internal evidence makes it also probable that there is a remarkable influence from the one's work (...) on the other and, accordingly, that Hume's defamation of Spinoza's system might well have been disingenuous. This last point was previously also suggested by Richard Popkin in an article in which he compared Hume's philosophy ofreligion with Spinoza's.2 What motivated me to continue my research in this field? To say itinone word: the unintendeddiscoveryofmanystrikingresemblances betweenHume's secondbook, OfthePassions,andSpinoza'sthirdpart, De origine et natura affectuum. I happened to become a member of a group ofinterested people who concentrate on reading Hume, and, on the other hand, I had acquired some expertise as a Spinoza scholar for quite a number of years, so that I could not avoid seeing the commonaUties between the two philosophers. It seems to be fully impossible to explain the resemblances—which I, ofcourse, will show below—by referring to the Spinoza-article in Bayle's Dictionaire historique et critique (a source once mentioned by Hume in a letter to a London friend), since Bayle does not spend a word to the human passions. It is further a hard fact that there do not exist other written sourcesfrom which Humemighthave drawnhisSpinozisticinspiration in his French period apart from the Ethics; all available literature of the time turned around the questions theism versus atheism and free will versus determinism, without entering into the details ofhuman emotions.3 Only one conclusion was possible for me: Hume musthave been familiar with Spinoza's own text. Either the Chevaher Ramsay, whose intimate he was for some time,4 or anotherintermediaryfigure5 must have raised his interest. The best entrance into the material is constituted by Hume's closing remark in his A Dissertation on the Passions (1757), in which he elucidates what he in fact has been doing in hie analysis of the passions: Volume XDI Number 1 55 WIM KLEVER I pretend not to have here exhausted this subject. It is sufficient formy purpose, ifI have made it appear, that, in the production and conduct of the passions, there is a certain regular mechanism, which is susceptible of as accurate a disquisition, as the laws ofmotion, optics, hydrostatics, or any part ofnatural philosophy.6 In spite ofthe words "a certain," this fragment maynot be interpreted as a metaphorical assessment. The origin and the processes ofhuman passions are purely mechanical. If this is not what Hume intends to declare, he never could have added the phrase that passions are susceptible of exactly the same kind of accurate descriptions as other natural phenomena. This theory of the mechanism of the passions is certainly not Cartesian. Although Descartes, as a physical scientist, was a great promoter of the explanation of things by means of mechanical causality, he in fact did not extend this method to the life ofthe passions. In his dualistic philosophy he ascribes to the human mind (with its free will) the capability to interfere with the passions and even to dominate them.7 In this field it is Spinoza who paves the way for Hume by sharply criticizing Descartes' non-mechanistic explanation ofthe passions. His far-fetched solution ofthe mind-body interactivity by means of the pineal gland and the animal spirits pushing against it, is called "a hypothesis more occult than any occult quality." 8 Spinoza acknowledged that Descartes had good intentions in trying to explain the human affections by their direct causes, but he was inconsistent insofar as he at the same time attempted to demonstrate man's absolute dominion over them. He, Spinoza, on the contrary, "will consider human actions and appetites just as ifit were a question ofUnes, planes and bodies." 9 The analysis of passions is a piece of natural science comparable with geometry, optics10 and hydrostatics, to mention some other fields of Spinoza's research. Hume's statement... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 29, Number 1, April 2003, pp. 125-141 Dr. George Cheyne, Chevalier Ramsay, and Hume's Letter to a Physician JOHN P. WRIGHT The publication of a new intellectual biography of George Cheyne1 provides a "propitious" occasion for "a thoroughly skeptical review"2 of the question which has long exercised Hume scholars, whether Cheyne was the intended recipient of David Hume's fascinating pie-Treatise Letter to a Physician,3 the letter (...) which describes his own hypochondriacal physical and mental symptoms and gives an account of his early philosophical development.4 Hume's nineteenth-century biographer, John Hill Burton, argued that Hume was probably writing to Cheyne,5 while Ernest Mossner claimed to definitively refute that hypothesis in an article entitled "Hume's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," published in 1944.6 Anita Guerrini's intellectual biography does not discuss Cheyne as a possible recipient of Hume's letter, but she does present a well-rounded picture of this interesting eighteenth-century physician from which we can judge his appropriateness as its addressee. In the following discussion I will make use of the biographical material found in this new biography of Cheyne, as well as other sources, to show that Mossner's arguments are less than definitive, and that it would be wrong to dismiss the possibility that the letter was sent to George Cheyne.7 This is a possibility that, for reasons that I will make clear, makes good biographical and philosophical sense. At the same time, it is important to keep a proper suspense of judgment as Burton did, for the evidence that the letter was either intended for or actually sent to Cheyne is not definitive. John P. Wright is Professor of Philosophy, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859, USA. e-mail: [email protected] 126 John P. Wright Burton, who first published the autobiographical letter of the 22-yearold Hume in 1846, narrowed down the possible addressees of Hume's letter to either Cheyne or John Arbuthnot. He also pointed out that it is possible that the letter was never sent, and that the ten and a half page manuscript is only a neatly written draft, rather than a fair copy of an actual letter. Nevertheless, Burton thought he could identify the unnamed addressee on the basis of the internal evidence of the manuscript and the records of Scottish physicians practicing in England at the time. In the letter, Hume refers to the intended recipient as his "Countryman, a Scotchman [,]... a skilful Physician, a man of Letters, of Wit, of Good Sense, & of great Humanity."8 Further he writes that he is consulting him because he is a person "of great Learning beyond [his]... own Profession" who is acquainted with the "Motions of the Mind" he has described in his letter, and that "Fame pointed [him]... out as the properest person to resolve my Doubts..." about the cure of his disorder.9 Burton tells us that "the first name that suggested itself... was Arbuthnot, whose fine genius was just then flickering in the socket."10 (John Arbuthnot had been ill for some time, and died a year later.) But he then added that "a more full consideration showed to my satisfaction that it must have been destined for Dr. George Cheyne." His main reason for settling on Cheyne was that Cheyne's immensely popular The English Malady (1733) had recently been published, and that "there is a certain unison of tone between Hume's letter and this book." Burton quotes a portion of Cheyne's own long autobiographical account of his own disease in The English Malady. Cheyne's autobiography begins with the claim that "I passed my Youth in close study, and almost constant Application to the abstracted Sciences, (wherein my chief pleasure consisted) and consequently in great Temperance and a Sedentary Life"; it is followed by the reflection that any overindulgence in food or drink led to physical and psychological problems.11 He goes on to describe these in great detail for 39 pages, along with a history of his life. Burton also quotes a section of the book in which Cheyne describes how a studious and sedentary life causes the symptoms... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXIV, Number 1, April 1998, pp. 5-30 Justice and the Foundations of Social Morality in Hume's Treatise JACQUELINE TAYLOR Hume famously distinguishes between artificial virtues and natural virtues, or, at one place, between a sense of virtue that is natural and one that is artificial. The most prominent of the artificial virtues are those associated with the practices of justice. Commentators have devoted much attention to (...) Hume's explanation of what motivates us to be just. But his main concern in the Treatise is to explain why we approve morally of just conduct.1 While there surely are complexities surrounding the issue of the motivation to be just, in one sense Hume's explanation is quite straightforward: self-interest motivates us to establish and follow the conventions of justice. The real interest in his account of the establishment of justice lies in his further explanation of how those conventions transform our moral psychology, and lead us to form shareable moral points of view from which we can reach agreement on the value of characters. My reading of Hume's account in the Treatise is as follows. Hume attributes to us a social morality, the central notion of which is a moral sensibility that has its origins in nature, but that must be extended by social artifice in order to accommodate the various virtues important to cooperative living. I will contend that the moral psychology embodied in a cultivated sense of morality depends on the redirection of our evaluative propensities and therefore requires the sorts of convention that Hume associates with justice.2 My thesis helps to make sense of the structure of Book III: Hume has genuine philosophical reasons for introducing the artificial virtues prior to the natural ones.3 Jacqueline Taylor is at the Department of Philosophy, Tufts University, Medford MA 02155-7059 USA. email: [email protected] 6 Jacqueline Taylor The main goal of this paper is to show that Hume's philosophy has the resources to explain our ability to balance our appraisal of the artificial and natural virtues, since we need both sorts of virtue to live well. As a foil for my view, I want to use the argument advanced by Barry Stroud and others that Hume faces a special difficulty in explaining how we sustain our approval of particular just acts that considered in themselves appear harmful to the public good. Stroud argues that Hume fails to explain what recommends justice as a virtue to us in all cases, and thus fails to capture the concern we have for fairness.4 While Stroud finds in the second Enquiry the seeds of a view, based on our sympathetic approval of what tends to the good of mankind, that could provide the materials for developing a naturalistic account of how we come to have a concern for justice and fairness, he argues that Hume's interest lies squarely in the origin of justice and not in how people develop shared social attitudes (Stroud, 216-218). I disagree with Stroud's pronouncement that Hume fails to explain sufficiently our moral approval of justice, but I must leave to one side discussion of the particular social attitudes of justice, such as concern for fairness. My focus will be on how we cultivate a range of shared attitudes of moral appraisal and the relation of these to justice. Stroud misjudges Hume's project, at least in part, because he neglects the historical context in which Hume was writing, and overlooks some important differences between Hume and his contemporary, Francis Hutcheson.5 In Book II of the Treatise, in a discussion of virtue and vice as causes of pride and humility, Hume signals the reader that in the next book he will examine "the controversy...whether these moral distinctions be founded on natural and original principles, or arise from interest and education" (T 295). The controversy to which he refers is that between moral sense theorists, such as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, on the one side, and members of the Hobbesian or "selfish" school, which includes Mandeville as well as Hobbes, on the other. As he starts Book III, Hume seems to suggest that his... (shrink)