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)

The article presents a new interpretation of Hume’s treatment of personal identity, and his later rejection of it in the “Appendix” to the Treatise. Hume’s project, on this interpretation, is to explain beliefs about persons that arise primarily within philosophical projects, not in everyday life. The belief in the identity and simplicity of the mind as a bundle of perceptions is an abstruse belief, not one held by the “vulgar” who rarely turn their minds on themselves so as to think (...) of their perceptions. The author suggests that it is this philosophical observation of the mind that creates the problems that Hume finally acknowledges in the “Appendix.” He is unable to explain why we believe that the perceptions by means of which we observe our minds while philosophizing are themselves part of our minds. This suggestion is then tested against seven criteria that any interpretation of the “Appendix” must meet. (shrink)

The article presents a new interpretation of Hume's treatment of personal identity, and his later rejection of it in the “Appendix” to the Treatise. Hume's project, on this interpretation, is to explain beliefs about persons that arise primarily within philosophical projects, not in everyday life. the belief in the identity and simplicity of the mind as a bundle of perceptions is an abstruse belief, not one held by the “vulgar” who rarely turn their minds on themselves so as to think (...) of their perceptions. the author suggests that it is this philosophical observation of the mind that creates the problems that Hume finally acknowledges in the “Appendix.” He is unable to explain why we believe that the perceptions by means of which we observe our minds while philosophizing are themselves part of our minds. This suggestion is then tested against seven criteria that any interpretation of the “Appendix” must meet. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume and Davidson on Pride Pall S. krdal In reading the Treatise one has to be alive to the fact that Hume gives certain crucial words new meanings. He does not always draw the reader's attention to this and sometimes explicitly claims to be using terms with their ordinarymeaningswhen heis clearlygiving the words special technical uses by expanding or contracting their usual meanings. "Passion," "love," "hatred," "pride," and "humility" (...) have special meanings in Hume's psychological scheme. He also sometimes uses important terms with more than one meaning, as in the case of "justice." The word "justice" both is the title of Book 3, Part 2 of the Treatise, which deals with a number ofartificial virtues, and alsorefers to the much narrower concept ofthe respectfor property. The following two questions should be borne in mind: "What did Hume have to say about what he calls justice, passion, love, etc.?" and "What did Hume have to say about what we refer to by the same terms?" Thus, Books 2 and 3 of the Treatise may be described as attempting to show how unbiased evaluations are possible, in spite ofthe fact that our passions are naturally biased and judgments of virtue and vice are passions. This clearly involves a discussion of how we can do justice to our own and other peoples' qualities ofmind or character. Hume, therefore, had something very important to say about what we call justice, but his contribution to issues involving what we call justice today is obscured by his terminology. In what follows I shall be claiming that Hume's account of pride throws light upon what we call pride although he clearly was not aiming to do so. Donald Davidson, in a footnote to "Hume's Cognitive Theory of Pride," points out that there is a close similarity between his reading ofHume on pride andmy own treatment ofprideinPassionand Value. Since the two accounts were arrived at completely independently, each ofus can see the other'sinterpretation as some confirmation ofhis own. The accounts are not identical, however, and without aiming at a comprehensive comparison, I shall attempt to decide whether one or two ofthe apparent differences between our accounts indicate substantial disagreement. I shall try not to confuse the following four questions: "What did Hume thinkconstitutes pride?""Whatlesson do I, and whatlesson does Davidson think one could learn from Hume's account?" and finally, "What constitutes pride?" Davidson and I agree that a lesson is to be Volume XV Number 2 387 PALL ARDAL learned from Hume's account, but disagree about the nature of this lesson because of a disagreement about the nature of pride. Both Davidson and I think that Hume's claim that pride is a simple impression is an embarrassment to him. It does not have any immediate appeal and also leads him to clearly misrepresent the relation between pride and its object. Pride has self as its object in the sense that it is a form of self-evaluation. Hume misrepresents this relation as a causal relation between pride and the thoughtofoneself. Whenever one is proud, one's thought is drawn to oneself, but according to Hume it couldhave been otherwise. Itjust so happens that the feeling ofpride makes one think of oneself, that when you are already proud your thought turns to yourself. Hume, it is true, does not always represent the relation between the object of pride and the passion itself as contingent. Much ofwhathe says suggests the more plausible view that pride is essentially a form of self-evaluation, but the lesson we can learn from Hume we can learn in spite ofhis atomism, so let us follow Davidson and disregard the atomism, while admitting its presence in Hume's account. Davidson points out that the pride Hume is talking about is pride for a reason. I follow Hume in talking about the cause ofpride, or what makes one proud, but the two accounts seem to me to be very similar on this issue. The two accounts are alsoin agreement thatHume should have said that the proud person must see the cause of pride as having value rather than as an independent source of pleasure, but we are... (shrink)

Perry argues that certain sorts of indexicals are 'essential', in the sense that they cannot be eliminated in favor of descriptions. This paper also introduces the influential idea that certain sorts of indexicals play a special role in thought, and have a special connection to action.

Emotions, according to David Hume, are “simple and uniform impressions,” “internal” impressions which are related to other impressions according to an empirically demonstrable set of “laws of association.” The notion that an emotion is “simple” and a mere “impression” accounts for the relatively little attention the topic of “the passions” has received in modern philosophy, at least until very recently. Unlike “ideas,” to which such “impressions” are usually contrasted, emotions are thought to be preconceptual, unintelligent, irrational, causal products of “animal (...) spirits” of a sub-human nature, mere “feelings” which deserve none of the careful analysis so often dedicated to the structures of perception, knowledge and reason. In Descartes’ treatise on the passions, for example, “animal spirits” and the crude physiology of emotions take priority over his quick and often glib quasi-conceptual analyses of them. His analysis is thoroughly strait jacketed by the dubious dualism that usually bears his name, and ever since, the question whether emotions should be thought of as mere “feelings” or “impressions” or rather conceived of in terms of their physiology and manifestations in behavior has dominated what little study of emotions existed before this century. (shrink)