Hume discusses the distinction of reason to explain how we distinguish things inseparable, and so identical, e.g., the color and figure of a white globe. He says we note the respect in which the globe is similar to a white cube and dissimilar to a black sphere, and the respect in which it is dissimilar to the first and similar to the second. Unfortunately, Hume takes these differing respects of resemblance to be identical with the white globe itself. Contradiction results, (...) undermining his theory of abstraction. The way out is apparently to admit an intrinsic complexity in even simple things. (shrink)

This work, first published in 1985, offers a general interpretation of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. Most Hume scholarship has either neglected or downplayed an important aspect of Hume's position - his scepticism. This book puts that right, examining in close detail the sceptical arguments in Hume's philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XX, Number 2, November 1994, pp. 179-194 Symposium A version of this paper was presented at the symposium on A Progress of Sentiments by Annette C. Baier, held at the Pacific Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association, Los Angeles, March 1994. On an Unorthodox Account of Hume's Moral Psychology RACHEL COHON One can learn a great deal about Hume's Treatise from Annette Baier's fascinating book, (...) A Progress of Sentiments.1 It is in places dazzling, in others revelatory, occasionally puzzling, and everywhere interesting. Having said that, I proceed to criticize one aspect of it. Belief and the Passions My topic is Baier's interpretation of Hume's moral psychology. First I sketch out the striking differences between Baier's View of Hume's moral psychology and what I call the Standard View. Then I consider some of Baier's reasons for her unorthodox reading. I argue that Baier's View of Hume's moral psychology is motivated in part by a particular, unstated understanding of Hume's theory of the passions. As a consequence of this, I argue, Baier denies Hume the use of an especially strong argument against the moral rationalists' theory of motivation and morality, for that strong anti-rationalist argument (sometimes called the influence argument) depends upon a support that is incompatible with Hume's theory of the passions as Baier implicitly understands it. But without the influence argument, Hume's case against the moral rationalists would be much weaker. The relevant portion of the Standard View, on the other hand, makes better sense of Hume's campaign against Samuel Clarke and others, because it embraces the support Hume offers for the influence argument. So, in this one respect, I shall argue that a portion of the Rachel Cohon is at the Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305 USA. 180 Rachel Cohon Standard View of Hume's moral psychology is superior to Baier's View. But whether we should reject Baier's View in favor of the relevant portion of the Standard View depends, of course, upon whether we can consistently reject the unstated interpretation of Hume's theory of the passions on which Baier's View seems to be based. Baier explicitly sees her version of Hume's moral psychology as shaped by the account of the passions in Book II. And Baier's discussion of the role of belief in the causation and individuation of the passions is illuminating. It helps guard against a common oversimplification of Hume's claim about the motivating power of reason. Baier reminds us that passions are impressions of reflection, and hence must be introduced in the mind by an impression or an idea; i.e., each passion is caused by certain ideas or impressions. Passions are "thought-caused" and "idea-mediated" (160). Anger, for example, "is always directed at someone for some perceived insult, injury or harm" (161). It has a "subject" or cause, the injury the person is thought to have done one. In one place Baier refers to the causes of passions as their "appropriate reasons" (164). The causes are "thoughts about what is or is likely to become the case" (161). For something to be a passion at all rather than a mere pleasure or pain, some idea must be present to cause it. Passions do, indeed, have their hedonic components, such as the two pleasures included in pride. But for pride to be the passion it is, rather than some other, "one must believe the fine thing to be one's own" (161). A particular belief is what identifies the passion. Even desire is influenced by a belief or idea, and subsequently is often called "preference " (164). Thus, since reason produces beliefs, and beliefs are the crucial, identifying causes of passions, reason has a thorough-going influence on passion. And since passions are what move us to act, reason provides indispensable causal input into volition and action. It is easy but inaccurate to describe Hume as saying that belief, or reason, does not cause action. Furthermore, besides having a characteristic cause, many passions have an intentional object distinct from their cause. For anger, this "object... (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction The Basic Features of the Indirect Passions Why These Four Emotions? The Foundations of the Distinction, between Direct and Indirect Passions The Moral Sentiments References Further Reading.

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)

Tom Beauchamp presents the definitive scholarly edition of two famous works by David Hume, both originally published in 1757. In A Dissertation on the Passions Hume sets out his original view of the nature and central role of passion and emotion. The Natural History of Religion is a landmark work in the study of religion as a natural phenomenon. Authoritative critical texts are accompanied by a full array of editorial matter.

A genuine understanding of Hume's extraordinarily rich, important, and influential moral philosophy requires familiarity with all of his writings on vice and virtue, the passions, the will, and even judgments of beauty--and that means familiarity not only with large portions of _A Treatise of Human Nature, but also with An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals_ and many of his essays as well. This volume is the one truly comprehensive collection of Hume's work on all of these topics. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, (...) a leading moral philosopher and Hume scholar, has done a meticulous job of editing the texts and has provided an extensive Introduction that is at once accessible, accurate, and philosophically engaging, revealing the deep structure of Hume's moral philosophy. --Don Garrett, New York University. (shrink)

The myth of original existence is a story told by many readers of Hume. According to it, the author of the Treatise argues that no passion is unreasonable or contrary to reason on the grounds that passions have no ingredient ideas, and, having no ingredient ideas, are in no position to disagree with or be contrary to the product of reason, belief. While Hume doesn't actually say that passions contain no ideas to provide them with their objects, he does say (...) that "a passion is an original existence... and contains not any representative quality, which renders it a copy of any other existence". I shall refer to the uninterpreted argument in this passage as The Argument. (shrink)

Most naturalists think that the belief/desire model from Hume is the best framework for making sense of motivation. As Smith has argued, given that the cognitive state (belief) and the conative state (desire) are separate on this model, if a moral judgment is cognitive, it could not also be motivating by itself. So, it looks as though Hume and Humeans cannot hold that moral judgments are states of belief (moral cognitivism) and internally motivating (moral internalism). My chief claim is that (...) the details of Hume’s naturalistic philosophy of mind actually allow for a conjunction of these allegedly incompatible views. This thesis is significant, since readers typically have thought that Hume’s view that motivation is not produced by representations, coupled with his view that moral judgments motivate on their own, imply that moral judgments could never take the form of beliefs about, or representations of, the moral (virtue and vice). (shrink)

Hume’s Dissertation on the Passions stands to Book 2 of his Treatise as the first and second Enquiries stand to Books 1 and 3 respectively. However, while the two Enquiries are evidently substantial reworkings of their Treatise ancestors, containing much that is different and new, the Dissertation appears to consist merely of superficially adapted excerpts from Treatise Book 2. I argue that this first impression is mistaken, by showing how Hume’s view of the indirect passions is modified in the later (...) work. In the Treatise, he views them as simple impressions; in the Dissertation, they are complex perceptions, part impression and part idea. I argue, furthermore, that Hume’s account of the origin of the indirect passions only works on this later view, and suggest that this is why he changed his mind. The Dissertation, I conclude, is an improvement on its Treatise forerunner, and not merely a précis of it. (shrink)

Emotions, I will argue, involve two kinds of feeling: bodily feeling and feeling towards. Both are intentional, in the sense of being directed towards an object. Bodily feelings are directed towards the condition of one's body, although they can reveal truths about the world beyond the bounds of one's body – that, for example, there is something dangerous nearby. Feelings towards are directed towards the object of the emotion – a thing or a person, a state of affairs, an action (...) or an event; such emotional feelings involve a special way of thinking of the object of the emotion, and I draw an analogy with Frank Jackson's well-known knowledge argument to show this. Finally, I try to show that, even if materialism is true, the phenomenology of emotional feelings, as described from a personal perspective, cannot be captured using only the theoretical concepts available for the impersonal stance of the sciences. (shrink)

Hume is a naturalist in many different respects and about many different topics; this paper argues that he is also a naturalist about intentionality and representation. It does so in the course of answering four questions about his theory of mental representation: (1) Which perceptions represent? (2) What can perceptions represent? (3) Why do perceptions represent at all? (4) Howdo perceptions represent what they do? It appears that, for Hume, all perceptions except passions can represent; and they can represent bodies, (...) minds, and persons, with their various qualities. In addition, ideas can represent impressions and other ideas. However, he explicitly rejects the view that ideas are inherently representational, and he implicitly adopts a view according to which things (whether mental or non-mental) represent in virtue of playing, through the production of mental effects and dispositions, a significant part of the causal and/or functional role of what they represent. It is in virtue of their particular functional roles that qualitatively identical ideas are capable of representing particulars or general kinds; substances or modes; relations; past, present, or future; and individuals or compounds. (shrink)

Examines the skeptical arguments in David Hume's major work and analyzes the place of skepticism in his philosophy.

In his seminal _Philosophy of David Hume_, Norman Kemp Smith called for a study of Hume "in all his manifold activities: as philosopher, as political theorist, as economist, as historian, and as man of letters," indicating that "Hume's philosophy, as the attitude of mind that found for itself these various forms of expression, will then have been presented, adequately and in due perspective, for the first time." Claudia Schmidt seeks to address this long-standing need in Hume scholarship. Against the charges (...) that Hume holds no consistent philosophical position, offers no constructive account of rationality, and sees no positive relation between philosophy and other areas of inquiry, Schmidt argues for the overall coherence of Hume's thought as a study of "reason in history." She develops this interpretation by tracing Hume's constructive account of human cognition and its historical dimension as a unifying theme across the full range of his writings. Hume, she shows, provides a positive account of the ways in which our concepts, beliefs, emotions, and standards of judgment in different areas of inquiry are shaped by experience, both in the personal history of the individual and in the life of a community. This book is valuable at many levels: for students, as an introduction to Hume's writings and issues in their interpretation; for Hume specialists, as a unified and intriguing interpretation of his thought; for philosophers generally, as a synthesis of recent developments in Hume scholarship; and for scholars in other disciplines, as a guide to Hume's contributions to their own fields. (shrink)

David Hume (1711-76) is one of the greatest figures in the history of British philosophy. Of all of Hume's writings, the philosophically most profound is undoubtedly his first, A Treatise on Human Nature. Hume on Morality introduces and assesses: Hume's life and the background of the Treatise ; the ideas and text in the Treatise ; and Hume's continuing importance to philosophy. James Baillie provides us with a map to Books 2 and 3 of the Treatise, focusing on Hume's theory (...) of the passions and morality. This book sets out its principal ideas and arguments of the Treatise in a clear and readable way and is ideal for anyone coming to Hume's work for the first time. (shrink)

In his seminal _Philosophy of David Hume_, Norman Kemp Smith called for a study of Hume "in all his manifold activities: as philosopher, as political theorist, as economist, as historian, and as man of letters," indicating that "Hume's philosophy, as the attitude of mind that found for itself these various forms of expression, will then have been presented, adequately and in due perspective, for the first time." Claudia Schmidt seeks to address this long-standing need in Hume scholarship. Against the charges (...) that Hume holds no consistent philosophical position, offers no constructive account of rationality, and sees no positive relation between philosophy and other areas of inquiry, Schmidt argues for the overall coherence of Hume's thought as a study of "reason in history." She develops this interpretation by tracing Hume's constructive account of human cognition and its historical dimension as a unifying theme across the full range of his writings. Hume, she shows, provides a positive account of the ways in which our concepts, beliefs, emotions, and standards of judgment in different areas of inquiry are shaped by experience, both in the personal history of the individual and in the life of a community. This book is valuable at many levels: for students, as an introduction to Hume's writings and issues in their interpretation; for Hume specialists, as a unified and intriguing interpretation of his thought; for philosophers generally, as a synthesis of recent developments in Hume scholarship; and for scholars in other disciplines, as a guide to Hume's contributions to their own fields. (shrink)

Beginning with an overview of Hume's life and work, Don Garrett introduces in clear and accessible style the central aspects of Hume's thought. These include Hume's lifelong exploration of the human mind; his theories of inductive inference and causation; skepticism and personal identity; moral and political philosophy; aesthetics; and philosophy of religion. The final chapter considers the influence and legacy of Hume's thought today. Throughout, Garrett draws on and explains many of Hume's central works, including his Treatise of Human Nature (...) , Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding , and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion . Hume is essential reading not only for students of philosophy, but anyone in the humanities and social sciences and beyond seeking an introduction to Hume's thought. (shrink)

Tom Beauchamp presents the definitive scholarly edition of two famous works by David Hume, both originally published in 1757. In A Dissertation on the Passions Hume sets out his original view of the nature and central role of passion and emotion. The Natural History of Religion is a landmark work in the study of religion as a natural phenomenon. Authoritative critical texts are accompanied by a full array of editorial matter.

It is widely believed that Hume often wrote carelessly and contradicted himself, and that no unified, sound philosophy emerges from his writings. Don Garrett demonstrates that such criticisms of Hume are without basis. Offering fresh and trenchant solutions to longstanding problems in Hume studies, Garrett's penetrating analysis also makes clear the continuing relevance of Hume's philosophy.

To make progress on the problem of consciousness, we have to confront it directly. In this paper, I first isolate the truly hard part of the problem, separating it from more tractable parts and giving an account of why it is so difficult to explain. I critique some recent work that uses reductive methods to address consciousness, and argue that such methods inevitably fail to come to grips with the hardest part of the problem. Once this failure is recognized, the (...) door to further progress is opened. In the second half of the paper, I argue that if we move to a new kind of nonreductive explanation, a naturalistic account of consciousness can be given. I put forward my own candidate for such an account: a nonreductive theory based on principles of structural coherence and organizational invariance, and a double-aspect theory of information. (shrink)