Abstract:The purpose of Hume’s argument about induction, contra “literalist” interpretations that see it merely as psychology, is to show that induction cannot be justified. Hume maintains that the only way to justify induction would be to demonstrate or to produce a good inductive argument for the uniformity principle (UP). His most famous point is that any attempt to justify UP inductively would be circular. One may retort that no inductive argument can be circular, for a circular argument must be deductively (...) valid. But there is a sense in which a purely inductive argument for UP is circular: it uses induction for the purpose of justifying induction. Therefore, the literalist interpretation cannot be right. For if the argument can be circular only if its purpose is to justify induction, and Hume has shown that it is circular, then its purpose must be to justify induction, and Hume shows that this cannot be done. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper claims that Hume is committed to a rather sophisticated form of functionalism. This claim is based upon the following arguments: first, Hume’s characterization of objects such as vegetables and animal bodies in terms of their functional identity, and their underlying analogy with the identity we ascribe to persons or selves, implies that an absolute constancy is not part of the essential nature of persons. Rather, what corresponds to this assumed metaphysical constancy is functional identity. Second, Hume’s distinction between (...) the question concerning the substance of the mind on the one hand, and the questions concerning the local conjunction and cause of our perceptions, on the other, has much in common with, and anticipates, the much-celebrated functionalist distinction between the ontology and metaphysics of the mind. (shrink)

Abstract:What is Hume’s hypothesis of the double relation of impressions and ideas from which a passion arises? How does it operate in structuring his system? These are primary questions that need to be answered in order to understand Hume’s intention in the Treatise. Yet, there exists no reasonable answers, nor serious attempts to answer them, probably because this hypothesis is considered as a limited issue, relevant only to the indirect passions, or because it is too mechanical and unsophisticated to excite (...) critics’ curiosities. My present aim is to show that Hume’s double relation of impressions and ideas operating in the production of indirect passions is integral to his entire system not only in that it serves as a powerful weapon to advocate his naturalistic position, but also in that it is a highly sophisticated psychological mechanism that functions as a schema for the cooperation of the imagination and the passions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hume’s Epistemological Evolution by Hsueh M. QuDan KervickHsueh M. Qu, Hume’s Epistemological Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 280. Hardback. ISBN: 9780190066291, $90.Every interpreter of Hume is compelled to grapple at some point with the problem of the relationship between Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1739) and his two enquiries: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) and An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). Readers are (...) often guided in this area by Hume’s own later reflections and directions to his readers, particularly by the witty, but terse comments in “My Own Life,” where Hume acknowledges his youthful disappointment when the Treatise “fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots,” and then reports a longstanding conviction that his literary failure with the Treatise “had proceeded more from the manner than the matter.” This famous self-assessment suggests the relationship between the earlier work and the later ones is more a matter of style, exposition, and clarity than of differences in philosophical substance. Close readers of the Treatise and the two Enquiries, however, have often found a significantly more perplexing and far less straightforward relationship among these works. Hsueh M. Qu’s delightful and thought-provoking Hume’s Epistemological Evolution is the first book-length treatment of the relationship between Book 1 of the Treatise of Human Nature and the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Qu’s book ties together many of the strands of earlier commentary on the subject, synthesizes and critiques them, and develops its own comprehensive and original interpretation. The style is precise and detailed, yet easygoing and fluent, and the book will no doubt serve as the starting point and benchmark for future research on its subject for many years. One important general theme of Qu’s interpretation is the contention that in Book 1 of the Treatise, epistemological issues take a backseat to psychological issues, and epistemological issues tend to arise in the earlier work as “offshoots” of psychological ones, whereas the focus of the Enquiry is much more epistemological. More controversially, Qu rejects the view that the philosophical differences between the Treatise and the Enquiry are only differences in manner, not matter. He argues that Hume disavowed the Treatise treatment of skepticism “because of his dissatisfaction with the response to scepticism offered in the former work: he finds the Treatise’s epistemological framework to be philosophically inadequate” (Qu, 1). Qu believes that Hume defends mitigated skepticism in both the Treatise and the Enquiry, so “his final position is indeed the same in both works.” However, he also argues that the “arguments and frameworks” that lead to this position differ between the two [End Page 183] works, with the Treatise offering defective arguments for this “same philosophical endpoint” (12). As a preliminary step toward justifying his contention that the Enquiry is more normatively focused than the Treatise, Qu begins by comparing and contrasting the stated aims of the two works, as set out in the Treatise’s “Introduction” and in EHU part 1. The most important difference he finds is the emphasis in EHU part 1 on the project of driving out false metaphysics. While the Treatise is focused on establishing a psychological science of man, the Enquiry, “in emphasising its aim of driving off a class of poorly justified beliefs... seems more self-consciously normative than the characterisation of the aims of the Treatise in the corresponding section of that work” (42). In the Enquiry, as Qu reads it, the epistemological recommendations delivered haphazardly and parenthetically in the Treatise have been elevated into a fundamental purpose of the work. Moving from overview to detail, Qu takes up the problem of Hume’s views on induction in Chapters 3 and 4. He follows Stroud in distinguishing a negative phase from a positive phase in Hume’s argument on induction, the first phase aiming to show that inductive inferences are not founded on reason, and the second aiming at the conclusion that they are instead determined by custom. That these two phases of the argument can be found in both the Treatise and the Enquiry is a... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Concealed Influence of Custom: Hume’s “Treatise” from the Inside Out by Jay L. GarfieldJohn Christian LaursenJay L. Garfield. The Concealed Influence of Custom: Hume’s “Treatise” from the Inside Out. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 302. Hardback. ISBN: 978-0-19-093340-1, $82. This book has at least two original and great merits. One is that it is one of the first in the Hume literature to be truly global. (...) The other is that it gives custom and habit the place they deserve in Hume’s philosophy. Concerning the first of these, I think it would be widely admitted that most of the study of Western philosophy is done in blissful ignorance of non-Western philosophy. We follow what our thinkers are doing, and pay little or no attention to the rest of the world. In contrast, this book peppers the footnotes, and even some of the text, with comparisons to Buddhist schools and figures such as Madhyamaka, Candrakirti, Nagarjuna, and the like. We are not used to the idea that Western philosophers may have drawn some of their ideas from non-Western philosophy, although we have long known that Pyrrho traveled to India and may have taken ideas from the gymnosophists, and that later philosophers like Bayle and Leibniz were very interested in Chinese ideas. In Hume’s case, it is possible that there was some influence through Pyrrho and his followers, or that these were simply parallel developments. The latter are still of philosophical interest because they show how similar philosophies can develop from different roots. Of course, one of the reasons that most of us cannot compare a figure like Hume to Indian or Chinese philosophy is that we do not know the languages and have not been trained in those areas. In this case, Jay Garfield is the author of many works on Indian philosophy, including Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy (2015), so he has authority in the matter. A work like this, drawing attention to many similarities and parallels in philosophy, could be followed up by some methodological work on how to compare philosophies from such different intellectual traditions. What do the parallels mean? Are there any deeper or wider conclusions that we can make about parallels that appear in very different philosophical traditions? Is convergence of ideas a confidence builder in their solidity and truth, or rather a reminder of common human tendencies to fallacy? If philosophy is ever going to join the ranks of truly global human enterprises, it will have to ask and answer these questions about far-flung philosophical traditions. The main argument of this book is that Hume is best understood as a Pyrrhonian philosopher who maintains that the foundations of our knowledge, ethics, and political practices may be found only in custom and habit. Book 2 of Hume’s Treatise is the key, providing a social account of the passions and our constructions of ourselves. “Custom is essential to the story,” the author writes (82). Nature makes [End Page 179] us develop customs together that start from passions and sympathy, and are drawn together by the imagination. On the basis of these social constructions of most elements of our lives, by the end of the book, Garfield is talking about Hume’s place in the “communitarian tradition” (279–80). If Book 2 is read before Book 1, one will realize that what Hume says about reason and ontology in Book 1 is rooted in his theory of the passions in Book 2, and thus always social. What Hume is doing is more like philosophical psychology (or the psychology of philosophy?) than epistemology, metaphysics, or moral philosophy, according to Garfield. Hume is asking why we believe what we believe in epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy, not proving that any of these beliefs are true. Taking the title of Hume’s Treatise seriously, it is a book about human nature, not about Hume’s understanding of those philosophical subfields. Hume’s work is more descriptive than prescriptive. We can learn from it how we live, not how we should live, which is a matter for the development of customs over time... (shrink)

We are pleased to say that Hume Studies has awarded its second annual Essay Prize, with an announcement featured in this issue. The winning paper will be published in November 2023 (Hume Studies 48:2). We thank the members of the 2022–23 Prize Committee, who are acknowledged in the announcement. Please see the Call for Papers for the Third Annual Essay Prize on page 189 of this issue.Along with five original articles and three book reviews, our current issue features a symposium (...) on Margaret Watkins’s book, The Philosophical Progress of Hume’s “Essays” (Cambridge University Press, 2019). The symposium is a development from an Author-Meets-Critics panel that was held at the 47th Hume Society Conference, sponsored by... Read More. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Comments on Margaret Watkins, The Philosophical Progress of Hume’s “Essays”Jacqueline Taylor (bio)After David Hume’s death, Adam Smith wrote a letter to Hume’s publisher, William Strahan, to recount some of the final words and the attitude of “our late excellent friend, Mr. Hume.”1 Despite declining health and increasing weakness, Hume faced his approaching demise “with great cheerfulness” (EMPL xlvi). He had recently been reading Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead, and (...) although feeling he had every reason “to die contented,” Smith describes the “jocular excuses” Hume might make to Charon to delay his death (EMPL xlv). He first requests more time so that he can see how the public responds to the latest corrections he had been making to his works, but Charon replied that this would only lead Hume to want more time to make further corrections. Hume tries another tack: “Have a little patience, good Charon, I have been endeavouring to open the eyes of the public. If I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition,” to which Charon replies, “You loitering rogue, that will not happen these many hundred years... Get into the boat this instant, you lazy loitering rogue” (EMPL xlvi). This imaginary dialogue makes evident Hume’s self-awareness as an author who cared greatly about both the correctness of his written works and the influence of these works on the public.In her book, Margaret Watkins argues that Hume’s concern to open the eyes of the public goes well beyond attempts to bring about the downfall of systems of superstition.2 She credits him with the broader aim of writing essays for a literate audience that would stimulate both public and individual improvement in various areas of human activity, including government, work, aesthetic experience, and intimate [End Page 155] relationships. The first three chapters of the book examine the case for Hume’s concern with public improvement. Chapter 1 focuses primarily on the political essays, and examines Hume’s account of governing and his criticism of the irrationality apt to arise with divisive political factionalism. Chapter 2 turns to inequalities of power and the circumstances that allow some to exercise to a greater degree the domineering tendency that is part of human nature. Watkins uses Hume’s essay on the population size of ancient and modern societies to reconstruct his view on the ills—to both masters and slaves—of ancient slaveholding. She complicates this discussion by looking at modern slaveholding in the colonies, and Hume’s puzzling lack of attention to this. In the ancient world, slaveholding resulted from war and conquest, and Watkins examines how ancient warfare also led to greater ferocity and anger in fighting and exacerbated cruelty (a trait Hume had deemed the worst vice in the Treatise [T 3.3.3.8]).3 This is another place where Watkins sees Hume taking stock of modern improvements. In the wide-ranging third chapter, entitled “Working,” Watkins considers economic circumstances as moral causes that can shape character, highlighting the importance for Hume of the commercial virtues, especially industry.4 She also shows that in the four essays on happiness, modeled on Hellenistic sects, each type of philosopher regards industry, or at least occupation, as essential to human happiness. Watkins concludes that the need for industry is thus something we are naturally motivated to seek out, and so an integral part of human nature. Chapter 4, on “Composing,” shows Watkins’s talents as a philosophical essayist in her own right, as she relates art and other forms of beauty to the cultivation of calm passions. We find here an insightful discussion of art, whether composing or consuming, as having particularly therapeutic effects on melancholy and other forms of nervous conditions. Chapters 5 and 6 take up, respectively, love for oneself and love for others. The former looks at the importance Hume places on both self-love and pride. Here Watkins draws primarily on Hume’s more morally theoretical works, both the Treatise and EPM, since they have more to say about self-valuing. Chapter 6 shows how we may fruitfully read... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Imagination in Hume’s Philosophy: The Canvas of the Mind by Timothy M. CostelloeSaul TraigerTimothy M. Costelloe. The Imagination in Hume’s Philosophy: The Canvas of the Mind. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018. Pp. xv + 312. Hardback. ISBN: 9781474436397. $107.00.If anything about Hume’s philosophy can be characterized as widely accepted, it is that the imagination is front and center in Hume’s account of the mind. The aim of (...) Timothy Costelloe’s book is to fully develop the observation, that the imagination, as Hume understands it, is “the canvas of the mind.” Costelloe amply demonstrates that the imagination is a broad canvas, ranging from Hume’s epistemology and metaphysics, to his aesthetics, moral and political philosophy, history, philosophy of religion, and his general conception of philosophy itself. Seven substantial chapters cover these areas, and show how Hume takes the imagination to play a pivotal role in each.One of the many strengths of this book is that Costelloe responsibly mines the secondary literature, carefully explaining the interpretations he seconds and those he finds wanting. The attention to the relevant secondary literature is apparent from the start, where Costelloe laments the surprising dearth of book-length treatments of Hume on the imagination, but helpfully highlights both the lesser known Hume-centric monographs on the imagination by Furlong and Wilbanks, as well as more widely read interpretations.The introductory chapter makes important distinctions and introduces some main concepts. Hume differentiates the imagination’s “combinatory power” from its “creative power.” While the uninhibited ability to concatenate ideas might also be seen as a creative act, Costelloe sees the creative power where the imagination [End Page 173] “generates a class of ideas—‘fictions’ of a certain sort—independent of experience and according to its own inner logic” (21). This characterization makes sense when viewing the imagination’s function as directed towards a goal, such as achieving coherence or creating an aesthetically pleasing effect. Costelloe suggests that achieving an aesthetically pleasing effect is an element in any exercise of the imagination’s creative power. The imagination creates easy transitions among ideas where there were none, where doing so is pleasurable, or aided by the passions.Costelloe introduces his account of Hume’s fictions as errors of the imagination whereby ideas are formed in a manner different from the standard derivation from antecedent impressions. He insists, helpfully, that fictions are not illusions, but rather errors of a different kind. Though both involve error, fictions, unlike illusions, are not described in terms of jest or irony (30).Though he acknowledges that Hume does not describe any fictions as “artificial,” Costelloe finds it helpful to draw a distinction between natural and artificial fictions. Natural fictions are generated without reflection. Artificial fictions, such as those created by poets and philosophers, issue from “the voluntary act of imagination” (31). Costelloe holds that artificial fictions “are rarely taken to refer to objects with real existence and that any professed belief is really a matter of people being persuaded of something and taking the ideas in question as having real referents, thus only lending themselves to their existence for one reason or another” (31). This is a bit unclear. Certainly, poetic fictions are voluntary creations not intended to refer to real objects. But substance, and the double existence of ideas and external objects, as philosophical fictions, surely both involve belief and the corresponding existential commitments on the part of the philosophers who are committed to them. It is also difficult to see the purported contrast between belief and taking ideas to have real referents.Chapter 2, on metaphysics, is the longest chapter in the book, and it addresses the fictions of the imagination in Hume’s account of space and time, continued and distinct existence, liberty and necessity, and personal identity. Costelloe is sensitive to the worry that classifying Hume’s subject in Book 1 of the Treatise as metaphysics may appear to be slighting the central epistemological concerns and failing to appreciate Hume’s nascent cognitive psychology. Such worries fall away as Costelloe explores the roles that the imagination plays in the formation of our conception of duration without change, and the identity... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reply to My CriticsMargaret Watkins (bio)Science is related to wisdom as virtuousness is related to holiness; it is cold and dry, it has not love and knows nothing of a deep feeling of inadequacy and longing. It is as useful to itself as it is harmful to its servants, insofar as it transfers its own character to them and thereby ossifies their humanity. As long as what is meant (...) by culture is essentially the promotion of science, culture will pass the great suffering human being by with pitiless coldness, because science sees everywhere only problems of knowledge and because within the world of the sciences suffering is really something improper and incomprehensible, thus at best only one more problem.1When Nietzsche writes these words in “Schopenhauer as Educator” in 1874, nearly a century after Hume’s death, he is not using “science” (Wissenschaft) to refer only to what we now know as the natural sciences. Indeed, as another essay in the Untimely Meditations makes clear, history is as much, if not more, in Nietzsche’s sights as biology or physics. He is naming a peculiar irony here: in the quest for a certain kind of progress—the progress of knowledge—we can end up killing any hope of progress for life. Certain methods of historical study are forms of enquiry whose spiritless effect is to “let the dead bury the living.”2 Our relentless quest to catalog and preserve the old robs us of the higher ways we might learn from it, or overcome it. We “historians of philosophy” can do this by reading past philosophers as dead artifacts, focusing intently on how they were responding to their particular contexts and pursuing their own projects. As indispensable as such study is, it can kill the texts’ potential to continue to inspire and inform philosophical thought of our own. [End Page 163]In writing The Philosophical Progress of Hume’s “Essays,” my hope was to counteract this tendency in myself and in readers of Hume—to show that these works often neglected by contemporary philosophers are still capable of inspiring life-giving, generative philosophical thought. (I do not say they are of more than “mere” historical interest; abusing the study of history with such a pernicious adverb runs counter to every fiber of my being.) Such thought need not be optimistic, encouraging, or even morally admirable at every step. It need simply inspire our own thought, activate that love of truth that Hume says can never “be carried to too high a degree,” or (preferably and) show us how that truth matters for human life (EHU 5.1).3My attempts to achieve this aim have two primary modes: showing that the Essays can inspire vital philosophical reflection and arguing that they are themselves philosophical or works of philosophy. To put my cards on the table: the enemies within (and without) that run counter to this effort are the tendency to put a piece of philosophical writing under a microscope (whose lens might be analytic or historical) without ever asking why it matters, and the tendency to dismiss the writing as philosophical because it does not fit neatly into one of the current categories of our discipline or our understanding of “the” early modern philosophical project.I am therefore pleased that both my generous interlocutors, Jacqueline Taylor and Andre Willis, recognize my attempt to extend as well as explain Hume’s insights. There is far too much insight in their own contributions for me to do justice to. I will therefore limit my discussion to three main topics: the notion of Humean public spirit I attempt to elucidate in the book, the related problems of analytic distance, and the pressing question of the difference between Hume’s projects in other philosophical works—especially the two Enquiries—and his projects in the Essays.Although there is no essay called “Of Public Spirit,” it is still a significant concept for the Essays. The initial advertisement to the 1741 volume of Essays, Moral and Political included this observation: “Public Spirit, methinks, shou’d engage us to love the Public, and to bear an equal Affection to all our Country-Men; not... (shrink)

Abstract:The question broached in the title may sound odd. It makes sense to ask whether Hume’s empiricism is successful, and whether it is the best way of rendering rigorous the (vague) empiricist view. But is it not obvious that Hume is an empiricist? I shall argue that the answer is negative, at least when we are concerned with methodological empiricism, pertaining to the way inquiry, both scientific and philosophical, must proceed. In support of my claim, I will distinguish between the (...) theoretical question, pertaining to the methodological view Hume endorses, and the practical question, concerned with the way he conducts his inquiry. My conclusion will be that the answer to the first question is contentious, and the answer to the second is negative. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spirit and Politics: Some Thoughts on Margaret Watkins’s The Philosophical Progress of Hume’s “Essays”Andre C. Willis (bio)Margaret Watkins’s elegant text, The Philosophical Progress of Hume’s Essays (2019),1 is marked by a Humean approach: it fosters philosophical consideration of both the faculties of the mind and the affective features of experience in ways that bear on practical, moral issues. Ever-attentive to the meaning of Hume’s various nuances and strategic ambiguities, (...) Watkins’s even-handed approach guides us into a broad swath of Hume’s ideas and marches us through a trajectory of secondary interlocutors. It also establishes Watkins as an integral part of Hume’s lineage, in the sense that she understands that thoughtful writing itself is an intellectual virtue. Her “unusual sensitivity, not to life’s daily vicissitudes but to beauties and deformities” (193)2 richly textures her overall argument that positions Hume’s Essays as a filter for his vision of “true philosophy:” that reflective turn towards nature and common life that openly challenges abstruse reasoning, fluently embraces historicism and perspectivalism, and deftly foregrounds the usefulness of ideas over their logical certainty.As much as Watkins reveals Hume’s vision for philosophy, she also extends it; for, among other things, her consideration of Hume’s unique endeavor in philosophical literature (ultimately collected under the title Essays, Moral, Political and Literary [1758]), makes an important twofold contribution to Hume studies. It brings greater attention to Hume’s notion of “public spirit,” a distinct mode of human excellence that combines “benevolence” with “greatness of mind.” And, it aestheticizes some practical dimensions of human life (noted in chapter titles, for example, “Working,” [End Page 143] “Thinking,” “Loving”) without losing track of their socio-political valences. I shall return to these two main points below. As an introductory gesture, I want to note that Watkins’s writing both nicely elaborates Hume’s philosophical vision and thoughtfully broadens his literary insights. It does “the job of putting the audience into a responsive relation with the work of art,” what literary critic R. P. Blackmur identified as “the job of intermediary.”3Generally speaking, Watkins’s mediation filters salient themes and terms from Hume’s corpus through a particularly close reading of the Essays. Cast through her richly stylized analysis, Hume’s foundational ideas of “sympathy,” “convention,” “impressions,” “association,” “imagination,” “artifice,” the “passions” (and more) find fresh interpretive air. An example of this in her first chapter tracks Hume’s use of both “artifice” and “convention” from the Treatise through the second Enquiry to the Essays. For Watkins, a through-line for Hume is that “governing” can be thought of as repeated actions that bridge institutional policy to individual character. To think about governing in this way is to open ourselves to new ways of conceiving potential overlaps between nature and artifice (say, in the instance of a moral virtue like courage [50]). To link categories in the Essays back to their antecedent texts along the lines that Watkins does is to situate them in the context of Hume’s larger thought-project and, indirectly, confirm connections between the individual essays. These conjoinings, for Watkins, suggest Hume’s Essays can be treated together, without either blending their disparate themes or diluting their individual subject matter.4This point stands in opposition to Hume’s own semi-admonishment (1741) that “The Reader must not look for any connexion among these Essays but must consider each of them as a Work apart.”5 Watkins’s response—indicative of the graciousness of her overall tone—is to warmly acknowledge Hume’s reproach and affirm the distinctiveness of each of the essays. She proclaims: “The Essays are not unified” (5). Her thinking about them separately, however, reveals a common practical thread in their form. Watkins characterizes this form as serving “to promote public benefit” (4). I think about this form as being philosophical in the way that Richard Rorty conceives of philosophy as cultural criticism. Watkins, however, wants to emphasize the public character of Hume’s philosophy. She writes: “Hume seeks to benefit the public in two ways. First, he tries to allay irrational attitudes that produce imprudent personal and... (shrink)

One of the gravest charges that has been brought against Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste” is that of circularity. Hume is accused of defining good art in terms of “true judges,” and of defining true judges in terms of their ability to judge good art. First, I argue that Hume avoids circularity since he offers a way of identifying good art that is logically independent of the verdict of true judges. Second, I argue that this clarifies an enduring (...) puzzle in the scholarship on Hume’s essay: why he appears to offer not one but two standards of taste. Hume’s standard does not consist of general rules; however, Hume needs general rules to establish that some individuals’ tastes are more “delicate” than others’. (shrink)