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Hume's Touchstone and the Politics of Meaningful Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Wilfried Backhaus
Wilfried Backhaus
Affiliation:
Camrose, Alberta
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Extract

In this paper I propose we read David Hume's view of meaningful discourse, or his theory of meaning, as an aspect of his theory of politics. I will argue that readings which ignore the political dimension are incomplete and distort Hume's position. When I use the word ‘political’ in the Humean context, however, it means something similar to what we mean by the term ‘social’; in the Humean context ‘politics’ is inclusive of the narrow sense taken by political science in its study of regular partisan politics and governance structures. My proposal is similar to the social-context or social-constructivist interpretations of commentators such as Pall Ardal, Donald Livingston, and Nicholas Capaldi. A political reading also stresses the importance of social context in our understanding of Hume, and agrees with the social-context argument that there is a social or political dimension to intellectual life which Hume hints at but does not address directly in Book 1 of the Treatise.

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Articles
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Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , Fall 1996 , pp. 651 - 676
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Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1996

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References

Notes

1 The Treatise references are from Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by Selby-Bigge, L. A., 2nd ed., revised by P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978).Google Scholar The Enquiries references are from Hume, David, Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principle of Morals, edited by Selby-Bigge, L. A., 3rd ed., revised by P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hereafter, the Treatise and Enquiries will be cited in the text as T and E. The Essays references are from Hume, David, Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, edited by Miller, Eugene F. (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1987).Google Scholar Hereafter, the Essays will be cited as EMPL.

2 Penelhum notes that, between Book 1 and Book 2 of the Treatise, “We have moved, as Nicholas Capaldi puts it, from someone who starts from an ‘I think’ (or Cartesian perspective) to someone who holds a ‘We do’ (or social constructivist) perspective.” Penelhum, Terence, “The Self of Book 1 and the Selves of Book 2,” Hume Studies, 18, 2 (1992), 281–91 (quotation at pp. 282-83), and “The self (‘as it concerns the passions’) is a social construction” (p. 288).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Ardal, Pall S., “Convention and Value,” David Hume: Bicentenary Papers, edited by Morice, G. P. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1977), pp. 51–67.Google Scholar

4 Livingston, Donald, Hume's Philosophy of Common Life, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).Google Scholar

5 Capaldi, Nicholas, Hume's Place in Moral Philosophy (New York: Peter Lang, 1992).Google Scholar

6 The interpretative strategy employed by the social-context view is based on the notion that we cannot safely presume to know what Hume really meant by his opening section without considering the entire text of the Treatise. This strategy was first advocated by N. Kemp Smith, who pointed out the importance of Book 2 of the Treatise to the understanding of key doctrines of Book 1. Ardal extended this approach by drawing our attention to the importance of Book 2 to the understanding of Book 3, and the importance of Book 3 to the understanding of Book 1 (Ardal, “Convention and Value,” p. 51). We find, Ardal argues, “that an aspect of Book 1 of the Treatise is intelligible only in the light of the account of virtue in Book 3. In coming to the end of a good detective story one understands some of the strange happenings at the beginning of it. Things fall into place. I believe this to be true of Hume's Treatise also” (Ibid., p. 51). The aspect of Book 1 which Ardal has in mind is Hume's theory of meaning. More recently, Livingston argued that this “detective story” feature is intentional: “the Treatise is cast in narrative form and should be read, in part, as a philosophical drama, where the earlier sections gain significance by being viewed in the light of later developments.” (Livingston, Hume's Philosophy of Common Life, p. 120)

7 Pitson, Antony E., “The Nature of Humean Animals,” Hume Studies, 19, 2 (1993), 301–16.Google Scholar Among Hume's distinctions between animals and people, “There is, for example, our possession of language which depends on the possibility of taking the general view and so appreciating the common interest which is served by this institution” (p. 312). See also Moore, James, “The Social Background of Hume's Science of Human Nature,” McGill Hume Studies, edited by Norton, David Fate, Capaldi, Nicholas, and Robison, Wade L. (San Diego: Austin Hill Press, 1979), pp. 23–41Google Scholar: “It is a curious but not often remarked characteristic of the philosophy of Hume that it is society alone that distinguishes the human from the animal world. It is not reason that differentiates human beings from animals, for animals have reason, as Hume understood it: they make inferences from the constant conjunction of ideas in experience” (p. 23).

8 At the conclusion of Part 1 of Book 2, Hume says that, in his account of pride and humility, “all the internal principles, that are necessary in us to produce either pride or humility, are common to all creatures; and since the causes, which excite these passions, are likewise the same, we may justly conclude, that these causes operate after the same manner thro’ the whole animal creation. My hypothesis is so simple, and supposes so little reflexion and judgement, that ‘tis applicable to every sensible creature; which must not only be allow'd to be a convincing proof of its veracity, but, I am confident, will be found an objection to every other system” (T 327-28). At the conclusion of Part 2 of Book 2, Hume, in reference to love and hatred, says, “Every thing is conducted by springs and principles, which are not peculiar to man, or any one species of animals. The conclusion from this is obvious in favour of the foregoing system” (T 397). And toward the end of Part 3 of Book 2: “The same care of avoiding prolixity is the reason why I wave the examination of the will and direct passions, as they appear in animals; since nothing is more evident, than that they are of the same nature, and excited by the same causes as in human creatures. I leave this to the reader's own observation; desiring him at the same time to consider the additional force this bestows on the present system” (T 448). The passions are the mainsprings of action in the Humean system for people and animals.

9 “Animals are susceptible of the same relations, with respect to each other, as the human species, and therefore wou'd also be susceptible of the same morality, if the essence of morality consisted in these relations. Their want of a sufficient degree of reason may hinder them from perceiving the duties and obligations of morality, but never hinder these duties from existing” (T 468).

10 See my “Advantageous Falsehood: The Person Moved by Faith Strikes Back,” Philosophy & Theology, 7, 3 (Spring 1993), 289–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of how other institutions are similarly created by convention. Religion has the same origin as justice in the Humean theory, but is discounted by the early Hume as a useless institution as opposed to the useful one surrounding our sense of justice.

11 Artifactualism is a concept emerging out of recent Canadian work in the philosophy of law. See Devlin, Richard F., “Mapping Legal Theories,” Alberta Law Review, 32, 3 (1994), 602–21.Google Scholar Within the scope of legal philosophy, according to Devlin, “Artifactualism recognizes that it is impossible to conceive of law without reference to the social values reflected in, and enforced by, law. However, according to Artifactualism, there is nothing separate or ‘out there’ about law. What is universal, a priori, determinative and transhistorical to the Natural Lawyer, is contingent, historical, specific and local to the Artifactualist. So Artifactualists join with Legal Positivists in emphasizing that law is a human construct and that the focus should be on the more tangible dimensions of law” (p. 607). Artifactualism is similar to some theories of social construction. Hume would clearly be attracted to some of these arguments.

12 Pitson notes: “Hume's account of the similarities and differences between ourselves and animals seems of obvious importance for understanding his general philosophical position. It is perhaps surprising, therefore, that Hume's remarks about animals have not received greater attention” (Pitson, “Nature of Humean Animals,” p. 301).

13 Ardal, “Convention and Value,” p. 54.

14 Ibid., p. 52.

15 Ardal further states: “Although I shall refuse to attribute to Hume the view that words mean ideas, I shall not ask, ‘What do words mean if they do not mean ideas?’, for I am not at all inclined to believe that Hume had a theory of meaning of the kind that such a question seems to presuppose” (Ibid.).

16 Flew, Antony, Hume's Philosophy of Belief (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961).Google Scholar

17 Bennett, Jonathan, Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).Google Scholar

18 Hume claims: “Perhaps I rather restore the word, idea, to its original sense, from which Mr. Locke had perverted it, in making it stand for all our perceptions” (T2, n. 1). See also Broughton, Janet, “What Does the Scientist of Man Observe?” Hume Studies, 18, 2 (1992), 155–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a general discussion on why the Lockean reading of Humean perceptions is not warranted.

19 Ardal, “Convention and Value,” pp. 54-59.

20 Pears, David, Hume's System: An Examination of the First Book of his Treatise (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar Pears does not, for some reason, even recognize Ardal's contribution in his discussion of Hume's theory of meaning.

21 This inadequacy would have been avoided, Pears contends: “[I]f Hume had examined the function of words more closely, he would have seen that, in a piece of directed thinking (as opposed to day-dreaming), words do not occur in our minds by mere association … Meaning cannot be explained without bringing in the concepts of choice and intention and drawing on the nature of activities rather than the nature of passive processes” (Ibid., p. 29).

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Pears claims: “These inadequacies are conceded by [Hume's] tacit reliance on the guidance given by language. So the best strategy for an interpreter is to offer him a dilemma: either dispense with that guidance or scrutinize it. If he dispenses with it, this part of his theory of mind will disintegrate. If he scrutinizes it, this part of his theory of mind will need to be changed by the substitution of active for passive processes” (p. 30).

25 Hume scrutinizes the guidance given by language, insofar as we recognize language as part of education (T 117), and he does ask us to dispense with language in an argument regarding the vacuum, because, “’tis usual for men to use words for ideas, and to talk instead of thinking in their reasonings. We use words for ideas, because they are commonly so closely connected, that the mind easily mistakes them” (T” 61-62).

26 I think Pears is simply mistaken in his reading of Hume's view of the mind as too passive. While one might get the notion that Hume's account sees the mind as passive if one merely read Of Abstract Ideas, that account must be assessed within the context of Hume's second principle, the freedom of the imagination: “of the liberty of the imagination to transpose and change its ideas” (T 10). Thought, for Hume, is destructively active to such an extent that inseparable connection is excluded from the imagination, and he finds he has to explain why our thoughts form the regular patterns that they do. As he remarks in the Enquiries: “Were the loosest and freest conversation to be transcribed, there would immediately be observed something which connected it in all its transitions” (E 23), and in the Treatise: “As all simple ideas may be separated by the imagination, and may be united again in what form it pleases, nothing wou'd be more unaccountable than the operations of the faculty, were it not guided by some universal principles, which render it, in some measure, uniform with itself in all times and places” (T 10). These principles are generally unconscious ones which save us from the consequences of unrestrained active and directed thinking: “the understanding, when it acts alone, and according to its most general principles, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree of evidence in any proposition, either in philosophy or common life. We save ourselves from this total scepticism only by means of that singular and seemingly trivial property of the fancy, by which we enter with difficulty into remote views of things, and are not able to accompany them with so sensible an impression, as we do those, which are more easy and natural” (T 267-68). The trivial property of the fancy is created by the unconscious and thereby passive operation of the principles of association.

27 Pears, Hume's System, p. 10.

28 Flew, for example, claims: “The first thing to appreciate is that in Hume's official view ideas always just are mental images. Furthermore the meanings of words are ideas, ideas again being identified with mental images. From time to time not surprisingly he says things which are hard or impossible to square with this official position” (Flew, Hume's Philosophy, p. 22). Following Flew, Bennett speaks of Hume's “official equation of ‘understanding’ with ‘having ideas'” (Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, p. 228). I have already referred to Ardal's argument against this view, and will be considering the Flew-Bennett view again when I deal with abstract ideas.

29 Pears, Hume's System, p. 9.

30 Wright, John P., The Sceptical Realism of David Hume (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983).Google Scholar

31 Ibid., p. 106.

32 Ibid., p. 111.

33 Ibid., p. 107.

34 Wright, John, “Hume's Rejection of the Theory of Ideas,” History of Philosophy, 8, 2 (April 1991), 149–62Google Scholar

35 Capaldi, Hume's Place in Moral Philosophy, 338-39.

36 Locke, John, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, edited by Pringle-Pattison, A. S. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960).Google Scholar

37 Ibid., 223.

38 Hobbes, Thomas, Body, Man and Citizen (New York: Collier Books, 1962).Google Scholar Hobbes notes: “[E]vidence is … concomitance of a man's conception with the words that signify such conception in the act of ratiocination … for if words alone were sufficient, a parrot might be taught as well to know the truth as to speak it. Evidence is to truth, as the sap to the tree, which, so far as it creepeth along with the body and branches, keepeth them alive; where it forsaketh them, they die: for this evidence, which is meaning with our words, is the life of truth” (p. 204).

39 Malebranche, Nicholas, The Search After Truth, translated by Lennon, Thomas M. and Olscamp, Paul J. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980).Google Scholar Malebranche notes: “Philosophers should refrain from saying that matter is pure or impure unless they know exactly what they mean by these words, for one should never speak without knowing what one is saying, i.e., without having distinct ideas corresponding to the terms one is employing” (p. 83).

40 Reid, Thomas, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1969).Google Scholar Reid notes: “Words are empty sounds, when they do not signify the thoughts of the speaker; and it is only from their signification that they are denominated general… It is therefore impossible that words can have a general signification, unless there be conceptions in the mind of the speaker, and the hearer, of things that are general” (p. 471).

41 Pitson, “The Nature of Human Animals,” p. 301.

42 Ibid., p. 313.

43 This is a summary of Hume's fuller comments in the Treatise: “Two men, who pull the oars of a boat, do it by an agreement or convention, tho’ they have never given promises to each other. Nor is the rule concerning the stability of possession the less deriv'd from human conventions, that it arises gradually, and acquires force by a slow progression, and by our repeated experience of the inconveniences of transgressing it. On the contrary, this experience assures us still more, that the sense of interest has become common to all our fellows, and gives us a confidence of the future regularity of their conduct: And ‘tis only on the expectation of this, that our moderation and abstinence are founded. In like manner are languages gradually establish'd by human conventions without any promise. In like manner do gold and silver become the common measures of exchange, and are esteem'd sufficient payment for what is of a hundred times their value” (T 490).

44 In his essay, Of the Standard of Taste, Hume notes: “a thousand different sentiments, excited by the same object, are all right: Because no sentiment represents what is real in the object. It only marks a certain conformity of relation between the object and the organs or faculties of the mind; and if that conformity did not really exist, the sentiment could never possibly have being. Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others. To seek the real beauty, or real deformity, is as fruitless an enquiry, as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or real bitter. According to the dispositions of the organs, the same object may be both sweet and bitter; and the proverb has justly determined it to be fruitless to dispute concerning tastes” (EMPL 229-30).

45 This is the point of Hume's experiments to confirm his system in Book 2. The first experiment illustrates the effect of a neutral fact: “[S]uppose we regard together an ordinary stone, or other common object, belonging to neither of us, and causing of itself no emotion, or independent pain and pleasure: ‘Tis evident such an object will produce none of these four passions” (T 333). Without the passions there can be no moral relevance about the fact of the stone at the side of the road.

46 Hume observes: “And though the philosophical truth of any proposition by no means depends on its tendency to promote the interests of society; yet a man has but a bad grace, who delivers a theory, however true, which he must confess, leads to a practice dangerous and pernicious. Why rake into those corners of nature which spread a nuisance all around? Why dig up the pestilence from the pit in which it is buried? The ingenuity of your researches may be admired, but your systems will be detested; and mankind will agree, if they cannot refute them, to sink them, at least in eternal silence and oblivion. Truths which are pernicious to society, if any such there be, will yield to errors which are salutary and advantageous” (E 279).

47 Not everything, however, is a social construction or an artifact. While Hume allows that there are a great many moral distinctions which arise from education or invention—that is, they are artifacts—he argues: “But that all moral affection or dislike arises from this origin, will never surely be allowed by any judicious enquirer. Had nature made no such distinctions, founded on the original constitution of the mind, the words, honourable and shameful, lovely and odious, noble and despicable, had never place in any language; nor could politicians, had they invented these terms, ever been able to render them intelligible, or make them convey any idea to the audience” (E 214). Hume argues that the social virtues must have a natural-beauty antecedent to all precept or education (Ibid.). This makes Hume's position a limited artifactualist one.

48 Zabeeh, Farhang, Hume: Precursor of Modern Empiricism (The Hague: Martinus Nijoff, 1960), p. 63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Zabeeh should have seen this observation as a refutation of his general thesis about Hume's empiricism. Like so many commentators, Zabeeh has so narrowly focused on Book 1 that he misses not only the touchstone but the political dimension of Hume's theory of meaningful discourse as well.

49 Ibid, p. 63.

50 In the context of Hume's moral theory, what is naturally intelligible includes those relations of ideas which rational insight or intuition (T 70) finds within the domain of experience, even though this intuition is not shared by animals. This is due to Hume's view that the passions are original existences (T 415) which cannot be contradicted either by truth or by reason except insofar as the passion is accompanied by a judgement which itself has reference to truth or reason (T 416).

51 As Hume notes in the Enquiries, “[T]here is this material difference between superstition and justice, that the former is frivolous, useless, and burdensome; the latter is absolutely requisite to the well-being of mankind and existence of society. When we abstract from this circumstance (for it is too apparent ever to be overlooked) it must be confessed, that all regards to right and property, seem entirely without foundation, as much as the grossest and most vulgar superstition. Were the interests of society nowise concerned, it is as unintelligible why another's articulating certain sounds implying consent, should change the nature of my actions with regard to a particular object, as why the reciting of a liturgy by a priest, in a certain habit and posture, should dedicate a heap of brick and timber, and render it thenceforth and for ever, sacred” (E 159).

52 I wish to thank the anonymous referee for raising this issue for me. The referee pointed out that my interpretation of meaning and discourse arising from Book 2 and 3 requires that we have in our mental repertoire the abililty to recognize an outer world containing other subjects with whom we can conventionally interact. The referee argues that Hume has to explain how this ability comes to be a feature of the mental equipment of a subject that begins by being confined to its perceptions. The Humean answer to this requirement is that we find we have this ability, that it happens to occur naturally in the higher animals already, and that explaining it in people is in principle no more difficult than explaining the social activity of higher animals in general.

53 Sawyer, Fay Horton, “A Mark of the Growing Mind is Veneration of Objects,” Hume Studies, 18, 2 (1992), 315–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sawyer is critical of Hume for neglecting the experiences and upbringing of children (p. 324), and notes: “Had Hume contrasted the behaviors and (inferred) cognitive and belief structures of children prior to and after acquiring the full concept of an independent object, he would have discerned the extraordinary practical and scientific usefulness of entering into the public world, of using a language, of being part of a community. Further, from the word ‘community,’ it is important to comment that the external or objective world of infants and young children is no? so much concerned with stones and balls and blocks as it is with other people” (p. 326). Hume, in the Treatise, might have had some doubts about community and education, but they slip away over time, eventually to be replaced with endorsement and cautious approval. The early Hume of the Treatise grows into the late Hume of the Enquiries Concerning the Principles of Morals.

54 Contemporary psychological research rejects this Cartesian view as wrongheaded. See Ornstein, Robert, The Evolution of Consciousness (New York: Prentice Hall, 1991).Google Scholar

55 Ibid., p. 14. Ornstein observes: “The mind evolved great breadth, but it is shallow, for it performs quick and dirty sketches of the world. This rough-andready perception of reality enabled our ancestors to survive better. The mind did not evolve to know the world or to know ourselves. Simply speaking, there has never been, nor will there ever be, enough time to be truly rational. Rationality is one component of the mind, but it is used rarely, and in a very limited area. Rationality is impossible anyway. There isn't time for the mind to go through the luxurious exercises of examining alternatives” (p. 3). Further, “The mind works in the overwhelmingly large part to do or die, not to reason or to know why. Most of our mental reactions are automatic, not so automatic perhaps as removing one's hand from a hot stove, but stored in fixed routines, as in a military exercise” (p. 4).

56 Pears, Hume's System, p. 29.

57 Wilson, Fred, “Hume on the Abstract Idea of Existence: Comments on Cummins's ‘Hume on the Idea of Existence’,” Hume Studies, 17, 2 (November 1991), 167–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Wilson notes: “In many respects, Hume's doctrine of ideas is fairly traditional. We think in terms of ideas. In particular, our capacity to think generally, to use general terms, is a matter of having abstract ideas. In this, Hume follows the views of his predecessors such as Locke, Descartes, and the Port Royal logicians. Hume also adopts the principle that what is conceivable is possible. Again, he follows the same tradition of Locke, Descartes, and the Port Royal logicians. Where Hume differs from his predecessors is in his account of what precisely an abstract is” (pp. 167-68).

58 Flew, Hume's Philosophy, p. 22.

59 Ibid., p. 223.

60 Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, p. 222.

61 Ibid., p. 223.

62 Hume retains his touchstone in the Enquiries in section 9 of the first Enquiry, where he notes: “[T]he experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves; and in its chief operations, is not directed by any such relations or comparisons of ideas as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties” (E 108). Insofar as Hume's technical terms ‘impression,’ ‘idea,’ and ‘belief are part of this mechanism, they are not part of an account of meaning, which is another reason for rejecting Flew's reading of Hume's official view.

63 Locke, Human Understanding, p. 226.

64 Ibid., p. 228.

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid., p. 89.

67 Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, p. 53.

68 Reid, Intellectual Powers, p. 471.

69 Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, p. 44.

70 Ardal, “Convention and Value,” p. 52.

71 Locke, Human Understanding, p. 103.

72 Ibid., p. 104.

73 Pears, Hume's System, p. 11.

74 Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, p. 228.

75 Reid, Intellectual Powers, p. 471.