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Robert J. Fogelin - Hume's Skeptical Crisis - A Textual Study-Oxford University Press, USA (2009)
Robert J. Fogelin - Hume's Skeptical Crisis - A Textual Study-Oxford University Press, USA (2009)
A Textual Study
ROBERT J. FOGELIN
1
2009
1
Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
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But what have I here said . . . ?
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Preface Z
A few words about the provenance of this work may help explain
the form it takes. It concerns the same material that I examined
in the first eight chapters of Hume’s Skepticism in the Treatise of
Human Nature, published in 1985. The primary intention of that
work was to counter the tendency, common at the time, to play
down or simply ignore the skeptical themes in Hume’s Treatise in
favor of a thoroughgoing naturalistic reading in the style of Norman
Kemp Smith. Since the skeptical themes were being played down,
to provide a suitable counterweight, I played them up. This work
is intended to offer a more balanced account of the relationship
between Hume’s naturalism and his skepticism.
In 1990 I was given the opportunity to develop the central ideas of
that book as a lecturer in a National Endowment for the Humanities
seminar directed by David Fate Norton and Wade Robison. It con-
sisted of five lectures on book 1, part 4 of the Treatise, the locus
of Hume’s deepest skeptical reflections. I wrote careful notes and
corrected them in the light of the energetic discussions that greeted
these lectures. My intention at the time was to use these notes as
the basis for a second edition of Hume’s Skepticism in the Treatise.
I then became involved in other projects and thought no more of
these notes until fifteen years later, when I received an invitation
from Livia Guimaraes to give a series of lectures on Hume at the
Universidade Federal de Minas Geraise in Brazil. I dug out the
x Preface
Notes 159
Works Cited or Mentioned 165
Index 167
Texts and Citations Z
xvii
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Hume’s Skeptical Crisis Z
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Introduction Z The Interpretive Problem
3
4 Introduction
Z
A Quick Tour of Part 3, Book 1
Section 1. Of knowledge
At the opening of this section, Hume repeats his list of what he calls
philosophical relations that he had originally presented and briefly
discussed in part 1, section 5. They are
11
12 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
To state the question more fully, what is the basis for thinking that
everything whose existence has a beginning should also have a cause
for this beginning? Hume argues that this cannot be justified as either
a demonstrative or an intuitive truth for the following reason:
As all distinct ideas are separable from each other, and as
the ideas of cause and effect are evidently distinct, ’twill be
easy for us to conceive any object to be non-existent this
Of Knowledge and Probability 15
Hume argues that causal reasoning must have as its first component
some initial experience, for without an origin in an initial experi-
ence causal reasoning would be no more than hypothetical.
The expression “at first sight” suggests that Hume is not really
committed to the idea that nothing new can emerge from the mere
repetition of the same ideas, and, in fact, he will reject it. Hume also
drops a hint of even deeper significance for understanding his ultimate
position concerning the relationship between necessary connections
and causal inferences: “Perhaps ‘twill appear in the end, that the
necessary connexion depends on the inference, instead of the inference’s
depending on the necessary connexion” (62/88). This is just how things
will turn out, but it can only be shown after Hume gives his account of
the “transition to the idea of the connected cause or effect,” the second
component in the program announced in the previous section.
Hume first attempts to show that causal inferences are not the
product of our rational faculties. The initial move, and the key
move, is this:
[If reason produced causal inferences] it wou’d proceed upon
that principle, that instances, of which we have had no experience,
must resemble those, of which we have had experience, and that the
course of nature continues always uniformly the same. (62/89)
The question now becomes: How can the principle that the course of
nature continues always uniformly the same itself be justified? Given
the architecture of Hume’s position, there are only two options:
In order therefore to clear up this matter, let us consider
all the arguments upon which such a proposition may be
suppos’d to be founded; and as these must be deriv’d either
from knowledge or probability, let us cast our eye on each of
these degrees of evidence, and see whether they afford any
just conclusion of this nature. (62/89)
The first alternative is ruled out by the conceivability argument:
There can be no demonstrative arguments to prove, that those
instances, of which we have had no experience, resemble those,
18 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
This section examines the lesser influence of the other two prin-
ciples of association—resemblance and contiguity—in transferring
belief. It provides an account of why causal associations are, in gen-
eral, stronger than the other two modes of association.
He then lays down eight rules that will serve as guides to empirical
inquiry, telling his reader that they are of much more use than the
elaborate systems put forward by “our scholastic head-pieces and
logicians [who] show no such superiority above the mere vulgar in
their reason and ability” (117/175). It is hard to see, as naturalistic
interpreters point out, why Hume would find it useful to present
such a system of rules for empirical inquiry if he harbored serious
doubts about the very possibility of such inquiry.
Z
Unphilosophical as Opposed to Philosophical
Probabilities
29
30 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
Z
Sources of Unphilosophical Probabilities
Reiterative diminution
If all the long chain of causes and effects, which connect any
past event with any volume of history, were compos’d of parts
different from each other, and which ’twere necessary for the
mind distinctly to conceive, ’tis impossible we shou’d preserve
to the end any belief or evidence. (99/146)
It seems, then, that beliefs in remote past events are preserved only
because we become fuddled when we think of how they have been
handed down to us. This idea that a limitation or weakness in the
human intellect can protect us from an unanswerable skeptical chal-
lenge will reappear in part 4, section 1.
Frenchman’s actions as foppish when they are not. All in all, not a
bad start for an account of the nature of prejudice.
Z
Conflicts within the Imagination
and Skepticism
Z
The Turn to Skepticism
39
40 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
Z
The Basic Argument
This much is clear from the text: Section 1, part 4, book 1 of the
Treatise opens with a skeptical examination of the demonstrative
sciences (Hume’s words), that is, of beliefs based on demonstration
and intuition. Given his own nomenclature, both intuitive and
demonstrative truths are in the domain of knowledge as opposed
to the domain of probability. It is also clear that Hume’s skep-
ticism is not limited to the domain of knowledge, but includes
the domain of probability as well. The moral that Hume draws
from his skeptical reflections is that our intellectual faculties, when
allowed to follow their own principles without restraint, are wholly
destructive of beliefs based on reasoning. So the scope of Hume’s
argument is unrestricted: It is not limited to those beliefs that are
the product of demonstrative and intuitive reasoning, though it
includes them.
Hume’s Skepticism with Regard to Reason 41
worry about human fallibility misses the specific point Hume is try-
ing to establish.
If I am right, Hume’s skepticism with regard to reason suffers
from two serious shortcomings. The first is that he has not shown
that making the reflexive move will, in virtue of principles of logic
or rationality, diminish levels of assurance. The second is that he
has not shown that the vertical approach is the sole and demanded
method for establishing the reliability of one’s cognitive faculties. In
sum, neither epistemic nor doxastic prudence forces us to adopt the
vertical approach, and even if we do, principles of logic or rational-
ity do not, of themselves, yield diminution of assurance.4
Z
Hume’s Response to His Skeptical Argument
Z
Peritrope
will agree that the successive application of the reflexive method will
lead to a total destruction of belief—and they will agree without so
much as making a serious try at applying this method. The igno-
rance and weakness of mind that protects the vulgar provides no
protection to the learned, including Hume himself.
In his section concerning skepticism with regard to reason,
Hume shows no signs of recognizing the precarious character of his
own position relative to his own skeptical argument. Hume seems
to see himself as standing above the fray while the skeptic and the
dogmatist engage in mortal combat that inevitably leads to their
mutual destruction. It doesn’t seem to cross his mind that he him-
self could be swept up in the combat with a similar outcome. Later
he will confront this possibility—with dramatic results.
Chapter 4 Z Of Skepticism with Regard
to the Senses
Z
Hume’s Turnabout with Regard to the Senses
55
56 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
Z
The Organization of Section 2
Z
The Causes of Our Belief in the Existence of Bodies
These are the only questions, that are intelligible on the pres-
ent subject. For as to the notion of external existence, when
taken for something specifically different from our percep-
tions, we have already shown its absurdity. (126/188)
In defense of this claim, Hume refers the reader to a passage earlier
in the Treatise:
Hume offers three responses to this claim. The first is that, “prop-
erly speaking, ’[t]is not our body we perceive, when we regard our
limbs and members, but certain impressions, which enter by the
senses, [etc.]” (127/191). This claim, however, is something Hume
has yet to establish. Hume’s second consideration is genuinely
arcane: “Sounds, and tastes, and smells, tho’ commonly regarded
by the mind as continu’d independent qualities, appear not to have
any existence in extension, and consequently cannot appear to the
senses as situated externally to the body” (127/191). Here, Hume
refers his reader to his later defense of the claim that something can
exist, but exist nowhere, presented in part 4, section 5. In his third
consideration Hume tells us that “even our sight informs us not of
distance or outness (so to speak) immediately and without a certain
reasoning and experience, as is acknowledg’d by the most rational
philosophers” (127–28/191). Given the doctrine itself and given the
use of the curious Berkelean word “outness,” Hume is almost cer-
tainly referring to Berkeley’s problematic New Theory of Vision.2
In what seems to be an exercise in overkill, Hume adds a number
of other considerations intended to show that sense cannot be the
Of Skepticism with Regard to the Senses 63
While true enough, isn’t this irrelevant? Suppose savants could pro-
duce an argument showing that the plain man’s belief that objects
of perception have a continued and distinct existence is true.
Wouldn’t that vindicate the plain man’s belief, even if the proof
was wholly unknown to him? Actually, as we shall see, the savants
are united in rejecting the view of the vulgar. That, however, is
not the main point to stress. Hume’s project is to explain how the
vulgar acquire a belief in the external existence of bodies, and he
will spend considerable time trying to explain how the imagination
accomplishes this feat. It is a plain matter of fact that the vulgar do
not arrive at this belief by a process of ratiocination. Hume might
have left it at that.
Hume, however, does not rest his case on this plain matter of
fact but, as is his wont, adds further considerations to his argument.
He argues in addition that our belief in the distinct and continued
existence of unperceived objects cannot come from reason because
the belief is itself unreasonable.
Hume completes his rejection of the idea that reason can serve as
the basis of the vulgar belief in the continued and distinct existence
of perceptions by appealing to his analysis of causal relations:
To which we may add, that as long as we take our perceptions
and objects to be the same, we can never infer the existence of
the one from that of the other, nor form any argument from
the relation of cause and effect; which is the only one that
can assure us of matter of fact. Even after we distinguish our
perceptions from our objects, ’twill appear presently, that we
are still incapable of reasoning from the existence of one to
that of the other. (129/193)
It seems that if we “take our perceptions and objects to be the
same,” as the vulgar do, then there is no place for a causal relation
to apply, for no object can be the cause of itself. If we distinguish
the perceptions from the objects, as the double-existence theorists
do, we would then have two things that could enter into causal
relations, but, as we shall see, an unanswerable skeptical argument
then arises.
Z
The Operations of the Imagination in Forming
This Belief
With both sense and reason eliminated, we are left with the imagi-
nation as the source of the belief that the objects we are aware of can
enjoy a continued and distinct existence.
So that upon the whole our reason neither does, nor is it pos-
sible it ever shou’d, upon any supposition, give us an assur-
ance of the continu’d and distinct existence of body. That
66 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
Hume first argues that the belief in the continued and distinct exis-
tence of bodies cannot be based on either involuntariness or on
force and violence. (Feelings of pain can be used as counterexamples
to both suggestions.) He then considers constancy and coherence in
our train of ideas as the basis of our belief in the existence of body.
He gives homey examples of each. With respect to constancy, Hume
sees before him a desk with books and other objects on it. He closes
his eyes for a few moments, opens them again, and finds things just
as they were before he closed his eyes. With respect to coherence, he
leaves his room where a fire is blazing. Returning sometime later, he
finds that the fire has burned down an amount appropriate to the
time he has been absent.
Hume examines coherence, first comparing it with everyday
causal reasoning.
[Seated in my study] I hear on a sudden a noise as of a door
turning upon its hinges; and a little after see a porter, who
Of Skepticism with Regard to the Senses 67
Hume provides a road map for his more difficult systematic elabora-
tion of his position:
In order to justify this system, there are four things requisite.
First, To explain the principium individuationis, or principle of
identity. Secondly, Give a reason, why the resemblance of our
70 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
JKLMNO
A A A A A A (Unity)
There are, as I read Hume, two ways that we can view this juxta-
position. We can view the second (unchanging) sequence in the
Of Skepticism with Regard to the Senses 73
Gap filling
The second task that Hume sets for himself is to explain “why the
resemblance of our broken and interrupted perceptions induces us
to attribute an identity to them.”
I now proceed to explain the second part of my system, and
show why the constancy of our perceptions makes us ascribe
74 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
According to Hume:
Z
The Philosopher’s Double-Existence
Theory of Perception
on the topic. Philosophers have been led to reject the views of the
vulgar because they think there are convincing grounds for holding
that “our perceptions are not possest of any independent existence.”
Hume then thinks it “proper to observe a few of those experiments,
which convince us, that our perceptions are not possest of any inde-
pendent existence” (140/210). As I noted at the start of this chap-
ter, given the importance of these arguments—or experiments, as
Hume calls them—it is surprising how brief and underdeveloped
they are. It never seems to cross his mind to view them critically,
not to say skeptically.
Hume’s leading idea is that adopting the way of ideas first
drives philosophers out of the common standpoint, but, under
the influence of everyday beliefs that they cannot fully shake, they
are naturally led to adopt what Hume calls a double-existence the-
ory of perception. This theory, which has come to be known as
representational realism, can come in a variety of forms, but the
primitive idea is to draw a distinction between ideas (perceptions,
and the like) that are mind-dependent and material objects that
exist independently of minds. An idea is said to be true of a mate-
rial object if it properly represents it. This is merely a protothe-
ory—a mere sketch that demands elaboration and defense—but
I will not develop it further because I think it is this prototheory,
not simply some specific realization of it, that Hume targets for
investigation.
Hume holds, in the first place, that this theory seems to provide
a way of accommodating our previous natural (though false) belief
in the continued and distinct existence of what we perceive with a
philosophical commitment to the way of ideas. We might think of
it as a vector of these two influences. But, according to Hume, far
from making things better, this new, double-existence theory makes
them worse. The theory is, he tells us, “only a palliative remedy,
[that] contains all the difficulties of the vulgar system, with some
80 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
Nay she has sometimes such an influence, that she can stop
our progress, even in the midst of our most profound reflec-
tions, and keep us from running on with all the consequences
of any philosophical opinion. Thus though we clearly per-
ceive the dependence and interruption of our perceptions, we
stop short in our career, and never upon that account reject
the notion of an independent and continu’d existence. That
opinion has taken such deep root in the imagination, that ’tis
impossible ever to eradicate it, nor will any strain’d metaphysi-
cal conviction of the dependence of our perceptions be suf-
ficient for that purpose. (142/214, emphasis added)
Z
The Pyrrhonian Moment
This brings us to the second passage cited at the start of this chapter:
I begun this subject with premising, that we ought to have an
implicit faith in our senses, and that this wou’d be the con-
clusion, I shou’d draw from the whole of my reasoning. But
to be ingenuous, I feel myself at present of a quite contrary
sentiment, and am more inclin’d to repose no faith at all in
my senses, or rather imagination, than to place in it such an
implicit confidence. I cannot conceive how such trivial quali-
ties of the fancy, conducted by such false suppositions, can
ever lead to any solid and rational system. . . . What then can
we look for from this confusion of groundless and extraordi-
nary opinions but error and falsehood? And how can we justify
to ourselves any belief we repose in them? (143–44/217–18)
Hume goes further, and retroactively includes the operations of rea-
son in his gloomy assessment:
This sceptical doubt, both with respect to reason and the
senses, is a malady which can never be radically cur’d, but
must return upon us every moment, however we may chase
Of Skepticism with Regard to the Senses 83
it away, and sometimes may seem entirely free from it. ’Tis
impossible upon any system to defend either our under-
standing or senses; and we but expose them farther when we
endeavour to justify them in that manner. As the sceptical
doubt arises naturally from a profound and intense reflection
on those subjects, it always encreases, the further we carry
our reflections, whether in opposition or conformity to it.
(144/218)
It should be clear what is troubling Hume. He recognizes with full
force that his account of the operations of the human mind applies
to the operations of his own mind—a mind incapable of leading us
“to any solid and rational system,” including, it seems, the develop-
ment of his own “science of man.” It doesn’t help to suggest that
Hume’s “science of man” is not intended to be a rational system,
but an empirical system instead. Hume is not restricting his claims
to the systems of rationalist philosophers. The passage just cited
makes it clear that his skeptical worries are a consequence of his own
philosophizing and that his own philosophizing falls under their
scope. We will revisit this self-referential crisis as it appears in the
final section of book 1.
Z
A Concluding Note
Z
Reasons for Examining the Ancient and Modern
Philosophical Systems
At the close of section 2, Hume tells his readers that he will “exam-
ine some general systems both ancient and modern” that have been
proposed concerning the external and internal worlds. “This will
not,” he tells us, “in the end be found foreign to our present pur-
pose” (144/218). What we will get, in fact, is a further demonstration
of how Hume’s “science of man” can be used to give an account
of how philosophical systems arise naturally at various stages of
philosophical inquiry. We have already seen such an investigation
with respect to the double-existence theory of perception. We will
now see how Hume’s science of human nature can similarly be used
with respect to both ancient and modern (i.e., seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century) notions of substance.
Z
Of the Ancient Philosophy (Section 3)
Reflecting the spirit of his times, Hume’s attitude toward the ancient
notion of substance and the concepts related to it is patronizing
throughout.
85
86 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
not the perspective from which the vulgar view the world. Indeed,
the two perspectives are radically opposed to one another. For the
most part, this is not the perspective of past philosophers either. For
Hume, however, any departure from this standpoint will generate
falsehoods, fictions, or plain nonsense.
The situation now becomes dialectically complex. The previous
clashes between viewpoints took place within our common—as
opposed to philosophical—understanding. To repeat a previous
example, our belief in the identity of an object changing over time
arises when the changes preserve a suitable level of resemblance and
are viewed sequentially. We are jolted out of this belief when we
note the lack of resemblance between an object as it appears to us
now and how it appeared to us in the distant past. Two common
ways of viewing matters come into conflict: how they seemed liv-
ing through them, and how they seem looking back. The present
case is quite different: Here we have a global clash between frame-
works for viewing the world. From the philosophical standpoint,
the common standpoint is challenged in toto. This is precisely how
Hume proceeds in pursuing his philosophical program. Adopting
the standpoint of those he calls the most judicious philosophers, he
dismisses as errors the beliefs of the vulgar. He then attempts to pro-
vide a naturalistic account of how these errors arise. He next offers
an account of how those who operate from within the philosophical
standpoint go on to introduce a philosophical fiction—something
plain folks know nothing of—in an effort to provide a surrogate
for the common beliefs they have demolished, yet still hanker after.
For Hume, piling a philosophical fiction on the prior fictions of the
vulgar only makes matters worse.
Where is Hume himself in all this? He is a member of the philo-
sophical party in rejecting the beliefs of the vulgar. He never, so far as
I know, rejects the standpoint of the “most judicious philosophers,”
Of the Ancient and Modern Philosophy 93
even if he does reject the palliatives they offer under the lingering
influence of their vulgar upbringing.
more than the rest of the creation; but has reserv’d them a con-
solation amidst all their disappointments and afflictions. This
consolation principally consists in their invention of the words
faculty and occult quality. For it being usual, after the frequent
use of terms, which are really significant and intelligible, to
omit the idea, which we wou’d express by them, and to preserve
only the custom, by which we recal the idea at pleasure; so it
naturally happens, that after the frequent use of terms, which
are wholly insignificant and unintelligible, we fancy them to be
on the same footing with the precedent, and to have a secret
meaning, which we might discover by reflection. (147–48/224)
Words such as “incomprehensible,” “insignificant,” and “unintel-
ligible” have both a broad and a narrow use. Used broadly, they
indicate foolishness or unsupportability. We say, for example, that
it is incomprehensible that some people still object to fluoridating
drinking water. Taking incomprehensibility this way, Hume’s pas-
sage amounts to a broad, abusive condemnation of the peripatetic
position. Taken more narrowly, it can indicate that the peripatetic
vocabulary lacks meaning or semantic content. Hume, I think,
would have no reservations about using this expression in both
ways, but I am inclined to take his criticism in the second way, for
that squares with the notion I have pressed that the fictions Hume
attributes to philosophers are not ideas with a fictitious content but,
instead, the fiction that a term is being used with a content.
Skeptical implications
Z
Of the Modern Philosophy (Section 4)
Z
Of the Immateriality of the Soul (Section 5)
101
102 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
Given what Hume has said about our (supposed) idea of substance
in sections 3 and 4 of part 4, it should be clear in advance what he
is going to say about the dispute between those who treat the soul
as an immaterial substance and those who treat it as a material sub-
stance. He will dismiss both views as nonsensical.
Neither by considering the first origin of ideas, nor by means
of a definition are we able to arrive at any satisfactory notion
of substance; which seems to me a sufficient reason for aban-
doning utterly that dispute concerning the materiality and
immateriality of the soul, and makes me absolutely condemn
even the question itself. (153/234)
This passage invokes two objections to any theory that treats
the soul as a substance, be it immaterial or material. One concerns
the origin of the idea of substance, the other, the definition of sub-
stance. His opening move combines them:
As every idea is deriv’d from a precedent impression, had we
any idea of the substance of our minds, we must also have
an impression of it; which is very difficult, if not impos-
sible, to be conceiv’d. For how can an impression represent
a substance, otherwise than by resembling it? And how can
The Soul and the Self 103
Soul–body interaction
On proofs of immortality
Z
Of Personal Identity (Section 6)
Basic criticisms
It takes Hume only a few pages to dispose of this position. His first
response goes by so quickly that it may be easy to miss.
From what impression cou’d this idea be deriv’d? This ques-
tion ’tis impossible to answer without a manifest contradiction
and absurdity; and yet ’tis a question, which must necessarily
be answer’d, if we wou’d have the idea of self pass for clear and
intelligible. It must be some one impression, that gives rise
to every real idea. But self or person is not any one impres-
sion, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are
suppos’d to have a reference. (164/251)
It is not entirely clear what Hume has in mind in saying that the
self is not any one impression to which our several impressions
are “supposed to have a reference,” but the claim seems similar to the
definitional move Hume made near the start of his discussion of the
immateriality of the soul, where he asked:
The Soul and the Self 111
Who can tell me, for instance, what were his thoughts and
actions on the first of January 1715, the 11th of March 1719,
and the 3d of August 1733? Or will he affirm, because he has
entirely forgot the incidents of these days, that the present
self is not the same person with the self of that time; and by
that means overturn all the most establis’ed notions of per-
sonal identity? In this view, therefore, memory does not so
much produce as discover personal identity, by showing us the
relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions.
(171/262)
Hume first lays out the original reasons that induced him to deny
“the strict and proper identity and simplicity of a self or thinking
The Soul and the Self 119
being.” They fall into two categories: those that concern substance
and those that concern necessary connections.
Hume quickly summarizes his reasons for rejecting the idea that
personal identity can be explained by treating the mind as a mental
substance. The simplest involves a direct appeal to introspection:
When I turn my reflection on myself, I never can perceive this
self without some one or more perceptions; nor can I ever
perceive any thing but the perceptions. ‘Tis the composition
of these, therefore, which forms the self. (399/634)
Another argument turns on the intelligibility of something existing
without inhering in a substance.
But ’tis intelligible and consistent to say, that objects exist
distinct and independent, without any common simple sub-
stance or subject of inhesion. This proposition, therefore, can
never be absurd with regard to perceptions. (399/634)
Then, in a remarkable passage, Hume goes beyond the suggestion
that an individual perception satisfies the definition of an individual
substance to claim that an individual perception can, by itself, con-
stitute an individual mind:
We can conceive a thinking being to have either many or
few perceptions. Suppose the mind to be reduc’d even below
the life of an oyster. Suppose it to have only one perception,
as of thirst or hunger. Consider it in that situation. Do you
conceive any thing but merely that perception? Have you any
notion of self or substance? If not, the addition of other per-
ceptions can never give you that notion. (399/634)
Turning next to necessary connections, if perceptions are not uni-
fied at a given time and do not preserve identity over time through
120 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
Z
A Gloomy Summation of Skeptical Results
125
126 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
when absent from the senses. But tho’ these two operations
be equally natural and necessary in the human mind, yet in
some circumstances they are directly contrary [here Hume
refers the reader to section 4 of part 4], nor is it possible for
us to reason justly and regularly from causes and effects, and
at the same time believe the continu’d existence of matter.
(173/265–66)
The specific circumstance that Hume refers to in this passage con-
cerns the skeptical consequences that follow from his critique of the
distinction between primary and secondary qualities. It is worth
repeating.
There is a direct and total opposition betwixt our reason and
our senses; or more properly speaking, betwixt those conclu-
sions we form from cause and effect, and those that perswade us
of the continu’d and independent existence of body. When we
reason from cause and effect, we conclude, that neither colour,
sound, taste, nor smell have a continu’d and independent exis-
tence. When we exclude these sensible qualities there remains
nothing in the universe, which has such an existence. (152/231)
Hume’s first cause for concern, then, is that an implicit reli-
ance on the imagination can yield irreconcilable conflicts generated
within the imagination itself. His second concern—and this seems
to affect him at least as deeply—is that enquiring into the opera-
tions of this faculty has brought to light its arbitrary, weak, and
capricious character.
When we trace up the human understanding to its first prin-
ciples, we find it to lead us into such sentiments, as seem
to turn into ridicule all our past pains and industry, and to
discourage us from future enquiries. (173/266)2
The Conclusion of Book 1 129
I have already shown [in section 1 of part 4], that the under-
standing, 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. (174/267–68)
Z
What Is to Be Done?
Hume needs a way of exiting from his dismal situation, but for him
there is no way of thinking his way out of his crisis. “Reason,” he
tells us, “is incapable of dispelling these clouds” (175/269). One has
to abandon the study and reenter the affairs of daily life. In doing
so, he tells us,
The Conclusion of Book 1 131
Z
Being a Philosopher on Skeptical Principles
Hume finds, however, that he is not fully content with this way out
of his difficulties. Despite the trouble it has brought him, Hume
finds that he has not completely lost his desire to lead the life of the
mind. His ingenious answer is that we should pursue philosophy in
the same skeptical manner that, in daily life, we accept the deliver-
ances of understanding, namely, blindly.
If we are philosophers, it ought only to be upon sceptical
principles, and from an inclination, which we feel to the
employing ourselves after that manner. Where reason is lively,
and mixes itself with some propensity, it ought to be assented
to. (176/270)
These two sentences, I take it, specify the skeptical principles Hume
thinks we should abide by in philosophizing. Skeptics, in this sense,
restrict their reflections to matters that naturally attract their atten-
tion, and assent to things that they find naturally compelling.
Skeptics, in this sense, live in accordance with how things strike
them in the situation they are in—and nothing more.
With respect to our motive for pursuing philosophy, on this
approach, it is the same as our motive for playing backgammon or
conversing with merry friends: In appropriate circumstances and
carried out in the appropriate way, it can be fun. In Hume’s more
dignified language:
The Conclusion of Book 1 133
is not clear how (or if ) it can bear this burden. It is also unclear
how human faculties can be disciplined to stay within the modest
bounds that Hume, in his calmer moments, prescribes. Given the
seriousness of the skeptical challenges Hume has raised against his
own system, his responses to them seem, to borrow one of his own
phrases, little more than palliative remedies.
All the same, when we turn the page to the beginning of book 2,
Of the Passions, we find Hume in fine fettle. As one of the readers
for the Press puts it, we find Hume “presenting a long and steady
and boring account of the passions, resuming the science of man as
though there was never a crisis about it.” I agree that the transition
from part 4 of book 1 to the opening part of book 2 is at least as
surprising as the transition from part 3 to part 4 in book 1. The sud-
den appearance of radical skepticism and its sudden disappearance
are equally perplexing.
What are we to make of this? Perhaps when Hume reined in his
ambitions, his good spirits returned and he found that he could
again conduct his philosophical studies in a careless (i.e., carefree)
manner with the reasonable hope that he could at least “contribute
a little to the advancement of knowledge.” The closing remarks of
book 1, part 4, section 7 of the Treatise are not, however, Hume’s
final words on the relationship between skepticism and the legiti-
macy of his philosophical enterprise. Hume addresses the prob-
lem anew in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and
attempts to resolve it in an interestingly different manner. We can
look at this next.
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Chapter 8 Z Two Openings and Two
Closings
Z
The Treatise and the Enquiry on Skepticism
139
140 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
Z
The Opening of the Treatise
Z
The Opening of the Enquiry
The first section of the Enquiry is titled “Of the different species of
philosophy.” Hume begins by distinguishing two perspectives that
Two Openings and Two Closings 141
we can adopt with respect to the study of human nature. One, the
popular or easy approach, “considers man chiefly as born for action;
and as influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment” (EHU 5/5).
The other, abstruse, approach considers “man in the light of a reason-
able rather than an active being, and endeavours to form his under-
standing more than cultivate his manners” (EHU 5/6). The popular
approach to human nature, which both entertains and elevates its
readers, needs no apology, but why, Hume asks, should anyone
engage in abstruse philosophy? This question is motivated, in part at
least, by the poor reception the Treatise received. That, however, is
not the whole story—and, to my mind, not the most important part
of the story. The developments in the Treatise—a work in abstruse
philosophy—seem to undercut the possibility of abstruse philoso-
phy, so if Hume is going to salvage any of the “principles and rea-
sonings” of that work, a defense, if only limited defense, of abstruse
reasoning is in order. What we get at the start of the Enquiry is a
popular essay in defense of engaging in abstruse philosophy.
Hume begins by presenting what amounts to a balance sheet of
reasons for and against engaging in abstruse philosophy. He first
presents the reasons against doing so:
1. Abstruse philosophy seems to have little influence on daily
life.
Abstruse philosophy, being founded on a turn of mind, which
cannot enter into business and action, vanishes when the phi-
losopher leaves the shade, and comes into open day; nor can
its principles easily retain any influence over our conduct and
behaviour. (EHU 6/7)
2. The enterprise is inherently prone to error.
It is easy for a profound philosopher to commit a mistake in
his subtile reasonings; and one mistake is the necessary parent
142 Hume’s Skeptical Crisis
Z
The Response to Skepticism in the Enquiry
Though Hume does not explicitly say so, this is the kind of skepti-
cism that emerges in part 4 of book 1 of the Treatise.
Notice that consequent skepticism, as I will awkwardly call it,
may yield two quite different results: It can reveal the absolute fal-
laciousness of our mental faculties, or it can show their unfitness for
curious subjects of speculation. These options determine Hume’s
strategy in the Enquiry for dealing with skepticism. The first result,
a specter that haunts the Treatise, must be avoided because it
destroys all motives for pursuing philosophical enquiry. The sec-
ond outcome will be embraced because it fences off just those areas
where skeptical disasters occur—or so it is hoped.
Z
The Science of Human Nature in the Enquiry
Z
The Role of Skeptical Arguments in the Enquiry
entirely silent. The mind has never any thing present to it but
the perceptions, and cannot possibly reach any experience of
their connexion with objects. The supposition of such a con-
nexion is, therefore, without any foundation in reasoning.
(EHU 115/153)
On the basis of this argument, Hume draws a conclusion as robust
as any found in the Treatise: “This is a topic, therefore, in which
the profounder and more philosophical sceptics will always tri-
umph, when they endeavour to introduce an universal doubt into
all subjects of human knowledge and enquiry” (EHU 115/153).
For good measure, Hume throws in an argument against the
modern notion of primary and secondary qualities along the lines
he employed in book 1, part 4, section 4 of the Treatise. I will not
repeat that argument here, but simply note the strong skeptical con-
clusion that he draws from it.
Bereave matter of all its intelligible qualities, both pri-
mary and secondary, you in a manner annihilate it, and
leave only a certain unknown, inexplicable something, as
the cause of our perceptions; a notion so imperfect, that
no sceptic will think it worth while to contend against it.
(EHU 116/155)
In a footnote, Hume explicitly attributes this argument to Berkeley.
may have found its results too much to contend with. In any case,
this argument that deeply troubled him in the Treatise is simply
gone. What we get instead is a curious discussion of the paradoxes
that seem to arise from the mathematical notion of infinite divisibil-
ity. In order to present a skeptical challenge to reason, Hume would
have to produce an argument of the following form:
Reason commits one to the doctrine of infinite divisibility.
The doctrine of infinite divisibility leads to absurdities and
contradictions.
Therefore, reason commits one to absurdities and contra-
dictions.
Hume accepts the second premise but in a footnote seems to reject
the first premise:
It seems to me not impossible to avoid these absurdities and
contradictions, if it be admitted, that there is no such thing as
abstract or general ideas, properly speaking. (118n./158n.)
Hume goes on to sketch a Berkeleyan critique of infinite divisibility.
But if Hume is right in saying that the doctrine of infinite divisibil-
ity is avoidable, then the first premise of the above argument is false
and no general skepticism with regard to reason is forthcoming.
Hume turns next to moral reasoning, not in the sense of ethical reason-
ing, but rather nondemonstrative or probabilistic reasoning concerning
matters of fact.4 He tells us that the skeptical objections to reasoning
concerning matters of fact are either popular or philosophical. He dis-
misses the popular objections to moral reason in the same way that he
dismissed the popular skeptical arguments directed at the senses:
Two Openings and Two Closings 153
The claim that the skeptical argument shows the weakness of our,
and not just the skeptic’s, mental faculties is reminiscent of claims
made in the Treatise. But there is a puzzle here. Hume’s reference
to the weakness of our faculties suggests that stronger mental facul-
ties might not face like difficulties. Hume’s skeptical argument is,
however, intended to establish that no reasoning can show “that
objects, which have, in our experience, been frequently conjoined,
will likewise, in other instances, be conjoined in the same manner.”
The weakness or strength of our faculties does not bear on this mat-
ter. Hume does not seem to be altogether clear about this.
To return to a point already made, there is a fundamental differ-
ence between the employment of skeptical arguments in the Treatise
and Enquiry. In the Treatise, having presented a skeptical argument,
Hume goes on to ask questions of the following kind: “How it hap-
pens, that even after all we retain a degree of belief, which is sufficient
for our purpose, either in philosophy or common life” (124/185). It is
the pursuit of such questions that leads Hume into a skeptical cri-
sis. In the Enquiry he largely avoids questions of this kind and thus
avoids the consequent skepticism that attempts to answer them can
generate.
Z
Pyrrhonism and Mitigated Skepticism
And this:
And though a pyrrhonian may throw himself or others into
a momentary amazement and confusion by his profound
reasonings; the first and most trivial event in life will put to
flight all his doubts and scruples, and leave him the same, in
every point of action and speculation, with the philosophers
of every other sect, or with those who never concerned them-
selves in any philosophical researches. (EHU 119/160)
Chapter 1
1. I’m not thinking just of section 6 of part 4, “Of personal identity.”
The notion of identity also plays a central role in Hume’s discussion
of skepticism with regard to the senses and in his discussion of the
metaphysical notion of substance.
2. Hume is particularly proud of his treatment of probability in the Treatise.
He brags about it (in a feigned third person) in his anonymously pub-
lished Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature (408/646–47).
3. I first encountered a defense of Hume against Reid’s criticism along
these lines in a work published by the late-eighteenth-century/early-
nineteenth-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Brown:
That darkness and light mutually produce each other, they [i.e.,
common people] do not believe: and if they did believe it, their
belief, instead of confirming the truth of Mr. Hume’s theory,
would prove it to be false; since it would prove the relation of
Cause and Effect to be supposed where there is no customary
connection. How often, during a long and sleepless night, does
the sensation of darkness exist, without being followed by the
sensation of light? (Brown 1822, 170ff.).
Donald Davidson adopts a similar line in “Causal Relations”
(Davidson 1967).
159
160 Notes to Pages 33–42
Chapter 2
1. Notice that Hume does not seem to be talking about the degradation
of the content of the information transmitted, but rather its vivacity.
Chapter 3
1. It also corresponds to Hume’s treatment of miracles in section 10 of
the Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding, where, in effect,
he uses causal principles to evaluate the trustworthiness of eyewitness
testimony. For more on this, see Fogelin (2003).
2. In an attempt to show that intuitive knowledge also degenerates into prob-
ability, Hume argues that some probability of error exists in the addition
of even very small numbers. Hume does not employ the reflexive move
central to this treatment of demonstrative reasoning, but instead engages
in two slippery-slope arguments I have labeled [1] and [2].
[1] For ’tis easily possible, by gradually diminishing the numbers,
to reduce the longest series of addition to the most simple ques-
tion, which can be form’d, to an addition of two single numbers;
and upon this supposition we shall find it impracticable to show
the precise limits of knowledge and of probability, or discover
that particular number, at which the one ends and the other
begins. But knowledge and probability are of such contrary
and disagreeing natures, that they cannot well run insensibly
into each other, and that because they will not divide, but must
be either entirely present, or entirely absent. [2] Besides, if any
single addition were certain, every one wou’d be so, and conse-
quently the whole or total sum; unless the whole can be different
from all its parts. I had almost said, that this was certain; but
I reflect, that it must reduce itself, as well as every other reasoning,
and from knowledge degenerate into probability. (121–22/181)
Neither of these arguments is persuasive. With respect to [1], we can
note that, even if it is “impracticable to shew the precise limits of
knowledge and of probability,” this does not show there is no precise
limit. More simply, even if there is no precise limit, that does not rule
Notes to Pages 46–62 161
out the possibility that some simple arithmetic sums fall paradigmati-
cally into the category of intuitive truths. 1 + 1 = 2 can be counted as
an intuitive truth even if we cannot specify the precise place where
one’s intuitive powers dim. Argument [2] is no better. We can make
errors in adding a long column of numbers without at some point
mistakenly believing that, say, 2 + 3 = 7. We know that 2 + 3 = 5
but, distracted, write down the wrong number, or read a number
incorrectly.
3. Here is a more exotic example. Suppose one of the subjects just hap-
pens to be omniscient, something, being omniscient, she, he, or it
would know. No diminution of assurance would take place in this
case. It is, however, not clear to me whether it makes sense to speak
of a being who (or that) just happens to be omniscient. Perhaps omni-
scient beings must be necessarily omniscient, but I don’t see why.
4. Previously I have argued that Hume’s skeptical argument fails because
he has not ruled out the possibility that the series of diminutions may
approximate a limit—perhaps a high limit (Fogelin 1985, note 4,
p. 174). That criticism, though fair enough, now strikes me as shallow
in conceding too much to Hume’s argument.
5. As already noted, Hume seems to exempt reports of subjective states
from his skepticism.
6. Hume used quite a different tactic in dealing with the threat of the
loss of all belief in the remote past through reiterative diminutions
in part 3, section 13. There he says that the imagination avoids this
result by forming “a confused and general notion of each link” that
disguises the multiplicity of transitions. In both cases, however,
the day is saved by what seems to be a defect in our intellectual
apparatus.
Chapter 4
1. There are objections aplenty that can be brought against it, but I will
not rehearse them here.
2. Incidentally, in the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley deals
with the phenomenon of outness—the fact that we seem to perceive
162 Notes to Pages 63–91
Chapter 5
1. There does seem to be an element of historical displacement in this
passage. The topic of the section is ancient philosophy, but the views
of the “judicious philosophers” that Hume refers to are characteristic
of early-modern philosophy.
2. We find a number of similar direct appeals to intuition in Berkeley’s
writings:
Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind, that
a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this
important one to be, to wit, that all the choir of heaven and
furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which compose
Notes to Pages 91–145 163
the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without
a mind. (Principles, part 1, section 6)
3. “All our ideas, sensations, or the things which we perceive, by whatsoever
names they may be distinguished, are visibly inactive, there is nothing of
power or agency included in them” (Principles, part 1, section 25).
Chapter 7
1. See the discussion of this topic in Chapter 2.
2. In book 3, part 2, section 10 of the Treatise, Hume makes a parallel
claim concerning the dangers involved in inquiring “too curiously”
into the origins of governments.
No maxim is more conformable, both to prudence and mor-
als, than to submit quietly to the government, which we find
establish’d in the country where we happen to live, without
enquiring too curiously into its origin and first establishment. Few
governments will bear being examin’d so rigorously. (357/558)
3. I should confess to having some difficulty appreciating Hume’s appeal
to eighteenth-century English gentlemen, since my own understand-
ing of them largely comes from the plays of Sir John Vanbrugh and
the novels of Henry Fielding.
Chapter 8
1. In the Treatise Hume cited this as his sole reason for pursuing phi-
losophy (see 176/271).
2. For Hume, “Pyrrhonism” seems be no more than a code word for radi-
cal doxastic skepticism. In fact, Hume’s references to the Pyrrhonists
nowhere reveal an informed understanding of their position. This is sur-
prising for someone who was surely a reader of Bayle’s Dictionary. Among
other things he could have learned from Bayle is that the Pyrrhonists did
not call for the suspension of everyday, non-dogmatically held beliefs.
For more on the character of Pyrrhonism, see the first chapter of Fogelin
(1993).
164 Notes to Pages 147–158
165
166 Works Cited or Mentioned
167
168 Index
shift in emphasis from the Treatise, 147 exit from his dismal situation,
skeptical arguments: concerning 130–132
moral reasoning, 152–155; expressions of despair, 5–6
concerning reason, 151–152; expressions of melancholy, 125–126
concerning the senses, 149–151; as mitigated doxastic skeptic, 49
in Treatise compared to, 154 self-referential crisis of, 83
on skepticism, 139–140 skeptical crisis, source of, 56–57
Euthyphro choice, 23 skeptical doubts as source of deep
existence. See continued and distinct disquietudes, 3
existence; double-existence standpoints of, regarding radical
theory of perception; skepticism, 6–7
external existence turn to skepticism by, 39–40
experience, initial, in origins of causal voices of, contrasting, 6–7
reasoning, 15 Hume’s Law, 12
external existence, 59–65, 66–68 Hume (Stroud), 8
See also continued and distinct
existence ideas
external objects, 57, 60 capacity of the imagination to vivify,
147–148
faculties and definition of substance,
human, weakness of, 154–155 102–103
free-thinkers. See materialists inferences from impressions and,
16–18
gap filling, in operations of the as products of causal inferences, 18–19
imagination, 73–75 See also way of ideas, the
Garrett, Don, 9 identity
governments, examination of origins attribution of, and idea of continued
of, 163 n.2 (chap. 7) existence, 75–77
disputes about, as merely verbal,
horizontal method, in evaluating 116–117
soundness of proof, 43, 47 false belief in continued, of changing
human mind. See mind, the objects, 87–89
human nature, approaches to fiction of, over time, 73, 86,
study of, 140–141 112–113
Hume Hume’s denial of, 118–121
defense of, against Reid’s as it concerns non-human
criticism, 159 n.3 entities, 113–114
170 Index
testimony, metaphor of, 42 way of ideas, the, 58, 64, 79, 81, 91–92,
theoretical skepticism, 49, 145 149–150