La morale

A Treatise of Human Nature #1-3

by David Hume, Philippe Saltel

Quelles sont les vertus ? Que sont nos devoirs ? Parce qu'il porte l'ambitieux projet d'"introduire la méthode expérimentale dans les sujets moraux", le Traité de la nature humaine est susceptible de nous apporter une réponse précise à ces questions. Puissant avec un regard critique dans la pensée morale et politique de son temps, Hume expose dans le livre III sa "morale des passions" où se mêlent l'intérêt et la sympathie, la nature et l'artifice, l'utile et l'agréable. Science causale et sceptique appliquée au système de l'affectivité, le projet de Hume ne néglige ni les origines de la justice et des lois, ni la question des limites de l'obéissance : éthique subtile à la recherche d'une sagesse politique.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Classics, Psychology, Politics, 18th Century, Science

286 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1739

About the author

David Hume was a Scottish historian, philosopher, economist, diplomat and essayist known today especially for his radical philosophical empiricism and scepticism.

In light of Hume's central role in the Scottish Enlightenment, and in the history of Western philosophy, Bryan Magee judged him as a philosopher "widely regarded as the greatest who has ever written in the English language." While Hume failed in his attempts to start a university career, he took part in various diplomatic and military missions of the time. He wrote The History of England which became a bestseller, and it became the standard history of England in its day.

His empirical approach places him with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others at the time as a British Empiricist.

Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably René Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behaviour. He also argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. He argued that inductive reasoning and therefore causality cannot be justified rationally. Our assumptions in favour of these result from custom and constant conjunction rather than logic. He concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self.

Hume's compatibilist theory of free will proved extremely influential on subsequent moral philosophy. He was also a sentimentalist who held that ethics are based on feelings rather than abstract moral principles, and expounded the is–ought problem.

Hume has proved extremely influential on subsequent western philosophy, especially on utilitarianism, logical positivism, William James, the philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive philosophy, theology and other movements and thinkers. In addition, according to philosopher Jerry Fodor, Hume's Treatise is "the founding document of cognitive science". Hume engaged with contemporary intellectual luminaries such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Boswell, and Adam Smith (who acknowledged Hume's influence on his economics and political philosophy). Immanuel Kant credited Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumbers".

Reviews

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I was awoken from my dogmatic slumber." -Kant, on reading Hume.

In my opinion, this is probably one of the most thoroughly logical and most disturbing books ever written. Hume's use of reason completely dissects that habituation that we call "intuition", and moreover, shows how inductive reasoning is completely without merit. Science goes out the window, and the prospect of having any knowledge of the world leaves with it. The resulting nihilism will send chills down your spine. This is why everyone hates philosophers, because they assault all those comfortable cushions of assumption on which we base our lives.

Many people give Kant all the credit for being the most brilliant philosopher, but when you read Hume, you realize that many of Kant's theories where just Hume's ideas turned on their heads. Hume's "veil of perception" was illuminated and developed into Kant's "forms of sensibility" and "categories of the understanding" and became the basis for Kant's "synthetic a priori". While there is no question that Kant was brilliant, I think he gets more credit than deserved just because he came to the rescue of science and provided a (tenuously) logical solution to the problems that Hume observed. Kant's nearly indecipherable language also has a certain snob appeal, while Hume's very straightforward presentation of the problems lead the intelligentsia to regard him as pedestrian. There is a certain "lifting of the nose" observed in those who have read Kant. This laughable attitude merely shows how vain and stupid some people are about what they read, and how they think it reflects their superiority.

Hume's "Treatise on Human Nature" is a book everyone should read. It is an intellectual roller coaster that will shake the very basis for every truth you think you know. Good fun!!

[Jimmy Cline]

Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Thanks a lot, man! You and your fancy book just had to go and wake Immanuel Kant from his "dogmatic slumber", didn't you? And every single fucking time I pick up a philosophical tome like Critique of Pure Reason I have to be reminded of how lazy I am for not thoroughly reading through all of the British empiricists. Don't get me wrong, from what I've read of yours, you seem like a very precise philosopher, but now I have to read you with scorn. Look at what you're doing to me. None of my Goodreads friends are going to want to play with me anymore. "Hey, it's Jimmy's page, that pretentious dickhead who really thinks he can try reading five books at once, what an asshole."

This isn't my fault David, it's yours. You and your fuckin age o reason!

I'm sorry, I love you.

[Orhan Pelinkovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was right before David Hume's (1711-76) sixteenth birthday that he began to write his A Treaties of Human Nature. It took him 10 years to prepare a draft which he published in three volumes between 1739-1740.

Hume, a Scottish philosopher and a moderate skeptic, attempts to introduce the method of reasoning into moral subjects. He saw how successful the experimental method was in natural philosophy and thought it logical to utilize that same method to develop a science of human nature and its founding principles. Rather than explaining the nature of things, Hume attempts to explain the nature and causes of our perceptions of those things.

Hume argues that only perceptions and nothing else is present in the human mind and that these perceptions, amongst other things, produce the conscious feeling of the idea of the self. Hume divides perceptions into two parts; impressions which are directly and firstly derived from our experiences and are stronger of the two perceptions. Second, the ideas which are followed by the initial impressions and are the weaker perception. Hence, ideas are a fainter copy or derivative of our impressions.

In this book, which felt like a chore reading it, Hume presents his arguments on several other subjects such as how time can only be discovered by perceivable succession of changeable objects and that parts of time cannot coexist.

That nothing finite can contain an infinite number of parts, therefore, no finite extension is infinitely divisible. Also, promises and the idea of justice or injustice are human inventions artificially emanated through education and societies and are not stemmed by nature.

I am not sure I would recommend this unabridged edition to anyone. Perhaps one can just read Hume's later work or his abstract of the Treaties of Human Nature.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The real ‘scandal’ is not what Kant referred to in his 800 page rebuttal to Hume’s belief of skepticism about the real world, or the ‘scandal’ that Heidegger referred to that we were still debating the phenomenal world as such, the real scandal is that more people don’t read books like this one. Hume and this book offer more insights about today’s world and almost everything I see around me seems to want to make me stupid and accept ‘alternative facts’ as real, undermine science and its understanding of itself, and to undermine the distinction between true and false, fact and fiction, thus enabling totalitarianism to replace fairness and equality through appealing to our feelings not our reason. Books like this one are necessary in order for democracy to thrive. Regretfully, I seldom come across recent books that challenge the reader and help awake them from their ‘dogmatic slumber’ or expect the reader to actually think or learn what knowledge is and about the nature of reality.

Hume makes the foundation of all knowledge (in matter of facts, psychology or morality) as arising from our experiences from our impressions. Hume says all ideas come from our senses; all knowledge gets mediated through our senses and must come before concepts; cause is only a label arising from continuity, regularity, custom and habit for which we mentally construct a relationship; and our sympathy arising from sensibilities create what we label morality.

Hume will define reason as that which discovers truth from falsity through our relational experiences and non-contradictory ideas based on those experiences. Yes, Hume makes reason the slave to the passions, but he realizes we live in a world with other people and we have to function in the world with a set of rules so that we must act as if justice and injustice have meaning because it is functional to believe that. Reason is an ultimate good for Hume and it comes from experiences.

I read Kant before I read this book. That was sort of a mistake because Kant’s first Critique is a reaction to Hume’s skepticism and denial that all beginning things must have a cause, and Hume’s denial of cause and effect, and empiricism as the sole determiner of knowledge. Kant will famously say, ‘thought without content is empty, and intuitions without concepts are blind’. Meaning, it takes experiences and our concepts together to give us knowledge about the real world, ourselves and the moral as opposed to Hume’s argument that all knowledge comes about through experience alone.

Hume will say that our morality comes from our sympathies arising from our sentiments. He’ll say, our passions are a result of how we perceive our pains and pleasures and their expectations. ‘The World at War’ TV show from the 1970s taught me that ‘sympathy is in the dictionary between shit and syphilis’ and in my opinion that’s where it belongs and therefore I tend to think of morality differently than Hume. Hume is big on ‘character’ that which makes us who we are that comes from outside of us as opposed to an individual’s personality as authentically acquired from the self. (Matter of fact, I would say that most readers will ignore his chastity and other statements about ‘the fairer sex’ because they are just silly and ring false to all but the sexist or misogynist among us).

Hume understands how we are trapped in a Bayesian universe through our experiences. Yesterday’s experiences are determined by the priors weighted by the expectation times the weight of the experience itself. Hume explicitly speaks about the nearer in time the event is to us the more weight we give things. He doesn’t mention Thomas Bayes but he does understand how our feelings come from our experiences get affected through our perceptions weighted by our expectations.

Going from the particular to the general (the inductive to the deductive) creates science and sometimes ‘all swans are white’ will not be true and will need a correction since science can never know itself as certain. Hume actually gives a shout out to Rev. Berkerley in this book because of the problems of induction. That surprised me because Berkerley is the ultimate idealist and Hume is essentially the opposite, an empiricist. After having read this book, I understand how the two mesh together.

I found Hume a fun read. He’s abstract but not abstruse like Hegel. He has big ideas and doesn’t get bogged down in the particulars like Kant. He’s also more coherent than Schopenhauer (who incidentally, an idealist like Rev. Berkerley, seemed to fully appreciate Hume). Hume is probably today’s most favorite philosopher among philosophers because he writes clearly and everybody is able to find something they like within him (or as I sometimes think: ‘we’re all logical empiricist on first blush’ and love to quote Bertrand Russell or Karl Popper when appropriate!). I don’t mean this as an insult, but Hume writes clearly and understandably and can be equally understood by non-philosophers of which I am.

[Lisa of Troy]

The guy with the soothing voice on YouTube recommended this book. Honestly, it is probably just mind control, but I had to add this book. FYI....guy with soothing voice is actually called Jared Henderson. This is the video where he said this book was one of his Top 10 Books of All Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-56bg...

[Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature is not a breezy book. From the first page, it plunged me into a fervid mode of double-layered analysis in which my struggle to comprehend the text was mirrored by efforts to track my personal reactions to whatever content I was able to wrest from it. Early on, my attempts felt futile––understanding occluded by my intellectual limitations and relative lack of outside support. My experience improved as I pressed on, however. Slowly, mysteriously, sentences and paragraphs began congealing into coherent expressions. From time to time, the text would open to me like an unfurling flower, or an exquisite sunrise glimpsed after an unreasonably early tumble out of bed.

Eventually, I came to a predictable conclusion: David Hume was brilliant.

His brilliance is easy to miss, though, especially for a modern reader. Despite the fact that science has validated many of Hume’s core ideas, there are still lots of barriers that make it difficult for a 21st-century mind to grok Hume’s 18th-century philosophy. The most confounding of these barriers are Hume’s Baroque style and his outdated methods of inquiry.

Hume was a product of the late Baroque period, so clarity and brevity were absent from his intellectual toolkit. This text is rife with rambling repetition, and generally conforms to the taxonomic model of philosophy, wherein the author lays out a massive network of terms and provides definitions of varying consistency for each. Hume’s arguments are generally difficult to suss out in the moment, even if they come together after many paragraphs and pages. This can make it tough to fruitfully compare passages from different sections of the text.

Hume’s writing often gives the impression that he’s trying to do a chemistry experiment, or math problem, using inherently fuzzy terms:

"Ideas never admit of a total union, but are endow’d with a kind of impenetrability, by which they exclude each other, and are capable of forming a compound by their conjunction, not by their mixture. On the other hand, impressions and passions are susceptible of an entire union; and like colours, may be blended so perfectly together, that each of them may lose itself, and contribute only to vary that uniform impression, which arises from the whole." (260)

This passage is easy enough to grasp if read carefully, but it also brings up questions that admit no satisfactory answer, like “why can impressions and passions be mixed, but ideas can’t?” and “what’s the significant difference between ‘compound’ and ‘mixture’ here?” We have to shrug and concede, Well, that’s just how Hume’s system works. His conceptual system is peculiar to his way of seeing the world, which makes it at least somewhat arbitrary; it can’t be submitted for verification against any objective standard (or it couldn’t in Hume’s day, because no such standard(s) existed). This doesn’t mean Hume is right or wrong about anything in particular, but it does mean we have to accept certain insupportable assertions if we want a shot at hearing him out. The good news is that, ultimately, his message is well worth a listen.

The other big obstacle is the radical difference between “empiricism” as it was understood in the 18th-century and “empiricism” as we use it today. Modern empirical analysis is characterized by data-based scientific inquiry, or other forms of externally-directed information gathering when tackling topics that defy quantification. In Hume’s day, being an empiricist simply meant using your natural sense perceptions as the foundation for trying to gain knowledge of the world, rather than building some abstract conceptual system and trying to cram the world into your prefigured notions of it. Seems obvious today, but back then it was a huge shift in philosophical thought.

The way this cashes out is that A Treatise of Human Nature is full of thought experiments masquerading as empirical knowledge. These “experiments” passed muster in Hume’s time, but would never be treated as “empirical findings” today. So while Hume is certainly a step up from the non-empiricists that came before him, he still anchors a lot of his arguments using imagined results of imagined scenarios. Additionally, he was trying to explain perception and morality long before neuroscience, psychology, or evolutionary theory. Given these enormous handicaps, it’s amazing he got as much right as he did.

And oh, he did! This maw of verbal detritus contains insights that were novel to 18th-century readers, some of which represent mysteries still unsolved by modern philosophy and science. The first of these is a genuine skepticism. Unlike many of his dogmatic predecessors, Hume is comfortable admitting when he doesn’t know something. In fact, he thinks admitting that we don’t know (and perhaps can’t know) certain things is a critical part of inquiry.

Hume develops his skeptical outlook primarily through a series of discursive critiques of how humans perceive cause-and-effect relationships. I found his skepticism most enlightening, however, when applied to his thoughts on personal identity. Toward the end of Book I, he identifies a question that still baffles academics and researchers today: How does the human brain/body construct a consistent notion of personal identity from memories and sense perceptions?

"How few of our past actions are there of which we have any memory? 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 3rd 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 establish’d notions of personal identity? In this view, therefore, memory does not so much produce as discover personal identity, by shewing us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions…Identity depends on the relations of ideas; and these relations produce identity, by means of that easy transition they occasion. But as the relations, and the easiness of the transition may diminish by insensible degrees, we have no just standard, by which we can decide any dispute concerning the time, when they acquire or lose a title to the name of identity. All the disputes concerning the identity of connected objects are merely verbal, except so far as the relation of parts gives rise to some fiction or imaginary principle of union.” (187, emphasis his)

Without a shred of hard data, Hume understood that personal identity is nothing more than an “imaginary principle of union” generated by the brain’s ability to simulate an “easy transition” between disparate perceptions and memories. Even more remarkable is his willingness to admit that he can’t think of a suitable way to resolve the tension between our feeling of being unified beings and the reality that we’re anything but:

"When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other…I never catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions are remov’d for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions remov’d by death, and cou’d neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I shou’d be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If any one, upon serious and unprejudic’d reflexion thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him…He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu’d, which he calls himself; tho’ I am certain there is no such principle in me." (180, emphasis his)

Hume doesn’t invent some baseless explanation for why human identity isn’t paradoxical, or claim that identity is the product of some metaphysical substance (soul). Nor does he turn to religious solutions (all things are possible…because God!). He runs into a difficult problem, scopes it out as best he can, admits his failure to provide a solution, and contents himself with confronting the mystery. This mixture of brilliance and humility is hard to come by even today, when these matters are much better understood (even if the paradox of identity remains as churlish as ever).

Hume was also ahead of the curve in his evaluation of free will, which he correctly identifies as nothing more than our internal feeling of freedom: “By the will, I mean nothing but the internal impression we feel and are conscious of, when we knowingly give rise to any new motion of our body, or new perception of our mind” (284, emphasis his). That Hume does not seek to exempt the will from the constraints of a strictly causal universe again situates him closer to modern thinkers than those of his own time.

Since Hume saw humans as part of the natural world rather than an exception to it, it may come as no surprise that he locates human emotion and intelligence on a continuum with animals. This position could be a direct (or indirect) reaction to 17th-century biologists who dissected un-anesthetized dogs for experimentation despite the subject’s obvious anguish. Hume encouraged the reader to “take a general survey of the universe, and observe the force of sympathy thro’ the whole animal creation, and the easy communication of sentiments from one thinking being to another” (258). This attitude no doubt helped pave the way for the philosophy of animal liberation––still a contentious matter today.

Hume is perhaps most famous for his correct assertion that the body also generates and limits our capacity for rational thought, and that reason is subject to the whims of emotion (passion). His observance that “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them” has proved more valid than not, although our understanding of this relationship has come a long way in the intervening centuries (295). We now know that reason can’t exist without emotion (at least not in humans), but also that we have the capacity to override our emotions given sufficient motivation and favorable circumstances. It’s less like a master/slave relationship and more like two dancing partners with different skill sets and no clear leader.

If he favors the passions overmuch, Hume at least has good reasons for doing so (ironic, right?). For Hume, the passions provide the foundation not just for reason, but for morality as well. Morality is embodied––our moral judgments are rooted in sentiments of pleasure and pain that become abstracted and institutionalized via individual habit and social custom. This process is enabled by the same phenomenon that binds us to other humans and animals: sympathy:

"No quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own." (225)

To avoid the sometimes irksome distinction between sympathy and empathy, let’s use a different term: fellow feeling. Fellow feeling, for Hume, describes how our internal emotions naturally imitate the emotions of those around us (this general phenomenon has been validated by the discovery of mirror neuron systems).

Hume posits that our natural inclination is to satisfy our self-interest, but under ideal conditions we learn to situate our self-interest within the context of the greater good:

"After men have found by experience, that their selfishness and confin’d generosity, acting at their liberty, totally incapacitate them for society; and at the same time have observ’d, that society is necessary to the satisfaction of those very passions, they are naturally induc’d to lay themselves under the restraint of such rules, as may render their commerce more safe and commodious." (354)

This is the seed of what evolutionary theorists call reciprocal altruism. Further, the influence of fellow feeling reaches all the way into our conceptualizations of social justice:

"Every thing, which gives uneasiness in human actions, upon the general survey, is call’d Vice, and whatever produces satisfaction, in the same manner, is denominated Virtue; this is the reason why the sense of moral good and evil follows upon justice and injustice. And tho’ this sense, in the present case, be deriv’d only from contemplating the actions of others, yet we fail not to extend it ever to our own actions. The generals rule reaches beyond those instances, from which it arose; while at the same time we naturally sympathize with others in the sentiments they entertain of us. Thus self-interest is the original motive to the establishment of justice: but a sympathy with public interest is the source of the moral approbation, which attends that virtue." (355, emphasis his)

The significance of Hume’s tireless efforts to bring human sentiment to the forefront of philosophical discourse cannot be overstated. It is because of such thinkers that, centuries later, we have a rich and mutable scientific and philosophical discourse about how we should conduct ourselves based on our experience as embodied beings. John Dewey, my favorite philosopher and a great champion of embodied rationality, owes much to texts like this one.

All great philosophical texts leave us with at least one great unanswered question. The question I find most relevant from this text is how societies can help individuals strike a balance between our natural self-interest and the common good, taking advantage of any many positive sum situations as possible. As Hume explains, we have trouble foregoing immediate pleasures in favor of the general interest of society, which feels far more remote:

"As it is impossible to change or correct any thing material in our nature, the utmost we can do is to change our circumstances and situation, and render the observance of the laws of justice our nearest interest, and their violation our most remote…Here then is the origin of civil government and society. Men are not able radically to cure, either in themselves or others, that narrowness of soul, which makes them prefer the present to the remote. They cannot change their natures. All they can do is to change their situation, and render the observance of justice the immediate interest of some particular persons, and its violation their more remote." (382-3)

While I don’t think it’s impossible to change human nature in an absolute sense, Hume is correct that actual progress almost always comes from changing the conditions in which human commerce and decisions occur. The general goal is clear: the more we provide people with the time and tools to explore a broad horizon of possible actions and futures, the better off we’ll all be.

How to do this?

"I must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding. I pretend not, however, to pronounce it absolutely insuperable. Others, perhaps, or myself, upon more mature reflexions, may discover some hypothesis, that will reconcile those contradictions." (452)

This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt.

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just wrote a long review of this book, and Goodreads or the internet ate it. Grrrr... Here are the high points of that review.

Three years to read this. Of that, almost the full time was stuck on the first two parts of the second book, which seemed both dull and pointless. It ended up that it was just dull, but necessary to understand his ideas on morality.

First book - Understanding. It blows up the idea that there's a foundation in reason for induction, causation, the persistence of objects, and even for the idea of the self. This is radical skepticism at its finest. It's even more amazing that Hume presents these arguments in a way that is cogent, and engaging. There are few writers of philosophy who write better than Hume, and none of them are also systematizers. The systematizers tend to be insufferably dull (Locke) or unreadable and incomprehensible (take your pick, but Heidegger is a good example).

Second book - the bog. It's about the passions, and it couldn't be less passionately presented. Pride, humility, love, hate. If the first book awoke Kant out of his dogmatic slumbers, I would have thought that the first parts of this book would put him safely back to sleep. The curious thing here was that, after destroying the idea of causation, Hume spends most of this book focusing on causes for the passions.

The book takes off again when Hume gets to the will. He tries to reconcile free will and determinism. I wondered why he bothered. Since causation has no foundation in reason, but rests on human custom and habit, it doesn't seem necessary to me to then try to reconcile it with free will. It can also rest on other customs and habits. If the two seem to contradict each other, I don't understand the big problem. Neither of them has a foundation in reason anyways, so why get troubled over a seeming contradiction. It would have been enough to say they rest on different customs, and people are irrational.

Third book - Morality. He does a great job of showing that justice is not natural, but an invention of men. He's less good about showing the basis for morality, and this stems from his being less rigorous here than in the first book. For Hume, all perceptions are either ideas or impressions. With causes, he showed that causes are not based on ideas, and also showed that there is no impression that corresponds to a cause. Thus, no causes. He doesn't do the same with moral perceptions. He does show that moral perceptions have no basis in ideas or reasons, and then abruptly concludes that they must be impressions. I think he could pretty easily have argued that there are no moral impressions either. And I'm not sure why he didn't. Perhaps the religious climate at the time precluded him from being as radical a moral skeptic as he was a skeptic when it came to the understanding.

I also found it odd that he bases all moral judgments on an appreciation of character. He has argued elsewhere quite convincingly that its impossible to know a cause from its effects. But in morality, all of our judgments come from just that process. We only see the effects of a person's character, and never the character itself. That, we only infer from those effects, and that is just what Hume has argued against elsewhere (famously, in his argument that we can know nothing about God from our observation of the world, if indeed God created the world.)

Finally, even though Hume tries to explain morals to us, it looks like he could not bring himself to show any true moral distinction. At bottom, for him, morality is just another species of pain and pleasure, and he doesn't try to show in what manner it differs from other types of pain and pleasure. Indeed, towards the end of the book, he admits that he can't draw a sharp distinction between morality and other natural attributes, such as intelligence.

There are many other quibbles I have with this book, but I am dumbfounded that he wrote it when he was in his twenties. It's as well written as I think a book of this type and scope can be. The ideas are truly challenging, even 250 years later. Anyone interested in philosophy or the scientific method should read at least the first book. I'm actually a bit embarrassed that I haven't read the whole thing before. And now I wonder where I should turn next. What would make a suitable encore? (And not Kant, I've already read the Critique.)

[Miguel Cisneros Saucedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Del Conocimiento" de David Hume es una obra fundamental que ofrece una rica exploración de la naturaleza del conocimiento humano y proporciona una base filosófica valiosa para cualquier educador que busque comprender los procesos cognitivos y epistemológicos que subyacen al aprendizaje. Este libro ofrece perspectivas cruciales sobre cómo entendemos, procesamos y validamos la información, temas esenciales para la teoría y la práctica educativa.

Hume, uno de los filósofos más influyentes del empirismo, nos lleva a cuestionar la manera en que adquirimos el conocimiento, desafiando nociones tradicionales al distinguir entre ideas y percepciones, y al enfatizar la importancia de la experiencia sensorial. Este enfoque empírico es particularmente relevante en el contexto educativo, ya que resalta la necesidad de basar la enseñanza en la experiencia directa y en la evidencia observable, alineándose con enfoques pedagógicos contemporáneos que valoran el aprendizaje experiencial y basado en la práctica.

La claridad y precisión con las que Hume discute la relación entre la percepción, la memoria y el entendimiento invitan a reflexionar sobre cómo las personas construyen su conocimiento y cómo pueden diseñarse ambientes de aprendizaje que maximicen la efectividad cognitiva. Su análisis de cómo formamos ideas a partir de impresiones sensoriales primarias puede inspirar a reconsiderar el valor de la fenomenologia y del aprendizaje activo, que se basa en experiencias concretas y significativas.

Además, Hume desafía las nociones de certeza y verdad absoluta, proponiendo una visión del conocimiento como algo provisional y siempre sujeto a revisión. Esta idea es poderosa en el campo de la educación, donde se alienta a las personas a desarrollar un pensamiento crítico y reflexivo, aceptando que el conocimiento es dinámico y en constante evolución. Al abordar la incertidumbre y el positivismo cientifico, los educadores pueden fomentar en sus alumnos una actitud de aprendizaje continuo y adaptación.

En resumen, "Del Conocimiento" de David Hume es una obra fundamental que aporta una base filosófica sólida para quienes estudian educación, al ofrecer una perspectiva profunda sobre cómo entendemos y construimos el conocimiento. Su enfoque empírico y su énfasis en la experiencia sensorial son particularmente útiles para desarrollar prácticas pedagógicas efectivas y reflexivas. Este libro merece sin duda una calificación de cinco estrellas por su relevancia e impacto perdurable en el campo educativo.

[TU103 te · Rating 4 out of 5]

لا يسعني سوى الإنضمام إلى زمرة القراء الذين قرأوا الكتاب و أعقب ذلك إحساسهم بأنهم أحرزوا إنجازا ذا شأن .. هيوم و قبل أن يستقل علم النفس المهيب بنفسه و قبل أن يدعم هذا العلم نفسه بفنون التحليل و معجزات الطب .. استطاع أن يشرح الفيلسوف و يُشرِّح عمليات التفكير و الشعور و الإحساس و الخيال و كل العمليات الذهنية و الطبيعية التي تتيح للكائن البشري أن يكون هو ، لا أزعم أنني فهمت كل ما قاله الفيلسوف في ما ينيف عن 600 صفحة ، و لكن ما استطعت أن أفهمه في النهاية كان مفيدا و مبهجا للغاية .
إنها رسالة مهمة لا يضير أي قارئ شهم الإطلاع عليها ، بل بالعكس .. سيحقق إنجازا .
" إن المنهج الفلسفي هو النسل الهجين للمبدأين الذي يناقض أحدهما الٱخر ( التفكير ، الخيال ) ، و اللذين يعتنقهما العقل في الٱن نفسه على السواء ، و لا يستطيع أي منهما أن يقضي على الٱخر ."

[Stian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to read this book after a long walk that I took while listening to a Philosophy Bites episode titled "Who's your favourite philosopher?" In it, Nigel Warburton simply asks a host of prominent philosophers the question, and the answers, predictably, vary wildly. But one name kept popping up all the time: David Hume. Everyone seemed to love David. And, because I soon want to read Kant anyway, I figured it made sense to finally delve into this work and try to understand what it's all about.

I'll forego actually writing a review of the book - at least for now - but I figured I would share some of my favourite passages from it. They may suffice to whet your appetite for Hume's philosophy, and get you to explore his philosophy on your own - to wake you from your dogmatic slumber, to refer to what is a cliché at this point. Hume is at times incredibly insightful, sometimes arrogant, sometimes humble to a fault, and always fascinating. I marked these with a pencil in the book and then wrote them all into Word, and here they are, ctrl-c and ctrl-v'd. The quotes are all from the Penguin Classics edition, with the magisterial Hume depicted on the cover.

Vol. 1: Of the Understanding

p. 70: “To explain the ultimate causes of our mental actions is impossible. ‘Tis sufficient, if we give any satisfactory account of them from experience and analogy.”

p. 84: “Wherever we have no successive perceptions, we have no notion of time, even tho’ there be a real succession in the objects. From these phaenomena, as well as from many others, we may conclude, that time cannot make its appearance to the mind, either alone, or attended with a steady unchangeable object, but is always discover’d by some perceivable succession of changeable objects.”

p. 91: “Whatever can be conceiv’d by a clear and distinct idea necessarily implies the possibility of existence; and he who pretends to prove the impossibility of its existence by any argument deriv’d from the clear idea, in reality asserts, that we have no clear idea of it, because we have a clear idea. ‘Tis in vain to search for a contradiction in any thing that is distinctly conceiv’d by the mind. Did it imply any contradiction, ‘tis impossible it cou’d ever be conceiv’d.”

p. 129: “The true state of the question is, whether every object, which begins to exist, must owe its existence to a cause; and this I assert neither to be intuitively nor demonstratively certain, and hope to have prov’d it sufficiently by the foregoing arguments.”

p. 132: “As to those impressions, which arise from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly inexplicable by human reason, and ‘twill always be impossible to decide with certainty, whether they arise immediately from the object, or are produc’d by the creative power of the mind, or are deriv’d from the author of our being.”

p. 140: “Thus not only our reason fails us in the discovery of the ultimate connexion of causes and effects, but even after experience has inform’d us of their constant conjunction, ‘tis impossible for us to satisfy ourselves by our reason, why we shou’d extend that experience beyond those particular instances, which have fallen under our observation. We suppose, but are never able to prove, that there must be a resemblance betwixt those objects, of which we have had experience, and those which lie beyond the reach of our discovery.”

p. 153: “Thus all probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation. ‘Tis not solely in poetry and music, we must follow our taste and sentiment, but likewise in philosophy. When I am convinc’d of any principle, ‘tis only an idea, which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence. Objects have no discoverable connexion together; nor is it from any other principle but custom operating upon the imagination, that we can draw any inference from the appearance of one to the existence of another.”
p. 153 cont.: “’Twill here be worth our observation, that the past experience, on which all our judgments concerning cause and effect depend, may operate on our mind in such an insensible manner as never to be taken notice of, and may even in some measure be unknown to us.”

p. 184: “First we may observe, that the supposition, that the future resembles the past, is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is deriv’d entirely from habit, by which we are determin’d to expect for the future the same train of objects, to which we have been accustom’d.”

p. 197: “A fourth unphilosophical species of probability is that deriv’d from general rules, which we rashly form to ourselves, and which are the source of what we properly call PREJUDICE. An Irishman cannot have wit, and a Frenchman cannot have solidity; for which reason, tho’ the conversation of the former in any instance be visibly very agreeable, and of the latter very judicious, we have entertain’d such a prejudice against them, that they must be dunces or fops in spite of sense and reason. Human nature is very subject to errors of this kind; and perhaps this nation as much as any other.”

p. 226: “Next to the ridicule of denying an evident truth, is that of taking much pains to defend it; and no truth appears to me more evident, than that beasts are endow’d with thought and reason as well as men. The arguments are in this so obvious, that they never escape the most stupid and ignorant.”

p. 234: “Shou’d it here be ask’d me, whether I sincerely assent to this argument, which I seem to take such pains to inculcate, and whether I be really one of those sceptics, who hold that all is uncertain, and that our judgment is not in any thing possest of any measures of truth and falsehood; I shou’d reply, that this question is entirely superfluous, and that neither I, nor any other person was ever sincerely and constantly of that opinion. Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable necessity has determin’d us to judge as well as to breathe and feel; nor can we any more forbear viewing certain objects in a stronger and fuller light, upon account of their customary connexion with a present impression, than we can hinder ourselves from thinking as long as we are awake, or seeing the surrounding bodies, when we turn our eyes towards them in broad sunshine. Whoever has taken the pains to refute the cavils of this total skepticism, has really disputed without an antagonist, and endeavour’d by arguments to establish a faculty, which nature has antecedently implanted in the mind, and render’d unavoidable.”

pp. 267-268: “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 chace it away, and sometimes may seem entirely free from it.”

p. 312: “When I look abroad, I foresee on every side, dispute, contradiction, anger, calumny and detraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me; tho’ such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others. Every step I take is with hesitation, and every new reflection makes me dread an error and absurdity in my reasoning.”

p. 319: “Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”

Vol. 2: Of the Passions

p. 361: “Every thing belonging to a vain man is the best that is any where to be found. His houses, equipage, furniture, cloaths, horses, hounds, excel all others in his conceit; and ‘tis easy to observe, that from the least advantage in any of these, he draws a new subject of pride and vanity.”

p. 412: “This is still more conspicuous in man, as being the creature of the universe, who has the most ardent desire of society, and is fitted for it by the most advantages. We can form no wish, which has not a reference to society. A perfect solitude is, perhaps, the greatest punishment we can suffer.”

p. 450: “Men cannot live without society, and cannot be associated without government. Government makes a distinction of property, and establishes the different ranks of men. This produces industry, traffic, manufactures, law-suits, war, leagues, alliances, voyages, travels, cities, fleets, ports, and all those other actions and objects, which cause such a diversity, and at the same time maintain such a uniformity in human life.”

p. 456: “We may imagine we feel a liberty within ourselves; but a spectator can commonly infer our actions from our motives and character; and even where he cannot, he concludes in general, that he might, were he perfectly acquainted with every circumstance of our situation and temper, and the most secret springs of our complexion and disposition.”

p. 462: “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”

p. 480: “This is also true in the universe. Opposition not only enlarges the soul; but the soul, when full of courage and magnanimity, in a manner seeks opposition.”

p. 487: Now if we consider the human mind, we shall find, that with regard to the passions, ‘tis not the nature of a wind-instrument of music, which in running over all the notes immediately loses the sound after the breath ceases; but rather resembles a string-instrument, where after each stroke the vibrations still retain some sound, which gradually and insensibly decays. The imagination is extreme quick and agile; but the passions are slow and restive.”

p. 494: “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.”

Vol. 3: Of Morals

p. 509: “Since morals, therefore, have an influence on the actions and affections, it follows, that they cannot be deriv’d from reason; and that because reason alone, as we have already prov’d, can never have any such influence. Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason."

p. 517: “In order, therefore, to prove, that the measures of right and wrong are eternal laws, obligatory on every rational mind, ‘tis not sufficient to shew the relations upon which they are founded: We must also point out the connexion betwixt the relation and the will; and must prove that this connexion is so necessary, that in every well-disposed mind, it must take place and have its influence; tho’ the difference betwixt these minds be in other respects immense and infinte. […] it will be impossible to fulfil the first condition required to the system of eternal measures of right and wrong; because it is impossible to shew those relations, upon which such a distinction may be founded: And ‘tis as impossible to fulfil the second condition; because we cannot prove a priori, that these relations, if they really existed and were perceiv’d, wou’d be universally forcible and obligatory.”

p. 520: “There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflection into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but ‘tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object.”

p. 537: “'Tis by society alone he is able to supply his defects, and raise himself up to an equality with his fellow-creatures, and even acquire a superiority above them. By society all his infirmities are compensated; and tho’ in that situation his wants multiply every moment upon him, yet his abilities are still more augmented, and leave him in every respect more satisfied and happy, than ‘tis possible for him, in his savage and solitary condition, ever to become. When every individual person labours a-part, and only for himself, his force is too small to execute any considerable work; his labour being employ’d in supplying all his different necessities, he never attaints a perfection in any particular art; and as his force and success are not at all times equal, the least failure in either of these particulars must be attended with inevitable ruin and misery. Society provides a remedy for these three inconveniences. By the conjunction of forces, our power is augmented: By the partition of employments, our ability increases: And by mutual succour we are less expos’d to fortune and accidents. ‘Tis by this additional force, ability, and security, that society becomes advantageous.”

p. 590: “There is no quality in human nature, which causes more fatal errors in our conduct, than that which leads us to prefer whatever is present to the distant and remote, and makes us desire objects more according to their situation than their intrinsic value.”

p. 600: “To which we may add, that a man living under an absolute government, wou’d owe it no allegiance; since, by its very nature, it depends not on consent.”

p. 603: “’Tis certain, therefore, that in all our notions of morals we never entertain such an absurdity as that of passive obedience, but make allowances for resistance in the more flagrant instances of tyranny and oppression.”

p. 615: “Those, therefore, who wou’d seem to respect our free government, and yet deny the right of resistance, have renounc’d all pretensions to common sense, and do not merit a serious answer.”

[Julia Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes good

[Xander · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started with this book, since it was Hume's first work, but I soon started to get extremely bored with this huge tome. It is too much repetition and too abstruse for my taste. After I started with A Treatise of Human Nature I learned that Hume wrote two Enquiries on the two main topics of this book - epistemology and morality. I also read that these two short(er) Enquiries are updated versions of his earlier thoughts (my assumption: 'less faulty').

So I decided to put this book down and read the two short ones. I therefore can't give an honest judgement on this work - so take my review with a grain of salt.

As I said, it is huge (approaching 700 pages), it is dense in content and (!) wide in scope, and at times very repetitive. I didn't like it one bit. In essence, it is Daivd Hume's attempt to build a science of man - studying how we form ideas about the world through our senses and inner reflections and using this knowledge to study human topics such as psychology, morality and religion. It was Hume's attempt to do what Newton did for physics - synthesizing all strands of knowledge in one consistent and coherent system - and for this, he deserves our applause.

[Sookie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its more of an observers manual than a user manual.

Hume dissects human nature into various categories and asks questions. He further goes and tries to derive a response through logic and what rationality he could come up with. He vaguely notes if logic and rationality in themselves are mutable and are subjected to social changes over course of time. Of course it would require Kant to answer and streamline a lot of Hume's observations but for what its worth, this treatise though a repetitive tome of changing perspective and deep diving into already known things.

[Matei · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5 empiricism was a mistake. Out of the three empiricist philosophers I read, Hume deals with the most complex issues and treats the problems of the nature of ideas, causality and morality to their complete conclusion (often a contradictory/self-defeating one), but his fanatical devotion to the empiricist model seemed to me to make him lacking in the necessary self-awareness to give his work any relevancy.

[eesenor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hume continues the tradition of Locke and Berkeley, by demonstrating that causal connections are only in the mind of the perceiver, not actually in the world of perceived events.

[J.D. Steens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hume's "Treatise" is divided into three books that cover understanding, passions and morals. This review is on Book II, "Of the Passions." *[Review of Book III added below, November, 2013] At first (actually, third) read, this book is a mess, but the book's meaning gains traction when viewed within Hume's overall philosophical system.

In Hume's system, the world comes at the self through the senses and ideas flow from them (impressions). As we are not just knowing beings, where do passions fit within Hume's system? Here too we receive the world through original (primary) sensations that are simply evaluated by the body as good (pleasure) and bad (pain) that we experience as desire, aversion, grief, joy, hope, fear, despair, and security. Our secondary, indirect passions involve reflective thought (that include associations of emotions with each other), which Hume lists as pride, humility, ambition, vanity, love, hatred, envy, pity, malice, and generosity.

In his theory of passions, Hume begins with pride and humility (Part 1, Book II). Pride is elation, which is pleasure and a good thing because one has status and value, in contrast to humility, which is dejection because it's the absence of a good thing. Comparison - a reflective process - "augments" our self-esteem, and here Hume defines "sympathy" in a different way than we typically think of it. Sympathy is our capacity to identify with others and see (mirror) their situation. We "enter into the other by force of imagination," Hume writes, so that we esteem those who are well off (we want to be like them) and have contempt for those who are not (we don't want to be like them). "Upon the whole," Hume writes, "there remains nothing, which can give us an esteem for power and riches, and a contempt for meanness and poverty, except the principle of sympathy, by which we enter ino the sentiments of the rich and poor and partake of their pleasure and uneasiness."

It is the same with love and hate (Part II), which Hume states is directed to someone external to us, as opposed to pride and humility whose object is the self or those we identify with. We love the well off because they give us pleasure; we hate those not well off because they give us pain. "Nothing has a greater tendency to give us an esteem for any person," Hume writes, "than his power and riches; or a contempt, than his poverty and meanness," and this esteem and contempt are "to be considered'd as [a] species of love and hatred." In the same vein, envy (a species of both love and hatred), is "A man, who compares himself to his inferior, receives a pleasure from the comparison: And when the inferiority decreases by the elevation of the inferior, what shoul'd only have been a decrease of pleasure, becomes a real pain, by a new comparison with its preceding condition."

In Part III, Hume brings in his motive force. Like Newton's cosmic objects, we are bodies in unimpeded motion until we collide with other bodies. When we collide, we evaluate the incoming action on us as good (pleasurable) or bad (painful), and from that evaluation flow the direct and indirect passions (it may be that Hume seams all of this together in the following way: pride and humility [looking at the self], and love and hate [looking at others] are cognitive versions of pleasure [like] and pain [dislike]). While we might think we are free to choose, we are like the rest of nature. Each action has a prior cause that can be traced back to our evaluation of whether someting is good or bad, or something that provides pleasure or gives pain. That evaluation by the body releases the body's energy (will or volition), which is an "effect" of pain and pleasure, and that is expressed in the form of specific passions. Against the rationalist perspective, Hume says that reason is powerless to motivate our actions. That's the property of passion, and "Nothing can oppose or retard the impulse of passion, but a contrary impulse...." Then, Hume utters his bombshell: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."

This summary is a best guess of what Hume was trying to articulate (he lamented that the Treatise, which he wrote in his late 20s, did not receive much attention). Understanding Hume's theory of the passions is a challenge. He makes numerous divisions within his thought (e.g., direct, indirect; calm, violent; original and secondary; self as object, other as object) and it is easy to get lost about what refers to what, and why. A more serious problem is his loose terminology. In places, passions and emotions seem separate ("any emotion, which attends a passion") but in other places they are one and the same ("passions and other emotions"). Pleasure and pain are independent of passion, but it's also not clear what they are (simply, body responses? cognitive, as there's an evaluation?). He refers to passions as desires and instincts, to volition (the emotion of "aversion or propensity"), and to cognition (seconday, reflective) emotions. Passions include states of being (grief, joy), reaction (fear), and action (avarice, curiosity), and generic resisting actions (aversion) and generic seeking actions (propensity). In the end, the reader is never quite clear about what a passion is and what it is not.

Beyond these challenges, there are four fundamental problems with Hume's theory. First, he sees us as passive beings. We are recepients of external stimuli coming our way, which we evaluate as painful (bad) or pleasurable (good). That's one-half of who we are. We are defensive beings who react (good/bad) to the world, but we also go into the world to get what we need to survive and for our well being. While the emotion of aversion is resisting action, "propensity" is really an active, outward seeking of what we need from the world. Schopenhauer's theory recasts this Hume-type view of pain and pleasure. For Schopenhauer, pain is an internal need that must be satisfied; when pain is satisfied, there is pleasure. Pain in this sense pushes us to seek what we need AND to resist what we don't need. When successful on both fronts, there is pleasure.

Second, as we are sensation recoders, Hume says we have no true self. The external world throws stuff our way and determines who we are, subject to our simple evaluation of whether it is good or bad. But that evaluation presupposes a standard of some sort such as survival and well-being, which in a strong way, constitutes a self, broadly construed. But beyond this broader species self (human nature), we also have a particular, individual self. More importantly, a good and bad evaluation is not the same for each individual, so on what basis does one make that evaluation other than having a particular disposition and proclivity that constitutes one's true self (disposition wise, not deterministic). Hume fuzzes this issue up considerably. He makes various references to our individual natures (e.g., "differences in the tempers and complexions of men," "my own natural temper and disposition," "variation of temper," and "general character"), but these could be environmentally determined as well as biological.

The third problem with Hume's theory is that his overall portrait of us is, again, only half right. We are in the main concerned with our own status and standing relative to others, he says in this book, and "sympathy" augments these differences. While there's a good amount of truth in that perspective, it barely speaks to the "children of light" who care about others in the normal way we think of sympathy, and there are good Darwinian reasons for us to be socially oriented in the best sense of that word. It will be interesting to compare this treatment by Hume of "sympathy" with his Book III discussion on morals

The fourth and final issue with Hume is his statement that reason is a slave of passion. Hume gets credit for highlighting the fundamental role of passion and volition relative to cognition, but to call "reason" a slave is an overstatement and creates a needless determinism. Back in the reptile and early mammal days, emotions performed the regulatory role for us in the world, and most of these emotions are still likely with us today. An alternative way of looking at this relationship between evolution and reason is that reason augments this regulatory role of emotions so that both work together and complement each other. Emotions provide the initial impulse for both seeking and resisting, and cognition tells us not only how to seek and resist, but also to evaluate whether to act or react at all given what the situation requires as well as what our broader and longer-term interests and values are. There is, in other words, a role for cognition to override a passion and, in effect, reason constitutes a motive force in its own right, even though Hume is likely accurate in saying that, in the end, volition rests on some "contrary" impulse.

*In Book III, Hume argues that there are two parts to human nature. Affections provide the motive force and understanding (reason) tells us how to work with them. Then Hume argues "that reason is perfectly inert," powerless to produce or prevent action. Action requires the affections. This is self-interest, broadly construed as seeking those objects that bring pleasure and avoiding those that create pain. Hume states that self-interest does not extend to public benefit ("In general, it may be affirm'd, that there is no such passion in human minds, as the love of mankind, merely as such, independent of personal qualities, of services, or of relation to ourself.") Given this constraint, Hume derives the principle of justice from human understanding: As we recognize our self-interest, especially property, is in jeopardy in a Hobbes-like world where everyone pursues their respective self-interest, we recognize that the self-interest of each is secured only when we restrain ourselves and respect the freedom of each. In this way justice, as a human creation, serves (regulates) self-interest.

Hume's treatment of self-interest as an "impelling force," and the social implications of that position, is excellent. He says that our sense of justice does not come from nature, which is indifferent. Rather, justice is an artifice - a human creation, a public utility - to protect our self-interest. Yet, when it is understood that others - and their freedom - are a part of nature, it embeds that principle as a logical deduction in nature itself, as a biological version of adaptation. It is also likely that we've incorporated a good portion of that principle into our nature, as the sentiment of fairness and as our visceral resistance to heavy-handedness, violation and imposition.

Hume also minimizes the biological significance of our other-oriented, social nature. Hume pretty much has us as self-centered isolates, interested in others only for their reciprocal utility to ourselves. In contrast, as Darwin wrote, we are deeply tribal and that brings with it a full suite of other-regarding social skills regardless of utility.

As in Book II, Hume's treatment of the emotions is confusing. Under the general heading of affections, self-interest is defined as the various passions (desires and aversions). While passions convey excitement, these seem inert in Hume until they are stimulated by the outside. Yet, elsewhere Hume has us filled with "love of gain" and concerned about status and reputation ("comparison"). This suggests something powerful inside that directs how we relate to the world - why we seek gain and why we care about what others think. Seeking and concern are internal to us, not external, and may be lodged in an inborn character or temperament (i.e., Hume's reference to "our natural temper") that also varies within each of us as, elsewhere, Hume writes that "Men's tempers are different."

[Illiterate · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s so much here: problem of induction, emptiness of “cause” & “substance”, space & time as object-dependent, fragmented self, belief as instinctual, impotence of reason, is-ought problem, justice as conventional, etc.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems absurd to give a star rating to an acknowledged classic like Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, but for what it's worth, this curious non-philosopher found it an engrossing and engaging read. It is certainly a long, involved and systematic book, but Hume writes with such grace and geniality that I think anyone of sufficient patience will find something to love in his writing.

After the lapse of nearly 300 years, a certain contradiction is apparent in Hume's approach to things. On the one hand, he was one of the most rigorous and sceptical philosophers of his time. The Treatise is extremely systematic—a point that rarely noted by Hume's admirers today—and Hume wittily reduces all the complicated ideas we call 'common sense' down to a few simple principles. Everything in the mind is either an innate passion, a discrete datum of sense, or a complex idea generated by the imagination through the power of association. He presents numerous forcible arguments to make these reductions, and the result is a great edifice of sceptical thought.

What is contradictory in this position, is that while Hume undercuts all our commonsense notions with his reductive philosophy, he also basically agreed with all the conventional opinions of his time. He was a Tory, true, which made him somewhat unfashionable in mid-eighteenth-century Britain. But otherwise he was a gentle, indulgent spirit who found little to criticise in the arrangements of the world. He seems relatively unconcerned that slavery and autocracy abound in human history. He finds it quite natural that women should be monitored more strictly than men. He approves of gaming, hunting, polite wit, the charisma of politicians, the acumen of merchants, and of the eighteenth-century ideal of 'improvement' (the chief beauty of a natural landscape, he repeats several times, is its potential to be farmed). From this more practical perspective, Hume is virtually the opposite of a sceptic—he is a cheerful acquiescer to the status quo.

It is interesting, in this respect, to compare Hume to his frenemy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau is arguably a less sceptical philosopher than Hume, but was a far more sceptical man. The whole panoply of ordinary life was disgusting to Rousseau, and he fell back on classic philosophical ideals of virtue, soulfulness and the will to oppose it. Perhaps a little example will paint the difference. One classic idea that Hume rejects is the distinction between pride and vanity. All pride is vanity, says Hume. I have a good opinion of myself only because I see that others are pleased with me. Rousseau opposes this utterly. The most fundamental distinction in his philosophy is that between amour de soi, my love of my self, and amour-propre, my vain desire to rise in others' estimation. Hume thinks it impossible to extricate ourselves from others, and blends into society. Rousseau thinks nothing is more essential than independence of will, and says we should vigorously forsake any concern for society's opinions.

All in all, I enjoyed my two weeks' company with le bon David, whom I haven't read for years. The Treatise is certainly not his most inviting book, but it is a splendid edifice, and I think one of the more readable classics of Western metaphysics.

[Crito · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Hume is pretty easy to like. Despite the reputation built up by new atheists who seem to have only really read his "On Miracles", Hume is as clear and un-polemical as it comes. In just his writing alone there's a sober down to business mindset colored by nothing but the desire to express pure thought. In some ways I can see why that might make it seem unapproachable, but in reality he's one of the more easier to read philosophers you can come across if you'll excuse some of the quirks of 18th century writing. He explains and reexplains and reintroduces topics with much frequency and it's only difficult to get lost.
That established, it makes it all the more extraordinary to witness this charmingly mild manner smash philosophy into a billion pieces until Kant would later reassemble them. There's a stunning originality on display and such aptitude for abstract thinking which is ironic considering how these are ideas in a way to end abstract thinking. You get surprise after surprise as he turns Locke's materialism into a monster of itself, he shatters the social contract and state of nature, he defends anarchy, he defends government, he makes a case for Machiavelli, he abolishes morals and defends pride a century before Nietzsche, he shuts down theism, he shuts down atheism, this dude is unstoppable.
And it's unreal that he doesn't even mean to, he delivers nothing with such sensation and gravitas as another philosopher might. Probably the best part of this book is after he has explained the core of his philosophy in Book I he closes it off with some compelling and rare personal reflection. He notes how his thinking scares him; first off in his fear of being blacklisted by anyone and everyone, and secondly in how he's aware of the grim implications of his ideas and how it depresses him yet he can't stop thinking them through and developing them further. In the reader this is exacerbated by the knowledge that this novel was in fact received poorly and Hume spent the rest of his days releasing works to apologetically re-explain himself.
Which is a shame, this is a worthy work even though it also admittedly shows it's his first big attempt. If I were to pick a weak point it would definitely be Book II "Of The Passions" which takes turns into boredom and fallacy. Here we see the Aristotelian dividing of feelings into binary pairs but since it isn't Aristotle it feels undeveloped and antiquated. If his strength is in abstracts, his weakness is in the more relatables. It picks back up two thirds in however, and the third book is a strong finish despite a lingering feeling of incompleteness (which is understandable since he had originally planned for five books). I'd say his Enquiry may be the more solid and accessible of his works but this book stands on its own and I think shouldn't be passed on. Solid Recommendation.

[Yann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il y a une remarquable unité dans ces trois ouvrages de Hume, sur la nature humaine, le premier sur la connaissance, le second sur les passions, et le troisième sur la morale. On ne saurait pas aborder ces difficiles questions de morale sans bien s'entendre préalablement sur le sens des mots, sans quoi on courrait le risque de se laisser abuser par eux, et de se payer de belles formules qui nous plaisent, car notre imagination complète le sens qu'il n'y trouve pas par celui qui nous agrée. Cette méthode consistant à poser des définitions claires, puis par la multiplication d'exemples particuliers pour mettre à l'épreuve leur consistance me semble très féconde. Hobbes et Locke ont ouvert la voie. Sans doute pourrait on regretter l'absence d'un certain esprit géométrique, et l'emploi d'une langue simple et naturelle chagrinera les âmes éprises d'acribie, mais chaque auteur a sa sensibilité, et trouve les voies les plus propres à se faire entendre. J'ai le sentiment que l'agrément procuré par ces lectures philosophiques dépend beaucoup de nos préférences tel ou tel style d'écriture, et que les apparentes oppositions entre auteurs s'évanouissent pour la plupart lorsqu'on les ramène au fond, se limitant souvent à des querelles de forme, de méthode, d'étendue du sujet. Elles tiennent à la variété des intérêts et des passions que nous dictent les circonstances et nos dispositions. Ainsi Kant a le mérite de traiter à fond la métaphysique, que ces anglais avaient mis à une place curieuse, car elle leur brulait les doigts (en dépit de leur prudence, aucun n'a échappé à des tracasseries sur ces matières), mais son analyse des facultés de l'entendement reste sommaire comparée à celle de ses prédécesseurs: sans doute était il plus préoccupé de tracer des limites bien nettes. Il s'est aussi trompé sur les jugements synthétique à priori, mais ce n'est finalement pas très grave. Tous ces philosophes s'accordent à chercher la vérité, mais chacun emploie ses facultés et son génie là où le portent sa fantaisie, et le lecteur ne risque rien à les fréquenter tous, sans préjugés. Plus personnellement, mon goût me portent plutôt vers ces auteurs qui d'abord s'attachent à décrire le monde tel qu'il est, plutôt que ceux qui le rêvent tel qu'il devrait être, car quand on a gouté aux vertus des premiers, il devient difficile de souffrir l'impertinence des seconds.

[Caris · Rating 4 out of 5]

“‘Tis obvious… that men of gay tempers naturally love the gay” (403) [accidental allyship for the win].

This treatise is thick but quite insightful at several turns. Hume’s discussion on “the understanding” or how we come to knowledge, I largely agree with. He focusses a significant portion on the principles of cause and effect, which is phenomenal. However, Books 2 and 3 on the passions and morals betray the norms of Hume’s time. His claims range from objectionable to absurd, and most of these relate to wealth and government, such as: “Nothing has a greater tendency to give us an esteem for any person, than his power and riches; or a contempt, than his poverty and meanness” (406). Of course, this perspective comes before most formal communist thought took root in Europe. Our bourgeois philosopher isn’t wrong about the purpose of the state though: “To remedy disputes over property between proprietors” (590). Hume believes this to be a noble purpose for the state, but what it actually amounts to is that the state exists to serve the wealthiest, who are proprietors. In cases like this, Hume’s observations are technically correct but they lack a critical understanding. Nonetheless, this work really earns its rank in classic philosophy.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe I first read this in another edition in Cornel West's Continental Philosophy class at Union Theological Seminary, then was assigned much of it again by Arne VanDerNat in his Epistemology class at Loyola University Chicago, using this pictured edition. Agreeing with Kant that "the acute Mr. Hume" rarely makes an error, I also found his critique of any evidential basis for the concept of necessary causality challenging.

[Isaac Chan · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Originally wanted to write systematic notes of the whole Treatise but realised that that’s obviously not practically feasible, given its sheer breadth. Thus I edited this to just be personal notes of Hume’s stances on a select few philosophical topics that occupy most of my attention.)

The satisfaction of carefully reading and dissecting such a monumental work of philosophy is multi-fold. Firstly, there is the genuine intellectual pleasure of having grappled with one of history’s greatest minds. Secondly, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, contemporary intellectual discussion is like joining at 11pm a dinner conversation which began at 7, and so having no clue what people are talking about. Returning to the classics of philosophy allowed me to partake in the conversation when it begun. And thirdly, Hume’s prose, clarity and wit can be enjoyed for its own sake, as great English literature.

My goal when going into the Treatise was to be cognizant that I’m engaging with an important work that shook the intellectual foundations of its time. What this means is that I will certainly re-read the Treatise. So the goal for my 1st reading will only be to UNDERSTAND Hume – in other words, to be able to recite back to Hume his own philosophy. Because who am I, as a 23-year-old, the most junior employee of my organization, to try to challenge or refute these ideas in any meaningful way? (Which is highly ironic, given Hume wrote the Treatise at age 23 LOL. Good lad.)
My own response to Hume’s philosophy will only come in my 2nd reading. I avoid preconceived notions/ views I have of the philosophical topics covered.

(Specific/ technical Humean terminology denoted in **)

Book 1: Hume’s epistemology (Hume calls this the ‘understanding’)
Book 2: The passions
Book 3: Hume’s moral philosophy

Firstly, the introduction to the Treatise is probably one of the most thrilling pieces of philosophical writing I’ve read. Hume sets the terms for what he aims to achieve in the Treatise, and it’s useful to see where he’s coming from.

Our boy Hume starts by observing that scientists make secular intellectual advancement by a continuous process of proving old ideas wrong. Hume notes that science has formed a ‘common prejudice against metaphysical reasonings of all kinds’. But the truth ‘must lie very deep and abstruse’, and it will take great pain to reach the truth, and not even the ‘greatest geniuses’ have.

It's evident that all the sciences are closely linked to human nature. Hume argues that the ‘science of man’ stands above all other sciences. Even math, science and religion are dependent on the ‘science of man’.

Why?

Because all scientific truths are still judged by the human mind. The mind must organize the world and its science. (This obviously screams very Kantian, but I won’t go there). Thus, the intellectual foundations of science comes down to the question – ‘What is knowledge? How do our minds work?’

Hume’s epistemology
(I am most interested in epistemology out of all branches of philosophy and hence I ended up only writing about this, for better or worse)

Ideas

Our boy Hume famously distinguishes between *ideas* and *impressions*. But before going there, note the uncontroversial claim that the mind only ever processes PERCEPTIONS. When we see a table, there’s no rock-solid proof that the table exists mind-independently – we only ever have a perception of the table in our minds, from the light refracting off that object into our eyeballs and whatnot. When we touch it, we perceive the hardness from our fingers. Etc. We only have access to sense-experience.

And so, all perceptions can be categorised as ideas or impressions. *Impressions* are ‘those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence’. Think the colour red, sensations of heat, the passions of love, hatred, or lust. *Ideas* are the faint images of the impressions. Memory, imagination. I can conjure in my mind the idea of the colour blue, or recalling my love for a nice girl.

Thus, here’s a piss easy Hume maxim to rmb: Every simple idea is derived from a simple impression. AND SO ALL IDEAS ARE ULTIMATELY DERIVED FROM EXPERIENCE.

This is the ‘copy principle’. Scholars coined this, I don’t think Hume himself used the term.

Furthermore, it’s obvious that there are *simple and complex ideas*. Complex ideas are formed by a combination of simple ideas. A very good example imo would be from 孙子兵法where 孙子 notes that there are only 4 simple tastes (sweet, sour, salty and bitter), but they interact to produce a literally endless combination of food flavours in the world. Complex ideas may not directly correspond to an object in the external world. E.g., I can imagine a flying unicorn with shiny green hooves and blue wings, but it obviously doesn’t exist. However, the myriad of simple ideas that comprise of this complex idea, directly corresponds to simple impressions. This is why it’s possible to imagine things that don’t exist.

Hume notoriously considers and dismisses the ‘missing shades of blue argument’.

How do we combine, and mix & match simple ideas to form complex ideas? Thus Hume examines the modes of the mind.

Hume observes that the MEMORY and the IMAGINATION are important modes to organize our ideas. Memory is ‘more forceful’ than imagination – we vividly recollect our past recollections, but the imagination doesn’t have this effect. We are deeply influenced by our personal experiences, but other people’s experiences fail to sway us as deeply.

Importantly, Hume notes that while the memory is rigid, so to speak (it merely preserves the ‘order and position’ of our impressions), the imagination is free to conjoin our simple ideas any way we like, to form our complex ideas.

HOWEVER, Hume observes that the imagination still follows some general rules. And this is the important *association of ideas* (transition of thought). Without such general rules, our thoughts would be random and unconnected, and we wouldn’t be able to think coherently.

(This begs the question – is the reason why we humans have consciousness and high intelligence, because we have the *association of ideas*? Do animals follow the *association of ideas* as well? Hume later investigates this and finds that animal minds follow the same principles.)

Hume identifies 7 philosophical *relations*: (these are how the mind organizes the world, and conjoin our complex ideas)
Resemblance
Contiguity in space & time
Cause and effect
Identity
Proportion in quantity
Degrees in quality
Contrariety

Piss easy Hume maxim to rmb: The mind conjoins ideas in resemblance and contiguity via the association of ideas. (i.e. the mind links together similar ideas. A smooth transition of thought is important in how we think.)

The first 3 *relations* are the 3 *principles of association* (Hume also calls these the *natural relations*)

E.g., We think of our friend when we are shown a picture of our friend, because the picture *resembles* our friend.

Play me 2000s pop music and I think of my childhood and Ben 10, because they are *contiguous in time*.

Talk to me about Seremban and I will also think of my childhood, because they are *contiguous in space*.

Show me a country running massive fiscal deficits and I think of inflation, because they are related thru *cause and effect*. Hume notes that *cause and effect* works both ways – observing the deficits makes me think of inflation; observing inflation also makes me think of the deficits.

Hume notes that *causation* is the strongest out of the 3 *associative principles*. More on that later on the section on *cause and effect*.


Space and time
Hume now touches on a question that I’ve wrestled with: The infinite divisibility of time. (I’ve also meditated on the infinite divisibility of money, and reflected on how this property of money and time has collectively formed continuous-time finance which has revolutionized asset pricing and economics). The perplexing nature of time is a topic that many writers have addressed e.g. Proust, Woolf, Tolstoy, Shakespeare. But I digress.

Hume observes that we have bounded rationality and the mind cannot comprehend the infinitely small or infinitely large. This is Hume’s ‘finitist’ doctrine – that space and time are NOT infinitely divisible. Since the mind is limited, our ideas and impressions of space and time must eventually reach a minimum.

Then there is Hume’s ‘relativist’ doctrine – that space and time cannot be conceived independently from objects.

What is space? Merely our perception of the distance between 2 objects.

What is time? Merely the changing succession of our perceptions. E.g., hearing successive notes of a harp. Or observing my copy of the Treatise becoming steadily more battered as I read it. Or observing the aging of my parents. We attribute those changing perceptions to time.

In a vacuum, there is no space or time.

Piss easy Hume maxim to rmb: SPACE CANNOT BE CONCEIVED APART FROM OBJECTS ARRANGED ACROSS SPACE. TIME CANNOT BE CONCEIVED APART FROM OBJECTS CHANGING ACROSS TIME.

In other words, space and time don’t exist objectively.

Later on, Hume makes some interesting observations regarding space and time.
E.g., a magnitude of time has a bigger effect on the mind than an equal magnitude of space. For example, people care about global events, but we rarely stress about some disaster in the remote future. People have present biases and hyperbolic discounting.

Why?

Because space consists of a series of parts that can be sensed simultaneously. However, the parts of time can only be sensed SUCCESSIVELY. No 2 parts of time can co-exist. Therefore, the *association of ideas* through space is much smoother than time. It’s way easier to mentally comprehend space than time.

Awesomely, we observe that the same space-time worm being separated by time weakens his passions and ideas. However, it is evident that being separated by space doesn’t weaken our passions.


Hume’s fork
(The Treatise’s account of knowledge & probability)
(Contains Hume’s account of personal identity)

First, note that Hume’s distinction of all human knowledge is later simplified in his ‘Enquiry’: 2 mutually exclusive and collective exhaustive categories – the *relation of ideas* and *matters of fact*. More popularly known as a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge. Or analytic statements vs synthetic statements. This is the famous ‘Hume’s fork’.

The distinction of knowledge in the Treatise is more complicated.

Recall the 7 philosophical relations, and divide them into 2 classes. Hume calls a priori knowledge ‘those relations that depend entirely on the ideas’ (‘can be the objects of knowledge and certainty’), and a posteriori knowledge ‘those relations that may be changed without any change in the ideas’.

The 2 classes:
Depend entirely on the ideas - Resemblance, Contrariety, Degrees in quality, Proportion in quantity
May be changed without any change in the ideas - Space & time, Identity, Causation

An example of an analytic statement is ‘All bachelors are unmarried’. The idea ‘bachelor’ already contains the idea of ‘unmarried’ – hence, these 4 relations DEPEND ENTIRELY ON THE IDEAS.

An example of a synthetic statement is ‘Bachelors fail to marry because they are ugly’. The idea of ‘bachelor’ implies nothing about the man’s appearance. This statement is a hypothesis that we must seek to prove or disprove via empirical observation.

To further elucidate this, Hume also calls the former class ‘constant relations’, and the latter class ‘inconstant relations’. Our knowledge of unmarried men constantly depends solely on our idea of bachelors. Whereas our knowledge of whether unmarried men are ugly or undesirable MAY BE CHANGED without any change in the idea of bachelor – bachelors could be handsome for all we know, but chose to remain single out of their sigma grindset.

Here Hume explains that out of the 4 a priori relations, 3 of them (*resemblance*, *contrariety*, *quality*) yield knowledge by *intuition*. Again, our intuition of bachelor yields the knowledge of unmarried.

E.g., when 2 objects *resemble* each other, the *resemblance* immediately strikes our eye without need for further examination.
E.g., when 2 objects differ in *quality* (say boiling hot water vs lukewarm water), this also immediately registers in the mind without further reasoning.

However, notably, *quantity* yields knowledge not by *intuition*, but by a method of *inferential reasoning* (this will reappear ltr in *causation*) called *demonstrative reasoning*. By *demonstration* he means step-by-step, logical reasoning. E.g., mathematical proofs, geometric proofs, algebra, etc.

This is why the statement ‘a circle’s circumference is 2πr’ is analytic (this is the definition of a circle. A shape whose circumference is not 2πr is not a circle), HOWEVER, we discovered this via demonstrative proofs. Same goes for most other statements in geometry (I think).

Now on the latter class of relations in Hume’s fork.
2 of these 3 relations (space & time, and identity) yield knowledge by *perception*. As explained earlier, space and time are merely relative perceptions.

How we know *identity* via *perception* also leads to Hume’s philosophy of self, and personal identity.

I see the table in front of me. When I leave the room and return after a few hours, why do I believe that the table I see again, is the SAME table? The 2 tables I perceive are clearly separated by time (altho not separated by space).
I see and touch a cat. When it runs away, why do I believe that it is the SAME cat? The cat I perceive has already been separated by space and time.
I’m currently separated from my girlfriend, who lives in England, across the globe. Why do I assume she continues to exist? I clearly don’t perceive her anymore. When I see her again over Christmas, why do I believe it’s the SAME person?
I used to be a 5kg baby and now I’m a 6’0, 90+kg chad, capable of bench pressing 150kg. Why do I believe the baby and me right now, are the SAME person?

The central question – why do we ascribe notions of *identity* to things? Why do we have concepts of *personal identity*, or *self*? What’s the basis of this belief? Is it a valid basis?

In short, Hume’s answer to this is *CUSTOM* (same answer for causation).
Hume notes that these successive discrete perceptions we have objects *resemble* each other. This facilitates a smooth *transition of thought*. I blink my eyes and my perceptions of the table I see *resemble* each other, hence I believe it is the SAME table.
Hume also notes that the mind holds 2 conflicting views:
Our perceptions are continuous (I see the table, unmoving)
Our perceptions are actually interrupted (I look away, and no longer see the table)
To solve this cognitive dissonance, the mind uses mental shortcuts and ascribes *identity*.
Hume maxim: PERSONAL IDENTITY IS AN ILLUSION


Causation
Hume notes that causation is the only relation that can ���go beyond the senses’. *Causation* yields knowledge by a method of *inferential reasoning* (recall the account on *quantity*) called *probable reasoning*. (This is the origin of our notion of probability)

Now comes one of the most famous Hume maxims.
WE NVR DIRECTLY OBSERVE CAUSATION!

ALL that we EVER observe in an instance of cause and effect is just the relation of *contiguity in space and time*. In short, we only ever observe what happened before the cause, and what happened after.
E.g., We observe the white billiard ball striking the black billiard ball, which sets the black ball rolling. Obviously, the white ball CAUSED the black ball to roll.

However, this doesn’t stand up to Hume’s scrutiny.
We only observed 2 incidents:
*contiguity in space* - The white ball touching the black
*priority in time* - the white ball touching, before the black ball started rolling

We cannot observe the *causation*, or the *necessary connection* between these 2 events. All notions of causation we have is merely INFERRED, by means of *custom* (seeing many instances of billiard balls, and thus learning that hitting another ball causes it to roll).

This is deeply unsettling to me, and caused (pun unintended) me a lot of angst.
Hume urges us to consider – would Adam (first man on earth), be able to infer ahead of time, that the black ball would roll, when he saw the white ball hitting the black? Suppose also that he had the intelligence of Newton – would he able to infer this via pure reason? Just by examining the white ball?
I’ve seriously thought about this, and agree that the answer is no.

Hence, causation has a curious property – it goes beyond the senses. We’ve accepted that every idea derives from a corresponding impression. But here’s a central question – From what impression do we derive our idea of causation? Given that we nvr observe causation.

Hume urges us to ruminate on the question, ‘WHY DO WE ACCEPT THAT EVERY OBJECT IN EXISTENCE MUST HAVE A CAUSE???’
Thus, causation is pretty remarkable. The mind is somehow able to go beyond what we observe, and create the impression of causation on its own. This is why it’s the strongest *associative principle*, as noted earlier.

Our idea of causation is only derived from empirical observation (*custom*). By having lots of experience in the world, we figured out how things tend to work.

But then this raises another deeply unsettling question: the famous ‘problem of induction’.
Given that knowledge of causation is only derived from past observation, this knowledge is thus founded on a very shaky basis. Because there is no basis at all that the future will resemble the past.

Consider the billiard ball question again – it is perfectly possible to imagine the white ball hitting the black, and the black not moving at all. This is because causation belongs in the latter category of relations i.e. a posteriori knowledge.

Causal events are not like a priori events – e.g., it’s not possible to imagine a round circle, or a married bachelor. There’s no basis to believe that the black ball won’t move. Relaxing this thought experiment to more practical events, there’s no basis to believe that we WILL succeed after working hard, for example.

What gives?
In short, the Treatise instils in the reader a similar sensation of *skepticism* that Hume felt.

So, where do we go from here?
In short: Touch grass. (fr)
Hume touched grass. He writes that he’d get baffled, anxious and despaired over his philosophical musings. But ‘after a game of backgammon, or after dining with friends’, he’d feel jovial again, and these topics would seem to him fucking boring and useless.
‘A man can combine intensity with relaxation’ – Marcus Aurelius.

[Nemo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hume posits that nothing can exist in our minds that we have not already experienced through our senses. Perception is the passive reception of elemental units of sensation, such as light, color, and scent, into the mind, where they combine to form a complex image of the world around us. Ideas are impressions subsequently evoked in memory, copying the original impressions but only as a faded image of the original impulse, thus lacking its original force. Hume further divides ideas into those of memory and imagination. Ideas are then associated based on similarity, succession, and causation, and can be translated, enlarged, reduced, or transformed in various ways, but the mind has no other source of material than impressions. All human ideas and concepts are merely copies of original notions. For example, the idea of a fairy tale golden mountain merely combines two sensations from our experience, gold and a mountain. Perceptions are combined based on principles of agreement in place, time, and causation. In other words, from experience, people learn that sensation x is accompanied by impression y, and based on the belief that the future is like the past, they expect that impression x will always be accompanied by impression y.Thus, the impression of redness combined with the impressions of roundness, juiciness, sweet bitterness, and hardness create the impression of an apple. Everything we know, we have learned through such associations. Human perception is thus a reflexive, mechanical activity, reminiscent of Pavlov's trained dogs, but there is no guarantee that the impression x will accompany impression y in the future as a habit. In fact, it does not matter much whether impression x accompanies impression y concurrently, subsequently, or freely. Such associations have little validity because they can be random or caused by an unknown factor. In the words of Hume, we must attend solely to our perceptions. For everything that we can be certain of is only that which we can perceive. We may know that we see something, touch something, feel something, hear something, but we cannot be sure that these perceptions resemble the reality they are meant to represent. We cannot even say for certain where these perceptions come from, whether from matter, from Descartes' demon, or from something unimaginable and incomprehensible. For we are trapped within the boundaries of our own stream of perceptions.Thus, man is forever isolated within his own stream of perceptions, uncertain about everything that lies beyond his mind. The only way to live and not go insane is to act in the same manner as he has become accustomed to. Thus, Hume's theory of knowledge about an objective world, which transcends the individual and is based on immanent perceptions of the mind, ends in a blind alley. This problem motivated many thinkers, from Leibniz's philosophical theories, which attempted to circumvent perception as the sole source of knowledge, to Kant's attempt to unify Leibniz's theory with Hume.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hume's radicalism does not stop at critiquing long-standing philosophical notions of causality, what is external to us, substance, self and God; in a profoundly anti-Cartesian moment, he attacks those who uncritically assert that animals cannot reason nor express the 'passions' of love/hatred and pride/humility...

He makes clear at the outset of the section on animal reasoning that those who fail to realize this obvious quality are 'stupid and ignorant.' Thus, '(a) bird, that chooses with such care and nicety the place and materials of her nest, and sits upon her eggs for a due time, and in a suitable season, with all the precaution that a chymist is capable of in the most delicate projection... (engages in an) extraordinary instance of sagacity....'

In terms of the passions, '(l)ove in animals, has not for its only object animals of the same species, but extends itself farther, and comprehends almost every sensible and thinking being. A dog naturally loves a man above his own species, and very commonly meets with a return of affection...

The very port and gait of a swan, or turkey, or peacock show the high idea he has entertained of himself, and his contempt of all others. This is the more remarkable, that in the two last species of animals, the pride always attends the beauty, and is discovered in the male only... every species of creatures, which approach so often to man, as to familiarize themselves with him, show an evident pride in his approbation, and are pleased with his praises and caresses, independent of every other consideration. Nor are they the caresses of every one without distinction, which give them this vanity, but those principally of the persons they know and love; in the same manner as that passion is excited in mankind. All these are evident proofs, that pride and humility are not merely human passions, but extend themselves over the whole animal creation.'

The Selby-Bigge second edition of the 'Treatise' not only contains the main work but also Hume's important 'Abstract,' an appendix, textual notes and index... highly recommended...

[Otto Lehto · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains some of the greatest philosophical insights ever put on paper, but unfortunately in a cumbersome and overlong format. Hume corrected this mistake in his later and more concise books - the two Enquiries - which together are a better place to start. The Treatise is NOT my first choice as an introduction to Hume.

But despite its frustrations and shortcomings, most notably its lack of editorial oversight (which translates into reader-unfriendliness), the Treatise is a multifaceted masterpiece that revolutionised epistemology, psychology and moral philosophy - not bad for a single work.

Whether you think he was right or not (and I happen to think he was 90%* of the time), no serious scholar of philosophy should overlook this book. For even though the two Enquiries are overall better summaries of his position, the messy sprawl of the Treatise's labyrinthine thicket contains rough diamonds of ideas, many of them quite radical, that were ironed out or downplayed by the more "mature" Hume.

These can be a revelation - a lot of good stuff was left out in the Reader's Digest version of his theory. The Treatise is more unhinged - but also more repetitive and tiresome. It's definitely a mixed blessing.

Overall, I cannot recommend the book to every average Phil the Philosopher with the same unreserved glee that I would his doctrines, but it's still an impressive feat.

The deep jungle of Hume's unfiltered mind is a daunting place that is worth investigating - but not without a machete, a torch and a bottle of the finest Scotch.

(* The 10% where Hume was wrong, in my opinion, includes the overemphasis on empirical observation as the basis of our psychology and the concurrent denial of aprioristic categories of e.g. space, time and causality - as largely solved by Kant.)

[Mrekhy ET · Rating 4 out of 5]

«إنني، بعد أدقْ عملياتي الفكرية وأشدْها صحة، لا يمكنني أن أعطي سبباً لماذا عليّ أن أقبلها.»

الكتاب خرافة، تحفة فنية تعكس قدرة الإنسان الفائقة للوصول لأقصى درجات العظمة الفكرية. المشكلة كلها إن الكتاب ضخم جدًا، اللغة مش سهلة، التفاصيل كتيرة، بالإضافة إن الترجمة زبالة!

تقريباً كل كام صفحة لما ألاقي جزء الترجمة مش سيئة قوي وأقدر أفهمها، بس عبقرية الكتاب إن السطر اللي هتفهمه ده هيغيّر أفكارك وهيخلّيك تشوف حاجات كتيرة مخدتش بالك منها قبل كده.

في النهاية أحب أقول حسبي الله ونعم الوكيل في المترجم وفي دار النشر.

[Viji (Bookish endeavors) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impressions and ideas.
Support for Locke's rejection of the concept of substance.
Support for Berkeley's rejection of abstract idea.
These are the primary topics this essay deals with. The language is pretty straightforward. This seemed much more understandable than the notes we used to receive in class. Hume's clarity of presentation is really admirable,it's not something that every philosopher possess. Worth a second read because of the relation of the concepts discussed in this book with many external sources.

[PhiTech · Rating 5 out of 5]

¿cómo pensamos? ¿cómo sentimos? uno de los trabajos magistrales del pensamiento de la humanidad. Algunas de sus afirmaciones han sido probadas por la ciencia contemporánea pero quizá lo más relevante es su propuesta sobre la empatía.

¿Nos tomamos un café y lo conversamos?

[Jason Ho · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions"

I'll be honest, reading A Treatise was a painful slog. I really didn't like how Hume writes. His writing is stuffed with commas and digressions that I legitimately forgot what he was initially trying to articulate in the first place.

Case in point, this is an excerpt from Book I, Section VI, Of Personal Identity :
"All these are different, and distinguishable, and separable from each other, and may be separately considered, and may exist separately, and have no Deed of tiny thing to support their existence."

That's how Hume writes for hundreds of pages (this guy really loved commas). For every genuinely interesting ideas that he proposed, I was forced to wade through paragraphs of dense, poorly written fluff.

Book I ( "Of the Understanding" ) was legitimately interesting, and did give me a solid intro to empiricism. In Book I, Hume tries to expose the weaknesses of reason, the senses, and the concept of self. In the end, these findings sends him into full skeptical despair where he doubts literally everything. But then he explained how nature kicks in through instinct and habit, restoring his sanity, and he realizes philosophy can't destroy belief, only moderate it. His conclusion is basically that wise people accept human limitations, trust experience, live according to nature, and use skepticism to keep dogmatism in check. I liked how he's basically saying that we're basically clever animals rather than miniature gods of reason.

On the other hand, Books II ( "Of the Passions" ) and III ( "Of Morals" ) were absolute slogs and it keeps on repeating the same points over and over and over and over again. He repeats himself constantly and I found most of his arguments uncompelling. There are some interesting scattered points about morality working with our emotional nature as humans, natural virtues being admired because they're pleasant or useful, and social order naturally emerging from self-interest and scarcity.

As someone without a background in philosophy, I can't say I understood most of A Treatise very clearly. The whole thing is esoteric as hell and reading it sapped all of my energy in order to digest each sentences and arguments that was laid out. If you're not a philosophy student, I honestly think it might be better for you to just read or watch a summary.