Hume’s perversions

This post is not about salacious details of David Hume’s life, since I don’t know of any. It is about passages in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding which were quite tangential to his main arguments, but in which he portrayed the world in a false and dangerous way.

I have written this post while having only read the Enquiry, besides the first two parts of the Treatise; I plan to update it if I find relevant information when reading Hume’s other works and biographical details.

0. Contents

1. Contemplative life condemned
2. Scepticism a restraint upon passions
3. Sensible things clearer, and more distinct, than intelligible things
4. Reasoning more fallible than instinct
5. Notes

1. Contemplative life condemned

Hume begins section 5 of the Enquiry by speaking of “the passion for philosophy”. He correctly describes the temptation to use the methods of philosophy to give an appearance of reasonableness to our vices, that is, to “render our philosophy like that of Epictetus, and other Stoics, only a more refined system of selfishness, and reason ourselves out of all virtue, as well as social enjoyment.”

Here he already begins perverting things. While he does not say so in so many words, he apparently thinks that the Stoics are selfish because they thought that the “contemplative”, or “theoretical” life, was the superior kind. Hume, in section 1, had written about the active and contemplative life, and favored a “mixed kind of life as most suitable to the human race”. He had this reproach about the contemplative:

The mere philosopher is a character, which is commonly but little acceptable in the world, as being supposed to contribute nothing either to the advantage or pleasure of society; while he lives remote from communication with mankind, and is wrapped up in principles and notions equally remote from their comprehension. (§1¶5)

In section 1, he attributed those opinions to “the world”, and then afterwards said that the mixed life is favored by “nature”. But in section 5, after condemning the Stoics, he adds:

While we study with attention the vanity of human life, and turn all our thoughts towards the empty and transitory nature of riches and honours, we are, perhaps, all the while flattering our natural indolence, which, hating the bustle of the world, and drudgery of business, seeks a pretence of reason to give itself a full and uncontrolled indulgence. (§5¶1)

It seems clear, then, that Hume shares the opinion that he had attributed to mankind. The philosopher is not useful to the world; his researches really do “contribute nothing either to the advantage or pleasure of society”; and when he praises the contemplative life, he is merely flattering his lazy and selfish desire to retreat from useful business into the indulgence of his passion for science. 

Hume is not a hypocrite here, since he thinks, after all, that

the mere ignorant is still more despised [than the mere philosopher]; nor is any thing deemed a surer sign of an illiberal genius in an age and nation where the sciences flourish, than to be entirely destitute of all relish for those noble entertainments. (§1¶5)

But he leaves no doubt that he thinks of the sciences as mere “entertainments”, though “noble”; and he probably thinks that being “ignorant” is only despicable because of how it makes you less interesting when conversing in society. Knowledge has no inherent value apart from action, and the search for knowledge is indulgent when not subordinated to action, oriented to “the advantage or pleasure of society”.

Hume seems even to think that “riches and honours” ought not to be despised, since, after all, riches are a sign of industry when peacefully acquired – Hume was an economist –, and honours are bestowed by society upon those who are thought to serve its interest.

What sort of ethics are we left with here?

Hume probably thinks that “the interest of society” does not generally consist in the disinterested acquisition of knowledge, because of how the masses do not generally have “the passion for philosophy,” its “principles and notions” being far “remote from their comprehension”. This is why knowledge is regarded as, ideally, instrumental. But then, necessarily, the interest of society must consist in fleeting things.

The old proofs about the end of life remain unimpeachable. Wealth is unsuited to be the chief goal of one’s pursuits because it is a mere means to other things; honor, besides being only an effect of the good life, is generally given by the stupid masses, who do not know it when they see it. Bodily pleasure, in turn, is fleeting and movable, and at the mercy of fortune. Only knowledge is permanent and eternal, and virtue is identical with it.

Against these old notions, Hume has only this to say:

Man is a reasonable being; and as such, receives from science his proper food and nourishment: But so narrow are the bounds of human understanding, that little satisfaction can be hoped for in this particular, either from the extent or security of his acquisitions. (§1¶6)

We see, then, what his epistemology has done to his ethics. Hume thinks that philosophical knowledge is generally false; that all our thoughts are ultimately copied from sense impressions, and are only made general by our use of language; and therefore, that our beliefs consist entirely of probable inductive judgments about material things, which he rightly regards as fleeting, since they may be disproved by any new observations. Near the end of the Enquiry, of course, he famously made an exception for mathematics (§12¶27), but he made it arbitrarily,[1] and it clearly played no part in his ethics.[2]

Hume, of course, had no reason to think any of these things. The “copy principle” was entirely made up, and the rest of his notions clearly came from a failure to distinguish imagination from conceptual understanding; which, being a confusion of a bodily power with a spiritual one, is just as much the mark of a carnal man as his effective making of bodily pleasure into the end of human life.

2. Scepticism a restraint upon passions

In view of what was just shown about his ethics, Hume’s next perversion becomes much more ridiculous. He continues section 5 as follows:

There is, however, one species of philosophy which seems little liable to this inconvenience, and that because it strikes in with no disorderly passion of the human mind, nor can mingle itself with any natural affection or propensity; and that is the Academic or Sceptical philosophy. The academics always talk of doubt and suspense of judgement, of danger in hasty determinations, of confining to very narrow bounds the enquiries of the understanding, and of renouncing all speculations which lie not within the limits of common life and practice. Nothing, therefore, can be more contrary than such a philosophy to the supine indolence of the mind, its rash arrogance, its lofty pretensions, and its superstitious credulity. (§5¶1)

He has already begun perverting things by supposing that pride takes the form of a man being too confident in his judgment; it does not, and this is an old canard of the sceptics, who have ever tried to frame their scepticism as “epistemic humility”. But he continues:

Every passion is mortified by it, except the love of truth; and that passion never is, nor can be, carried to too high a degree. It is surprising, therefore, that this philosophy, which, in almost every instance, must be harmless and innocent, should be the subject of so much groundless reproach and obloquy. But, perhaps, the very circumstance which renders it so innocent is what chiefly exposes it to the public hatred and resentment. By flattering no irregular passion, it gains few partizans: By opposing so many vices and follies, it raises to itself abundance of enemies, who stigmatize it as libertine, profane, and irreligious. (§5¶1)

Now this is just ridiculous. Obviously the “love of truth”, if it be a passion, is the only passion mortified by scepticism, which tends ever to make people diffident in their pursuit of it, as Hume just acknowledged.[3] The love of truth is perfectly virtuous, of course, and it is precisely for stymieing it that scepticism is condemned.

Further, since it commonly takes the form of scepticism about ethical propositions, it is rather used in favor of every vice. Hume probably thinks that it cannot be used in this way, of course, as he wrote elsewhere about determinism:

Are such remote and uncertain speculations able to counterbalance the sentiments, which arise from the natural and immediate view of the objects? A man who is robbed of a considerable sum; does he find his vexation for the loss any wise diminished by these sublime reflections? Why then should his moral resentment against the crime be supposed incompatible with them? (§8¶35)

But plainly, the reason why scepticism is thought to be “libertine, profane, and irreligious” is that, if applied to religion and ethics, it removes from such “moral resentment” any pretense of being reasonable, and justified by the nature of things. If you wish to renounce reason and live as the beasts, you can do no better than to proclaim reason “infirm” and uncertain; such will be the judgment which you shall foster about all reproaches of your conduct.

3. Sensible things clearer, and more distinct, than intelligible things

Hume continues to present a perverted worldview in section 7, where he makes sensible things to be more sharply distinguished than intelligible ones:

The great advantage of the mathematical sciences above the moral consists in this, that the ideas of the former, being sensible, are always clear and determinate, the smallest distinction between them is immediately perceptible, and the same terms are still expressive of the same ideas, without ambiguity or variation. An oval is never mistaken for a circle, nor an hyperbola for an ellipsis. The isosceles and scalenum are distinguished by boundaries more exact than vice and virtue, right and wrong. If any term be defined in geometry, the mind readily, of itself, substitutes, on all occasions, the definition for the term defined: Or even when no definition is employed, the object itself may be presented to the senses, and by that means be steadily and clearly apprehended. But the finer sentiments of the mind, the operations of the understanding, the various agitations of the passions, though really in themselves distinct, easily escape us, when surveyed by reflection; nor is it in our power to recal the original object, as often as we have occasion to contemplate it. Ambiguity, by this means, is gradually introduced into our reasonings: Similar objects are readily taken to be the same: And the conclusion becomes at last very wide of the premises. (§7¶1)

Obviously the isosceles and scalenum are not distinguished more exactly “than vice and virtue, right and wrong”, which are contradictory opposites. While these triangles are usually defined as having equal and unequal sides respectively, the terms themselves are connected chiefly with sensible images. There is, accordingly, disagreement about whether the isosceles should be defined as having exactly two equal sides or at least two equal sides; and someone could, in theory, think that the essential property of the isosceles is that its “intriangle” has two equal sides, in which case there could be scalene isosceles triangles. This is why mathematical terms are conventional, and authors are free to use them in whatever ways they think are in accordance with the imagination of readers. There are, of course, educational benefits to defining them in particular ways; but each teacher may do as he thinks best. An oval may not be mistaken for a circle, nor an hyperbola for an ellipsis; but an oval may be mistaken for an ellipsis, until definitions are brought to bear.

Metaphysical and ethical terms, by contrast, are free from sensible images; there is generally no “original object” to recall. It is impossible to imagine vice and virtue in the abstract. So, the metaphysical reasoner is unable to create confusion by replacing images for concepts; he must think in terms of the definitions, and he can get nowhere by trying to use his imagination.

Accordingly, since it is impossible to think about metaphysics and ethics without substituting definitions, whereas such vague imaginations are sometimes useful in geometry, it follows that the sciences of quantity, and of sensible things generally, are more prone to ambiguity than metaphysics and ethics. And this is to be expected, given that they treat of objects which are so connected to our imprecise senses. Empiricism, which is always a pernicious vice, sometimes leads to a complete inversion of reality.

4. Reasoning more fallible than instinct

The final perversion of David Hume, by which he again exalts the body over the soul, is to claim that instincts operate more reliably than reason. His actual arguments are partly involved into this, since he claims that our process of inferring effects from causes is such an instinct:

I shall add, for a further confirmation of the foregoing theory, that, as this operation of the mind, by which we infer like effects from like causes, and vice versa, is so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures, it is not probable, that it could be trusted to the fallacious deductions of our reason, which is slow in its operations; appears not, in any degree, during the first years of infancy; and at best is, in every age and period of human life, extremely liable to error and mistake. It is more conformable to the ordinary wisdom of nature to secure so necessary an act of the mind, by some instinct or mechanical tendency, which may be infallible in its operations, may discover itself at the first appearance of life and thought, and may be independent of all the laboured deductions of the understanding. As nature has taught us the use of our limbs, without giving us the knowledge of the muscles and nerves, by which they are actuated; so has she implanted in us an instinct, which carries forward the thought in a correspondent course to that which she has established among external objects; though we are ignorant of those powers and forces, on which this regular course and succession of objects totally depends. (§5¶22)

We certainly do make such inferences somewhat automatically, and cannot explain the process by which we do them in great detail. This is no more proof that they are infra-rational than the same facts being true about all other inferences.

If we are to explain why the reasoning, that all men are mortal, and all philosophers are men, therefore all philosophers are mortal, is valid, we might say that it belongs to the barbara logical form. We cannot explain, however, why the barbara logical form is valid; this is knowledge which we certainly have from reason, but cannot express in very elaborate words.

The effect of Hume’s rhetoric here is to degrade reason. Reason always works infallibly when it works by itself; it just happens that, often, passions intrude upon it. Our instincts, by contrast, although they generally perform useful functions for our body, are frequently “fooled” by peculiar material circumstances for which our nature does not prepare us; and variously, a man may feel hunger when he is full, feel full when he is starving, or feel fear while he is safe. These circumstances are frequently manipulated for medicine or entertainment, as the last one is exploited by horror movies.

It may be that there is also an instinct for inferring effects from causes, since it does seem, as Hume points out in §9, that the brutes are capable of doing this. This would not seem to be beyond the power of mere bodily mechanism, since probable inductive judgments are necessarily imperfect with respect to deductions, and may require only mere images rather than true concepts. But this would certainly not be because “an operation of such immense consequence in life” cannot “be trusted to the uncertain process of reasoning and argumentation.” (§9¶5) If reason is not certain, nothing is.

5. Notes

[1] Hume explained his exception like this:

As the component parts of quantity and number are entirely similar, their relations become intricate and involved; and nothing can be more curious, as well as useful, than to trace, by a variety of mediums, their equality or inequality, through their different appearances. But as all other ideas are clearly distinct and different from each other, we can never advance farther, by our outmost scrutiny, than to observe this diversity, and, by an obvious reflection, pronounce one thing not to be another. (§12¶27)

Now, what the hell does the “component parts” being “entirely similar” have to do with anything? In particular, with being an object of demonstration? I can only think of this as a spurious justification, made up on the spot to explain how obviously successful mathematical demonstrations are.

[2] Bertrand Russell’s essay on The Study of Mathematics is a very useful comparison here. Russell was also inclined to empiricism, though not as thoroughly as Hume; and he also regarded mathematics as uniquely certain. After noting the unique certainty of mathematics, which is a “perpetual reproof” against “that kind of scepticism which abandons the pursuit of ideals because the road is arduous and the goal not certainly attainable”, he also noted how mathematics, since it is clearly practically useful, also allayed his thoughts, similar to Hume’s, that mere speculation is a vain and indulgent pursuit:

The effects of mathematics upon practical life, though they should not be regarded as the motive of our studies, may be used to answer a doubt to which the solitary student must always be liable. In a world so full of evil and suffering, retirement into the cloister of contemplation, to the enjoyment of delights which, however noble, must always be for the few only, cannot but appear as a somewhat selfish refusal to share the burden imposed upon others by accidents in which justice plays no part. Have any of us the right, we ask, to withdraw from present evils, to leave our fellow-men unaided, while we live a life which, though arduous and austere, is yet plainly good in its own nature? When these questions arise, the true answer is, no doubt, that some must keep alive the sacred fire, some must preserve, in every generation, the haunting vision which shadows forth the goal of so much striving. But when, as must sometimes occur, this answer seems too cold, when we are almost maddened by the spectacle of sorrows to which we bring no help, then we may reflect that indirectly the mathematician often does more for human happiness than any of his more practically active contemporaries. The history of science abundantly proves that a body of abstract propositions—even if, as in the case of conic sections, it remains two thousand years without effect upon daily life—may yet, at any moment, be used to cause a revolution in the habitual thoughts and occupations of every citizen. The use of steam and electricity—to take striking instances—is rendered possible only by mathematics. In the results of abstract thought the world possesses a capital of which the employment in enriching the common round has no hitherto discoverable limits. Nor does experience give any means of deciding what parts of mathematics will be found useful. Utility, therefore, can be only a consolation in moments of discouragement, not a guide in directing our studies.

The obvious practical usefulness of mathematics, which Hume had not mentioned, may have been a motivation for his arbitrary distinction of it. But of course, mathematics is only uniquely practical among demonstrative sciences to men such as these, who regard metaphysics as absurd, ethics as separate from it, and ethical inquiry as being ultimately an expression of inscrutable, and possibly idiosyncratic, emotions.

[3] If any one thinks that Hume does not think that scepticism makes someone generally diffident, but rather is merely directed against vicious “arrogance”, “pretension” and “credulity”, let him hear what Hume says of Berkeley’s arguments, in a footnote to the last section:

He professes, however, in his title-page (and undoubtedly with great truth) to have composed his book against the sceptics as well as against the atheists and free-thinkers. But that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are, in reality, merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer and produce no conviction. Their only effect is to cause that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion, which is the result of scepticism. (§12¶15, fn32)

While in the rest of the chapter he distinguishes the Pyrrhonian from the Academic sceptics, favoring the latter, here he does not. There is, at any rate, no possible way to deny that the Academic scepticism is harmful in the same way as the Pyrrhonian – by producing “irresolution and confusion”, and putting moral truths into doubt – although perhaps in a “mitigated” way, insofar as it admits of probabilities.

The harm of Academic scepticism might not even be so mitigated, however, since while the Pyrhonian sceptic “cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind”, (§12¶23) the Academic scepticism is capable of being “durable”. (§12¶24)

Hume thinks that the latter is “useful” besides durable, since it humbles the pride of “such dogmatical reasoners” as are “the greater part of mankind”; but it is a lie to claim that there is pride in dogmatic reasoning. It seems clear that a mitigated version of principles, by the prevalence of which “all human life must perish” (§12¶23), can only tend to destroy human life to a somewhat smaller extent.