Hume: Philosophy of Mind

Despite its long period of dominance, the details of associationism as developed by the British Empiricists in the 18th and 19th centuries are often ignored or forgotten today. Perhaps as a result, modern understandings of Empiricist associationism are often oversimplified. In fact, there is no single core view that can be viewed as definitional, or even weaker, as characteristic, of the tradition. The actual views of associationists in this tradition are much more diverse than any such view would allow, even (...) on fundamental aspects of the concept of association. This paper presents some of the most striking theoretical diversity and most significant discussions within the Empiricist associationist tradition. Recognizing this diversity, Empiricist associationism is best viewed as a project with shared questions and methods rather than a shared substantive theory of mind. This discussion can inform our understanding of the historical tradition, and also inform our current use of association and associationism. The concept of association is more flexible than it is often treated, and even its basic nature and function remain up for debate. (shrink)

In the Treatise, Hume attempts to explain why we all believe that the self is a single unified entity that persists over time, a belief which Hume calls a fiction. In this paper, I demonstrate how Hume uses a type of functional explanation to account for this belief. After explicating Hume's view, I shall argue that it faces two related problems, which constitute a sort of dilemma. In the final section, I show how one of the horns of this dilemma (...) is plausibly what troubles Hume in the famous Appendix passage where he retracts his positive account of personal identity. (shrink)

A survey of work on perception, mind, and mental representation by 18th century philosophers after Berkeley, notably Robert Smith, William Porterfield, David Hume, Etienne de Condillac, and Thomas Reid.

La philosophie de David Hume entend rompre avec une théorie classique des facultés, redessinant la place que l'imagination joue dans notre vie psychique et déployant ainsi une géographie mentale inédite. Instrument privilégié de son scepticisme philosophique, cette théorie de l'imagination pose cependant autant de questions qu'elle n'en résout, du fait même qu'associant imagination et conception, elle se voit chargée de rendre compte de tendances contradictoires au sein de l'esprit humain. Une clarification terminologique et conceptuelle permet alors, faute de résoudre ces (...) tensions, d'éclairer les nouveaux enjeux proposés par une telle approche. (shrink)

Cet article a pour but de mettre en regard l’analyse de l’esprit de Hume avec les critiques de l’associationnisme qu’on faites William James et Henri Bergson à la fin du XIXe siècle, lorsqu’ils proposèrent de renverser l’ordre des genèses psychologiques : non pas association d’éléments atomiques séparés (les impressions et idées), mais dissociation de touts vagues confus (les expériences pures). Il cherche à montrer sur l’exemple de la perception de la ressemblance que Hume est sauf du reproche d’avoir ainsi « (...) atomisé » la vie mentale, ce que montre notamment la fonction sélective et donc discriminante du principe de ressemblance. Le commentaire de Deleuze qui voit dans le dualisme de l’atomisme et de l’associationnisme chez Hume le critère même de définition de l’empirisme en général s’en trouve de ce fait contesté. (shrink)

Durante los siglos XVII y XVIII hubo un intenso debate en las Islas Británicas en torno al materialismo. Mi objetivo consiste en caracterizar la postura de David Hume en el marco de ese debate. Sostengo que, no obstante rechazar la metafísica sustancialista para centrarse en el estudio de las percepciones, Hume sienta una posición respecto de la relación entre mente y materia. Sin embargo, esa posición reviste cierta complejidad en tanto no es explicitada en los textos que se editaron en (...) vida de Hume. Propongo definirla como un materialismo restringido, ya que, respecto de la naturaleza de la mente, Hume desestima tanto las posturas materialista como inmaterialista, pero respecto de las causas del pensamiento, termina acercándose al materialismo a partir de argumentos basados en la experiencia y en la analogía con la naturaleza. (shrink)

(1) Alors que Hume distingue plusieurs sortes de propositions, nous expliquons pourquoi il se focalise sur l’inférence causale lorsqu’il examine la nature de la croyance. (2) Après avoir considéré les réponses qu’il écarte concernant la nature de la croyance, nous étudions sa solution. (3) Nous dégageons les implications de sa position, dirigée entre autres contre la théorie cartésienne du jugement. (4) Une interprétation du rôle asymétrique de la croyance par rapport aux passions et à l’action est proposée. (5) La position (...) de Hume au sujet de la nature de la croyance, pensons-nous, rencontre une difficulté : elle est peu apte à rendre compte de la nature de la croyance existentielle négative. (shrink)

La réflexion philosophique qui se déploie dans cet essai porte sur la question de savoir si l'empirisme de Hume fait vraiment le deuil du sujet de la connaissance. Dans le cas contraire, quelle peut être la nature du rapport du sujet humien aux sujets cartésien et kantien? D'après l'auteur de cet essai, l'empirisme de Hume ne sonne pas totalement le glas du sujet de la connaissance, car si le sujet y brille d'abord par sa passivité, il finit par donner la (...) preuve de son dynamisme cognitif lorsqu'il fait valoir sa spontanéité, à travers l'exercice de son pouvoir d'anticiper le futur, d'élaborer des idées complexes, générales ou abstraites, et de construire des relations là où l'expérience ne donne que des perceptions atomisées et fluctuantes. (shrink)

This article presents a critical bibliographic review of the central characteristics of Hume's Theory of Passions and Emotions, which conceived the philosophy of human nature as an analytical and experimental science. This view is contrary to the ancient and medieval ideas that passions were movements of the lower parts of the soul. For Hume, passions in general are among the perceptions of the mind, although they also serve as motivations to act and even to reason. The apparent dichotomy that existed (...) between passions and reason was abandoned and reason was treated as a calm passion. Hence, Hume dethroned reason from its sovereign position in knowledge. For him, passions are neither subordinate nor independent of reason; it is the reason that is subordinate to passions. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Basic Distinctions Basic Principles References Further Reading.

This essay proposes that Hume's non-substantialist bundle account of minds is basically correct. The concept of a person is not a metaphysical notion but a forensic one, that of a being who enters into the moral and normative relations of civil society. A person is a bundle but it is also a structured bundle. Hume's metaphysics of relations is argued must be replaced by a more adequate one such as that of Russell, but beyond that Hume's account is essentially correct. (...) In particular it is argued that it is one's character that constitutes one's identity; and that sympathy and the passions of pride and humility are central in forming and maintaining one's character and one's identity as a person. But also central is one's body: a person is an embodied consciousness: the notion that one's body is essential to one's identity is defended at length. Various concepts of mind and consciousness are examined - for example, neutral monism and intentionality - and also the concept of privacy and our inferences to other minds. (shrink)

In this paper, I will make the case that an associative account of predication in Hume seems to allow for impossible predicative conceptions—that is, the conceiving of impossible states of affairs involving subjects instantiating properties or qualities—which violate his Conceivability Principle. The natural response is to argue that such conceptions are not clear and distinct, but substantive worries are raised about a number of attempted solutions along these lines. This poses a predicament for Hume scholars: either we must modify or (...) abandon the Conceivability Principle, or reject an associative account of predication, or concede that Hume faces a difficulty he cannot solve. (shrink)

At the level of the individual, current research suggests that most of our daily actions are done out of habit. At the same time, individuals are part of larger social units, and their behavior gives rise to customs and institutions. Hume recognized the indispensable role of custom and habit in human life in his science of the mind, a science which aims to form the most general principles possible. Custom and habit are singled out by Hume as particularly potent general (...) principles of human nature, describing them as the “great guide of life” and essential to human affairs. The aim of this paper is to explore the role custom and habit play in Hume’s work, especially as it concerns his political philosophy and experimental method, while considering intersections with contemporary discussions in political science. (shrink)

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

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

Etude des passions dans la philosophie et la littérature à l'âge classique, et de la façon dont Descartes, Hume, les matérialistes et les romanciers du XVIIe siècle pensaient cette notion.

In this paper, I examine the notion of the ‘psychological dynamics’ that Professor Shun uses for explicating Confucian moral anger, based on David Hume’s (1711–76) psychological account of mind, to reconsider the role that object-based distinctions of emotions play in the Confucian moral tradition. First, by appealing to Hume’s investigation of the mental processes involved in feeling moral sentiments, I suggest that imagination, as a component in the ‘psychological dynamics’, explains how ‘dust’ settles on the mind to yield inappropriate emotional (...) responses. Second, by re-examining Confucius’s approval of Yan Hui’s moral anger, that he ‘never misdirects his anger’, I argue that though Confucians would not characterize the difference in emotional responses by distinguishing the first- and third-person perspectives, their goal of moral self-cultivation would encourage them to recognize the practical significance of distinguishing objects in situations, along with perceiving situations as a whole. While our minds as mental mirrors can reflect the whole situation, they are unique mirrors that resonate more vigorously with specific objects such as others’ minds. (shrink)

Taxonomies of the passions have long claimed to serve a quest for self-knowledge, by specifying conditions under which certain passions arise, formal objects they possess, and qualities essential to their particular feelings. I argue that David Hume's theory of the passions provides resources for a different kind of self-knowledge – a sceptical self-knowledge depending on our ability to articulate how the passions feel rather than always identifying our passions as tokens of an identifiable passion-type. These resources are distinctions between four (...) qualitative aspects that passions may possess – pleasantness or painfulness, calmness or violence, invigoration or softening, and directedness or lack thereof towards specific actions. Reflection on these aspects produces a more accurate understanding of the nature of our emotions and chastens our judgmental tendencies in ways that benefit both self and others. (shrink)

본 논문은 흄이 제시하고 있는 시민사회론을 검토함으로써 흄의 정치철학에 대한 이해도를 높이는 것을 목표로 한다. 필자는 본 논문에서 흄이 야만국가에서 시민국가로의 이행에 필수적인 조건으로 제시하는 “도덕적 의무”의 부과에 있어서 “반성”이 중요한 역할을 수행하고 있음을 보일 것이다. 그리고 더 나아가, 흄의 정치철학의 성격을 규정하는데 있어서, 리빙스턴과 스튜어트간의 논쟁을 살펴볼 것이다. 필자는 흄의 정치철학을 프랑스 혁명 이후에 새롭게 대두된 개념인 “철학적 보수주의”로 해석할 것인가, 아니면 “온건한 자유주의”로 해석할 것인가 하는 이들의 논쟁 자체가 생산적이지 못함을 지적할 것이다. 필자가 보기에 오히려 우리가 주목해야할 점은 (...) 흄의 정치 철학에서 반성이 핵심적인 역할을 하고 있으며, 이를 흄이 제시하고 있는 시민사회론에서 확인할 수 있다는 점이다. 이는 흄의 정치철학을 이해하는데 있어서 중요한 시사점을 가진다. 그 이유는 지금까지 많은 학자들에 의해 흄이 “습관과 관습”을 중시한 “반이성주의자”로 이해되어 왔는데, 사실 흄은 정치 철학에서 실천 이성으로서의 이성의 반성적 작용을 강조하고 있다는 점에서, 흄의 입장이 “반이성주의”로 귀결될 수 없다는 것이 본 논문에서 명확히 밝혀질 것이기 때문이다. (shrink)

Abstract:I suggest that Hume’s recantation, in the Appendix to the Treatise, of his account of the idea of personal identity in section 1.4.6 hinges on the contrast between the first-personal cognitive roles of that idea and its imagination-based explanation. In stark, if implicit, contrast with Locke, Hume’s account divorces personal identity from consciousness, considering oneself as oneself. But, later in the Appendix, Hume realized, if imperfectly, that something was missing from the idea of self he had constructed. I suggest that (...) what is missing is the intimate consciousness of ourselves that idea should allow us to achieve. While Hume despaired to find a solution to this problem, a change in the background of his earlier theory—a change he had available and which is perhaps alluded to in a letter to Kames—could have made his original account consistent with the first-personal features of the idea of self. (shrink)

Introduction : Involuntarism and philosophy -- The obscure dust of the world : the unconscious of perception in Leibniz -- Inevitable and persistent inadequacies : the unconscious of ideas in Spinoza -- Deteriora Sequer : the unconscious of desire in Spinoza -- The gravity of ideas : the unconscious of habit in Hume -- Conclusion : obscurity and involvement.

Hume recourt régulièrement à la métaphore selon laquelle nous projetons des valeurs sur le monde du fait des émotions que nous éprouvons. Cette métaphore projectiviste semble impliquer la non-existence des valeurs, et l’impossibilité d’une connaissance morale. Dans cet article, j’essaie de montrer que ces implications sont loin d’être évidentes, et qu’une lecture réaliste de Hume est également possible, qui permet notamment de rendre compte du rapport complexe que Hume entretient avec le rationalisme moral en particulier, et avec la connaissance des (...) valeurs de façon plus générale. (shrink)

Donald C. Ainslie's Hume's True Scepticism is a wonderful book—clearly written and forcefully argued—and was deservedly honored with Journal of the History of Philosophy's Book Prize for 2016. The focus of the book is part four of the first Book of Hume's Treatise, "Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy." Ainslie develops an interpretation that takes seriously Hume's psychological claims, using them to solve puzzles in Hume scholarship, including the extent of Hume's scepticism, the nature of his sceptical crisis, (...) and the basis for his second thoughts on personal identity.I would encourage Ainslie to go further in tracing Hume's psychological explanations. In what follows, I will... (shrink)

In Hume's True Scepticism, Donald C. Ainslie offers a highly original, systematic interpretation of Treatise Book 1, part 4, and of much else in the Treatise besides. Along the way, he provides new solutions to two of the main outstanding problems of Hume scholarship: what is the relationship between Hume's skepticism and his commitment to pursuing a naturalistic science of man? And what "very considerable mistake" about personal identity does Hume mean to report in the Appendix? These are fantastic achievements. (...) I congratulate Ainslie on the book, and on the JHP Book Prize, which I am happy to learn he has won.To keep things interesting, these comments will focus on three related topics where I am not yet... (shrink)

In Hume's True Scepticism, I offer a new interpretation of David Hume's epistemology and philosophy of mind as presented in A Treatise of Human Nature.1 I approach this task by developing what I take to be the first comprehensive2 investigation of Part 4 of Book 1. The arguments Hume offers there have frequently been addressed by the secondary literature in a piecemeal fashion, especially his account of personal identity and of our belief in the external world. But I argue in (...) HTS that they should be read as a sustained investigation of the human temptation to form philosophical systems. Consider its title: "Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy". Hume, I suggest, is... (shrink)

Defines the cutting-edge of scholarship on ancient Greek history employing methods from social science.

Book 1 of Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature was reshaped into the first Enquiry, while the second Enquiry further develops some themes from Book 3. What became of Book 2, “Of the Passions”? Did Hume never extend his thinking in that area? Amyas Merivale notes that the standard answer to that question is that Hume did not do much in the way of rethinking T2 beyond selecting a few passages to excerpt, almost verbatim, in his “Dissertation on the Passions.” (...) In this fine, wide-ranging, scrupulously researched and carefully argued book, Merivale offers a more intriguing and satisfying answer: the essays collected in the Four Dissertations, “The Natural History of Religion”, “Of the Passions”... (shrink)

En su concepción de la simpatía Hume se desligó de sus coetáneos aportando una visión muy especial de este fenómeno, no como afecto o sentimiento, sino como factor y condición para la comunicabilidad de los afectos. La simpatía, lejos de fundarse en un rasgo moral de la naturaleza humana o en el reconocimiento de la semejanza y la proximidad, aparece como factor generador de la identidad y de los afectos, base para la constitución de lo subjetivo y lo intersubjetivo.