materials

background & overview

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/

  books

• A Teatise of Human Nature

  lectures

• Oxford: Introduction to David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature
• Hume’s Epistemology
• Discussion on Hume
• Natural History of Religion Lecture

  approach

My prompt to ChatGPT:

you are a philosophy tutor/mentor and I am a student. I am going to read David Hume’s treatise of human nature. What books and sections should I focus on?

Answer (expand) -->

David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature is a foundational work in philosophy, particularly in the areas of empiricism, epistemology, and ethics. Given its depth and complexity, it’s beneficial to focus on key sections that highlight Hume’s main arguments and contributions. Here are some recommendations on where to focus your reading:

Book I: Of the Understanding

1. Part I: Of Ideas, Their Origin, Composition, Connection, Abstraction, etc.
   
   • Section 1: Of the Origin of Our Ideas - This section introduces Hume’s distinction between impressions and ideas.
   • Section 2: Division of the Subject - Hume outlines his plan for the Treatise.
     
2. Part III: Of Knowledge and Probability
   
   • Section 6: Of the Inference from the Impression to the Idea - This section discusses causation, a central concept in Hume’s philosophy.
   • Section 14: Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion - A crucial section where Hume examines the concept of causality and introduces his notion of constant conjunction.
     

     Book II: Of the Passions

     
     

3. Part I: Of Pride and Humility
   
   • Section 1: Division of the Subject - An introduction to Hume’s views on emotions and their connection to self-conception.
   • Section 2: Of Pride and Humility, Their Objects and Causes - This section delves into Hume’s analysis of the passions and their origins.
     
4. Part III: Of the Will and Direct Passions
   
   • Section 3: Of the Influencing Motives of the Will - Here, Hume discusses how desires and aversions influence human actions.
     

     Book III: Of Morals

     
     

5. Part I: Of Virtue and Vice in General
   
   • Section 1: Moral Distinctions Not Deriv’d from Reason - Hume argues that moral distinctions are not the product of reason alone.
   • Section 2: Moral Distinctions Deriv’d from a Moral Sense - This section presents Hume’s argument that moral judgments are based on feelings.
     
6. Part II: Of Justice and Injustice
   
   • Section 1: Justice, Whether a Natural or Artificial Virtue? - Hume explores the nature of justice and its role in society.
     

     Additional Resources and Commentary

     
     To complement your reading of Hume’s Treatise, consider the following secondary sources which provide helpful commentary and analysis:
     

7. “Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” by David Hume (ed. Tom L. Beauchamp) - This work distills some of the key ideas from the Treatise in a more accessible format.
8. “The Philosophy of David Hume” by Norman Kemp Smith - A classic and comprehensive commentary on Hume’s philosophy.
9. “Hume’s ‘A Treatise of Human Nature’: An Introduction” by John P. Wright - This book provides a detailed introduction and analysis of the Treatise.
10. “The Cambridge Companion to Hume” edited by David Fate Norton and Jacqueline Taylor - A collection of essays by various scholars covering different aspects of Hume’s philosophy.

takeaways

The ancient philosophers, on whom he had been concentrating, replicated the errors their natural philosophers made. They advanced theories that were “entirely Hypothetical”, depending “more upon Invention than Experience”

Causality is a “custom” or “habit”. Causality is not guaranteed - it just happens to continue to have predictive power. Rationality depends on causal inference, so making inductive arguments towards any conclusion means that conclusion is similarly not guaranteed.

Causal maxim: in order for the causal maxim to be demonstratively true, its contrary must be impossible (something can begin to exist without a cause)

“Passions” lead the direction of morality.

“If I can conceive of it, it’s possible” as an argument to someone saying something is impossible.

reading notes

A Treatise on Human Nature

book 1

p1s1: Of the Origin of our Ideas

• All perceptions of the human mind are either impressions or ideas.
• The difference between perceptions and ideas is the “degree of force and liveliness” when activated in mind.
• Impressions: perceptions with the most force.
  • Includes senses, passions, and emotions
• Ideas: faint images of impressions used for thinking and reasoning.
  • Perceptions from reading, other than sensory experiences.
• Impressions and ideas are sometimes similar, but mostly completely different.
• Simple perception: indivisible
• Complex perception: divisible
  • Ex: an apple, has colour, taste, smell

Impressions resemble ideas in every respect except “degree of force and liveliness”.

Ideas are resembling of impressions. Many of our complex ideas never had impressions resembling them. Many of our complex impressions are never copied by ideas.

There is resemblance between complex ideas and impressions, but they are not exact copies. Every simple idea has a simple impression that resembles it.

All our simple ideas, when they first appear, are derived from simple impressions which correspond to them and which they exactly represent.

Argument for this to be the case:

• They always present together, so they’re probably related.
• Simple impressions always come first.
• If someone lacks the ability to experience a particular simple impression (eg. blind), then they can’t get the simple idea.
• It’s possible to get an idea without a perception, but it’s a niche edge case (ex: your mind can fill in a blank spot in a spectrum of colours)

p1s2: Division of the subject

Types of impressions:

• sensation: arise in “the soul itself” from unknown causes
• reflection: derived from our ideas

An impression strikes on the senses and makes us perceive the sensation (heat/cold, etc). The mind makes a copy after the impression ceases - an idea. When the idea recurs “in the soul” (ex: pain), it produces new impressions of reflection (ex: aversion). Those impressions of reflection turn into ideas, which can generate new impressions, recursively.

p3s6: The inference from the impression to the idea

“Objects in themselves” do not imply the existence of anything else. An inference like existence implying existence would be knowledge, and would mean it’s impossible to conceive of anything different. Obviously we can conceive of something different.

We use experience to infer the existence of one object from the existence of another. Whenever we learn a cause-effect pair, both the cause and effect were perceived by the senses and are remembered. When we reason about a cause-effect pair, one is perceived/remembered and the other is activated based on our experience.

Contiguity and succession are not sufficient to make us see a cause-effect pair. We need to see the pair occur multiple times.

A constant conjunction (cause-effect pair) implies that the cause and effect have always had consistent contiguity and succession with each other. A constant conjunction can’t reveal any new idea.

The “necessary connection” depends on the inference, and not the other way around. How does experience produce the effect? Is it with imagination or reason?

If we used reason, then we would be relying on the principle:

Instances of which we haven’t had experience must resemble those of which we have; the course of Nature continues always uniformly the same.

That principle would either be based on certain knowledge or probability. We can conceive of a change in nature, so it’s possible.

Probability is about relations of objects, less so ideas, so it must be based on impressions. Probable reasoning about ideas would be fluffy/untrustworthy. Probably reasoning needs something present in the mind sensed or remembered, which infers something that is not seen or remembered.

The only thing that can lead us beyond the immediate impressions of memory and senses is cause and effect. The idea of cause and effect is derived from experience, where constant conjunctions happened.

Probability is based on the presumption that objects we have no experience of will resemble objects we do have experience of. This presumption can’t arise from probability itself. One principle can’t be both the cause and effect of another.

The production of one object by another implies a power, and this power is connected with its effect. The power doesn’t lie in the perceptible qualities of the cause, but all we have are the perceptible qualities. At best, experience proves that the object was able to produce another object at that point in time. It can’t be used to explain other objects or points in time.

Reason doesn’t reveal the ultimate connection between cause and effect. And after we experience a constant conjunction, reason doesn’t explain why the experience should extend beyond particular instances. Reason can never show us a connection of one object with another, even with the help of experience. When the mind passes the impression or idea from one object to another, it’s using some force that isn’t rationality.

Inference depends solely on the unreasoned union of ideas.

Three types of union:

• resembling
• continuous to
• connected with it

Causation is a “philosophical relation” because it involves contiguity, succession, and constant conjunction. Its only role as a “natural relation” is that it produces a union among our ideas and enables us to reason and draw inferences.

p3s14: The idea of necessary connection

For two objects that are related as cause and effect, they are continuous in time and place, and the cause comes before the effect. Nothing else is related about them.

The words ‘efficacy’, ‘agency’, ‘power’, ‘force’, ‘energy’, ‘necessity’, ‘connection’, and ‘productive quality’, are all nearly synonymous, so they shouldn’t be used to define one-another.

Power: whatever brings about new productions in the world of matter

• reason alone can’t give rise to an original idea
• reason (separately from experience) can never make us conclude that a cause is required for every “beginning of existence”

There must be some cause where the effect is efficacy.

Cartesians argue that matter has no efficacy. They say that something has to give power, and that something is God. Hume argues that if every idea comes from an impression, then the idea of God must too.

Cartesians argue that energy doesn’t lie in any of the known qualities of matter. So where does the idea of power come from? The idea has to be derived from some impression.

Power/efficacy don’t represent anything that belongs to objects that are constantly conjoined. They come from many instances of constant conjunction.

Necessity exists in the mind and not objects.

The power of causes doesn’t belong to themselves/God/etc. The power of causes belongs to the mind that considered the union of two or more objects in all past instances.

Line of argument:

• The simple view of two objects can not give rise to the idea of power or connection.
• The idea of power arises from the repetition of the union between two objects.
• The repetition doesn’t reveal or cause anything in the objects. The repetition has an influence on the mind, producing a customary transition.
• The customary transition is the same as the power and necessity. Power and necessity are qualities of perceptions, rather than objects. They are felt by the soul rather than perceived in external objects.

The mind spreads itself on external objects. That’s what makes us think that necessity and power lie in objects.

Thought may well depend on causes for its operation, but causes don’t depend on thought.

Operations of nature are independent from our thought and reasoning:

• objects have the relations of contiguity and succession to one-another
• similar objects can be observe to have similar relations
• all this is independent of the operations of the understanding

Cause: an object preceding and contiguous to another object, where all objects resembling the preceding object are similarly preceding and contiguous to objects that resemble the object that follows.

Cause: an object preceding and contiguous to another object, united with the following object in a way that the idea of the former object makes the mind form the idea of the following object.

With those definitions, it is not the case that every object must have another object that created it. Reasoning is derived from causation, and causation has to do with ideas, so we can’t reason about something that we can’t form an idea about.

Book 2: Of the Passions

p1s1: Division of the Subject

Bodily pains and pleasures are the source of many passions. They arise immediately from the soul without any preceding thought or perception. They don’t come from any mental state or idea.

Reflective impressions are either calm or violent. Calm impressions are beauty/ugliness, works of art, and external objects. Violent impressions are love/hatred, grief/joy, pride/humility. It’s not a hard line, calm impressions are usually more calm and vice versa.

Passions are either direct or indirect. Direct passions arise immediately from good or evil, pain or pleasure. Ex: desire, aversion, grief, joy, hope, fear, despair, security. Indirect passions arise combined with other qualities. Ex: pride, humility, ambition, vanity, love, hatred, envy, pity, malice, generosity.

p1s2: Of Pride and Humility, Their Objects and Causes

Passions like pride and humility are so simple and uniform impressions that we can’t properly define them. The object of pride and humility is the self.

The self can be the object of these passions but not the cause. And pride/humility don’t happen together - they’re either about different things or at different times or collectively in different amounts that cancel each other out.

Series of events for the passion:

1. An idea comes to mind
2. The idea causes or produces a passion
3. The passion turns the person’s attention to the idea of themselves

Pride/humility can apply to anything that can be related to self. They have both an object (self) and subject.

p3s3: Of the Influencing Motives of the Will

Why do pride/humility always have self as the object? We’re not proud of the number of stars in the sky or ashamed of volcanoes.

The basic qualities of the mind are the ones that are most inseparable from it…

It’s not hard to guess how to increase or diminish the pride/humility of some stranger. Everyone is kinda the same in that way. What we are proud/humble about is different for everyone, though. And what we are proud/humble about doesn’t seem to much arise naturally. No one is born with a basic, “pride in writing desks”.

In the course of nature, there are many effects, but their causal sources are usually few and simple. Building up a heap of rules/mechanisms/procedures is generally not reflective of nature.

Book 3: Of Morals

p1s1: Moral Distinctions Not Deriv’d from Reason

Long chains of rational arguments are hard to follow. Morality is always that kind of thing, but everyone seems to think it’s super important, so it’s worth the investment in following.

Judgements are merely perceptions. Are they ideas or impressions? People seems to talk about them as if they are ideas made from rationalizing.

Morality is supposed to influence passions and feelings. But reason alone can never have an influence on passions and feelings. Reason can’t be the source of moral good/evil.

Reason can influence our behaviour in two ways:

• arouse passion by informing us of something
• show us how to satisfy some passion by discovering some cause-effect connection

Usually incorrect reasoning just slows things down. That isn’t worthy of punishment and it doesn’t mean you’re immoral. And moral distinctions come from judgements, but judgements can apply to anything trivial. And agreement/disagreement doesn’t come in degrees on a spectrum.

Vice and virtue must consist in some relations. The relations are resemblance, contrariety, degrees in quality, and proportions in quantity/number. But morality is not found in any of these relations.

Morality must mean a relation between two internal and/or external objects. Internal x internal means internal crimes, which don’t make sense. External x external would mean inanimate things would be capable of morality, which doesn’t make sense. Internal x external must involve passions/actions, but we already said it has to be rational.

Also, morality must be the same for every rational creature, as well as any diety.

Is ingratitude discovered by demonstrative reasoning? Or is it felt by an internal sense through some sentiment that naturally arises from thinking about it?

Trees can murder their parents without moral failing. Animals can perform incest without knowings it’s immoral.

Focusing exclusively on the immoral action, like murder, and it doesn’t evoke the immoral. You have to consider your internal feelings to find a sentiment of disapproval towards the action. The object of feeling lies in yourself and not the action. So vice and virtue can be compared to sounds, colours, heat, and cold. All those things are powerful influencers of our behaviour.

p1s2: Moral Distinctions Deriv’d from a Moral Sense

Moral rightness/wrongness must be impressions. They are best described as moral feelings rather than moral judgements.

What kind of impressions are these and how do they act on us? Virtue is agreeable and vice is unpleasant.

We feel that a character pleases us in a certain way, and in having that feeling we are effectively feeling that the character is virtuous.

What about inanimate objects provoking feelings of moral good/evil?

Did nature imprint all ethics in us? That seems unusual. Surely there are some simpler principles. Are these principles in nature or elsewhere? Every person and culture seems to exhibit at least some behaviours rooted in morality. Is morality natural or artificial?

It’s “unphilosophical” to say that virtue is the same as what is natural.

p2s1: Justice, Whether a Natural or Artificial Virtue?

Justice is the kind of virtue that produces pleasure artificially or in a way that arises from mankind’s needs.

Praise/blame of an action is more praise of the motive for it. Actions are merely signs of motives, from the perspective of morality.

A desire to act virtuously is not the right motive. Motives should be natural - not involving a moral notion. We have to find some motive for acts of justice and honesty distinct from our concern for them.

Suppose the motive is the public interest:

1. public interest is not naturally attached to the rules of justice (the attachment is artificial)
2. sometimes the public interest is not relevant
3. day-to-day, people aren’t thinking about the public interest. They’re self-involved.

If there was a universal love for all humans, then the love for one individual would generally be of greater intensity than hate. In practice, everyone is kinda different. The love for others seems to be about ourselves.

People have private benevolence for their property.

It must be that the sense of justice and injustice arises artificially - from upbringing and human conventions. Artificial means that it was invented by our species out of necessity. In another sense, there’s no principle in the human mind more natural than virtue and no virtue more natural than justice. But they are products of our species, and not nature.

copy principle

Ideas are copies of impressions.

Impressions precede their corresponding ideas, so impressions “cause” ideas.