Hume: Philosophy in an Hour

Paul Strathern

• Publisher: HarperPress
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780007466184
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Philosophy for busy people. Read a succinct account of the philosophy of Hume in just one hour.

Hume’s Life and Works

Hume is the only philosopher whose ideas remain plausible to us today. The ancient Greeks are readable as high literature, but their philosophy seems like brilliant fairy tales. The medievalism of Augustine and Aquinas is alien to the modern sensibility. Descartes and the rationalists make us realise that the human condition is not rational; the earlier empiricists seem self-evident, wrong-headed, or absurd. And the philosophers after Hume fall mostly into either of the last two categories.

What I have just tried to do, Hume succeeded in doing – he reduced philosophy to ruins. Hume went one step further even than Berkeley and thought the empirical situation through to its logical conclusion. He denied the existence of everything – except our actual perceptions themselves. In doing this, he placed us in a difficult position. This is solipsism: I alone exist, and the world is nothing more than part of my consciousness. Here we arrive at the endgame of philosophy, one from which it’s impossible to escape. Checkmate.

Then suddenly we realise that this doesn’t matter. Regardless of what the philosophers say, the world remains there – we go on as before. As did Hume, whose gargantuan frame and ready wit were not that of a bewildered, Beckett-like solipsist thinking himself to bits. What Hume expressed was the status of our knowledge about the world. Neither the world of religion nor the world of science are certain. We can choose to believe in religion if we wish, but we do so on no certain evidence. And we can choose to make scientific deductions in order to impose our will upon the world. But neither religion nor science exist in themselves. They are merely our reactions to experience, one of any number of possible reactions.

Hume was descended from an auld Scots family. His biography by E. C. Mossner includes a family tree tracing his ancestors back to the Home of Home, who died in 1424. The philosopher’s later ancestors include a number of unappealing but apparently distinguished Scottish names, such as a Belcher of Tofts, a Home of Blackadder, and a Norvell of Boghall.

David Hume was born 24 April 1711, in Edinburgh. His father died when he was three. A remarkably high proportion of the major philosophers lost their father at an early age, and this has produced the usual psychoanalytical theories. The gist of these is that the lack of a male parental figure creates a profound need for certainty. This in turn causes the bereft son to create an abstract system that takes the place of the ‘abstracted’ parent. Such psychoanalytical theories can be brilliant, entertaining, and possibly even informative (though about what, I’m not quite sure). In other words, their resemblance to the philosophers they describe is uncanny in many aspects – except that of intellectual rigour.

By the time David Hume arrived on the scene, his branch of the distinguished family tree had descended to the point where it was living on the chilly little estate of Ninewells. This was nine miles west of Berwick-upon-Tweed, near the village of Chirnside on the Scottish border. The original house where the philosopher grew up no longer exists, but the gullible philosophic tourist is shown the ‘Philosopher’s cave’, down the slope to the south-east of the present house. This dank, cramped, uninviting aperture is where Hume is said to have meditated as a lad, as well as during his later years (when its inner reaches might have proved something of a tight fit for his ample form). If our thought is affected by our surroundings, we would expect Hume’s meditations in this instance to have produced a somewhat neolithic philosophy with claustrophobic tendencies – and indeed this is much how the great German philosophers who came after him were to regard Hume’s work. This was inevitable, as the Germans were intent upon constructing vast philosophical systems – baroque palaces of metaphysics, no less – and had no wish to occupy the primitive philosophic cave that Hume had bequeathed them. Alas, philosophy should not be confused with architectural aspiration.

Hume was brought up by his uncle, the local parish minister, who had succeeded the philosopher’s father as the laird of Ninewells. Conditions at Ninewells would have appeared austere and primitive by modern standards: barefoot servants; the lower floor of the building containing the winter cowsheds and chicken runs; a diet based heavily on oatmeal, porridge, and kale (a nourishing traditional broth, or a disgusting watery cabbage soup, depending upon your taste). But Hume didn’t feel that his childhood was deprived, either at the time or later. He was educated in the local schoolmaster’s cottage with neighboring village children, in the egalitarian Scottish tradition that for so long surpassed its counterpart south of the border. Then, from the age of twelve to fifteen, he went to Edinburgh University. (Such early entry to Edinburgh University was quite normal at the time, a tradition that is maintained to this day in the demeanor of its students.)

After this, Hume was expected to study law. But he was already inclined otherwise and began reading voraciously over a wide range of subjects. Only with extreme reluctance did he devote any time at all to studying for the bar. This conflict continued for the next three years. Gradually Hume’s reading began to concentrate more and more upon philosophy, until one day ‘there seem’d to be open’d up to me a New Scene of Thought’. His philosophical ideas were beginning to crystallise, and he conceived the idea of writing down a system. By now the law ‘appear’d nauseous to me’, and eventually he decided to give it up altogether.

This was no easy decision. It meant he was abandoning the chance of earning a professional living. The long inner struggle over this decision cost Hume dearly, and shortly afterward he had a nervous breakdown.

Hume went back to Ninewells, but his recovery was only intermittent. Between bouts of depression he continued excitedly pursuing his new ideas. The local physician was called in several times and was of the opinion that Hume was suffering from ‘the Disease of the Learned’. He prescribed ‘a Course of Bitters & Anti-hysteric pills’. He also advised Hume to take ‘an English Pint of Claret every day’ and regular exercise in the form of long horseback rides.

Until now Hume had been tall and thin: a gawky fellow with gangling limbs. Yet despite his regimen of exercise, he now began putting on weight. On his daily rides into the bare, hilly countryside the horse became thinner as its rider expanded – gradually becoming the portly figure he was to remain for the rest of his life. This suggests that Hume’s troubles during this period may in part have been glandular.

Hume’s recovery was only gradual and may in fact never have been complete. Certain mysterious episodes during his later life suggest recurrent mental instability.

Hume had no wish to continue living with his mother at Ninewells forever. In 1734 a friend of the family found him a job as a clerk to a shipping merchant in Bristol. His motives for taking this job were various. He certainly needed the money. He also understood that the job would involve foreign travel. This appealed to his sense of adventure, and he also felt it would be beneficial for his mental health.

There is strong evidence that this continued to worry him. On his way to Bristol, Hume passed through London. Here he composed a long letter to Dr. Arbuthnott, one of the leading physicians of the day. In it, Hume does his best to describe his illness, though this description is severely hamper...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Hume’s Life and Works
• Afterword
• Further Information
• About the Author
• Copyright
• About the Publisher