Abstract
The question of manners is important in David Hume’s examination of human nature primarily because of the weight he assigns to the so-called ‘social virtues’. Man is, for Hume, a being that naturally tends to form societies, and the study of human nature is, after all, the study of human sociability, which finds its expression in manners. The present paper shows Hume as a participant in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century discussion about the concept of politeness, a concept which oscillated between the domain of manners and morals and the domain of art. The examination of Hume’s ideal of polite manners illustrates the way his classicist taste pervaded the appreciation both of works of art and of social comportment. Abstrakt Die Frage der Manieren ist fur Humes Untersuchungen uber die Natur des Menschen wesentlich und zwar aufgrund der Bedeutung, die er den sog. gesellschaftlichen Tugenden beigemessen hat. Der Mensch ist fur David Hume ein Wesen, das von Natur aus zur Gesellschaftsbildung neigt; die Natur des Menschen zu untersuchen heist deshalb vor allem, die menschliche Soziabilitat zu untersuchen, die in den Manieren ihren Ausdruck findet. Der vorliegende Aufsatz prasentiert Hume als Teil der Diskussion uber das Konzept der Politesse im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Dieses oszillierte zwischen den Bereichen Manieren und Sitten einerseits und Kunst andererseits. Die Untersuchung von Humes Ideal des hoflichen Auftretens wirft ein Licht darauf, wie sein klassizistischer Geschmack sowohl seine Wertschatzung von Kunstwerken als auch von sozialem Verhalten durchdringt.
Highlights
The question of manners is important in David Hume’s examination of human nature primarily because of the weight he assigns to the so-called ‘social virtues’
For Hume, a being that naturally tends to form societies, and the study of human nature is, after all, the study of human sociability, which finds its expression in manners
The present paper shows Hume as a participant in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century discussion about the concept of politeness, a concept which oscillated between the domain of manners and morals and the domain of art
Summary
The question of manners is important in David Hume’s examination of human nature primarily because of the weight he assigns to the so-called ‘social virtues’. For Hume’s opinion on artifice in rhetoric see David Hume, ‘Of Eloquence’, in Essays, 101, 105 It is inseparable from his idea of impeccable aristocratic comportment, for example: ‘King Charles being in his whole deportment a model of easy and gentleman-like behaviour, improved the politeness of the nation.’. Polite conversation, heroic valour, and elegant erudition, all concurred to render him the ornament and delight of the English court.’ 93 This image exceeds ‘all the pictures drawn by Gratian [sic] Castiglione’,94 for it contains all the qualities requisite for the perfect character in Humean terms: qualities useful to others (‘virtuous conduct’), qualities useful to the person himself (‘elegant erudition’), qualities immediately agreeable to others (‘polite conversation’), and qualities immediately agreeable to the person himself (‘heroic valour’) Hume realized that his own manners were far from the flawless mondanité, and felt better in a select circle of literary friends than in ‘general company’.95.
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