Hume’s ‘Reconciling Project’: A Reply to Flew

Abstract

In his note 'Paul Russell on Hume's Reconciling Project' (Mind, I984, pp. 587-8) Professor Flew makes two criticisms of my note 'On the Naturalism of Hume's Reconciling Project' (Mind, I983, pp. 593-600). They are: (i) that 'nowhere does Russell take note of the fact that Hume left us two treatments Of Liberty and Necessity, two treatments which are at least in emphases and tone of presentation very different'; and (2) that I must be 'prepared to offer and to defend some alternative reading' of the first three paragraphs of the first Enquiry discussion 'Of Liberty and Necessity' where Hume suggests that 'the whole controversy has hitherto turned merely upon words' (EHU, p. 8i -my emphasis: this and later page references are to the Selby-Bigge editions). As regards the first criticism, I refer the reader to my second footnote where I do in fact, quite explicitly, note that Hume left us two treatments 'Of Liberty and Necessity'. In this footnote I point out that my description of Hume's arguments as compatibilist arguments 'accords somewhat more with the reconciling spirit of the Enquiry than with that of the Treatise where Hume tends to identify liberty with liberty of indifference' (p. 593). Obviously in any discussion note there is limited space, and therefore I could not discuss at length complexities which were not of immediate relevance to my alternative interpretation. However, contrary to what Flew claims, I do mention that there are two treatments and that they differ in emphases and tone. Flew interprets Hume's remarks in the opening passages of the Enquiry discussion 'Of Liberty and Necessity' as expressing 'a most misguided and misguiding view of the nature and importance of philosophical analysis' (p. 588; see also Flew, Hume's Philosophy of Belief, London, I96I, pp. I56-8). Here again I believe that Flew's interpretation is seriously mistaken. Let me, therefore, provide an alternative interpretation of Hume's remarks in this context. The terminological aspect of the free will dispute is repeatedly and strongly emphasized by Hume throughout his discussion in the Enquiry. However, while the 'verbal' aspect of the dispute is not emphasized in the Treatise as explicitly as it is in the Enquiry Hume does make it clear in both the Treatise and the Abstract what he takes the 'verbal' aspects of the dispute to be. At the end of II, iii, i he states: