Hume's Writings Research Articles

Hume and Madison on Faction

Enlightenment was achieved, we have repeatedly been told, when in 1787 James Madison turned to Hume's political essays while working out the argument of his celebrated Federalist No. 10. The first historian to excavate this ground in depth was Douglass Adair. In his long unpublished but still often-cited Yale dissertation of 1943 and then in its subsequent recasting in published essays (later gathered together for a posthumous edition and since republished in various formats), Adair outlined his thesis that Hume's political essays provided the master key to unlocking the vault of Madison's political thought. Adair's analysis of this topic has been enormously influential, but it has not convinced everyone. Many Madison scholars, for instance, argue that to approach Madison's writings on faction in 1787 we need look to his experiences in Virginia, not to Hume's books. But the history of ideas is seldom as neat as Adair's story implied, nor is it as compartmentalized as his critics assume. A choice between books and experience-between theory and practice-is a false one that has seriously clouded our understanding of Hume's influence on Madison. Madison knew and absorbed Hume's writings as he experienced American factionalism in the early 1780s. Hume was much more important to Madison than even Adair imagined. Hume's History of England, in particular, influenced Madison more significantly, and in different ways, than scholars have yet come to appreciate.1 Any attempt to illustrate how and why Hume's influence on Madison has been misconstrued must begin with an analysis of Adair's

Hume's Enlightenment Tract: The Unity and Purpose of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (review)

Hume Studies Volume 28, Number 1, April 2002, pp. 149-153 Book Reviews STEPHEN BUCKLE. Hume's Enlightenment Tract: The Unity and Purpose of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 2001. Pp. xiv + 351. ISBN 0-19-825088-6, cloth, £40.00, $55.00. An excellent companion to Hume's first Enquiry, Stephen Buckle's study offers a systematic overview of Hume's philosophy from the standpoint of his later period. Buckle hopes to instill new interest in the importance of Hume's Enquiry, against the tide of what he sees as excessive enthusiasm for Hume's early philosophy, represented by A Treatise of Human Nature. Buckle laments the trend, especially in undergraduate philosophy courses, of selectively anthologizing bits and pieces of the Enquiry, while preferring the Treatise as the more definitive, or at least the more interesting or teachable, of Hume's writings. Buckle wants not only to take the Enquiry out of the shadow of the Treatise into its own light, but to go further in restoring balance to their distorted relation, making a case for the greater relative importance of the Enquiry over and above the Treatise. Buckle's argument is developed on several fronts. He addresses some of the misinterpretations that have surrounded Hume's own statements of attitude toward the Treatise and the first Enquiry. He characterizes Hume's project in his early and later works, comparing the two books with respect to their overall designs and the maturing of Hume's position and philosophical and literary acumen in the intervening years. Finally, and most crucially, Buckle Volume 28, Number 1, April 2002 150 Book Reviews establishes the value of the Enquiry by contrast with that of the Treatise, and, contrary to the opinion of legions of commentators, offers a coherent unified interpretation of the Enquiry, in which the novelty and significance of the later writing emerges clearly. If we are to see the Enquiry in its true nature as a distinctively Enlightenment tract, Buckle recognizes that the book must be understood to stand on its own terms, as an original work whose special message should be grasped as something more than a restatement of Hume's Treatise conclusions. The Enquiry, if Buckle is right, is not merely a reformulation intended to procure for Hume, as he states in an unfortunate expression that Buckle is at pains to set right in its historical context, "a certain literary fame." The Enquiry has many points of affinity with the Treatise. It is, for all that, a different project of the later Hume, reflecting an evolved set of preoccupations , especially involving his ambivalent fideism or atheism in the philosophy of religion, and his disavowal of the Enlightenment's favored argument from design for the existence of God. Rather than extract from Hume's first Enquiry passages and whole chapters isolated from the argument structure to which they belong, Buckle demands to understand the book as a whole, and to interpret its connecting themes that other less patient or penetrating and attentive commentators have overlooked. What has been especially lacking in more standard treatments of Hume's first Enquiry, Buckle maintains, is a good understanding of Hume's later skepticism, and how it fits exactly into his theory of perception and knowledge within the application of the experimental method in philosophy, progressing from epistemology to philosophical anti-theology, with chapters pursuing a consecutive series of topics from the origin and association of ideas to skepticism, probability, necessary causal connection, necessity and liberty, the reasoning abilities of animals, miracles, and the concept of a particular providence and possibility of an afterlife. Buckle's book is divided into three parts, "Approaching the Text," "The Argument," and "Conclusion." The "Conclusion," however, is barely five pages long, and as such hardly deserves to rank as a distinct part. Knowing that the work grew out of Buckle's lectures on Hume's Enquiry at the University of Sydney, Australia, in 1993-98, it is tempting to imagine the second main part of the book as a revision of Buckle's seminar commentary on Hume's original text, and the first part providing context for the commentary in the form of Buckle...

Hume's Naturalism (review)

Hume Studies Volume 28, Number 1, April 2002, pp. 154-156 H. O. MOUNCE. Hume's Naturalism. New York and London: Routledge, 1999. Pp. 160. ISBN 0415191246, cloth $85.00; ISBN 0415191254, paper $27.95. Mounce presents this book as a general introduction to Hume, not as a scholarly interpretation of Hume that is intended to engage other scholars in interpretive debate. He does, nonetheless, bring an interpretation to bear on Hume's writings. Mounce's focus is not limited to Hume's naturalism, as his title suggests; it is rather the relationship between Hume's naturalism and his empiricism. His claim is that Hume is both a naturalist and an empiricist, and that these two positions cannot sit easily with each other. Mounce does not present Hume as attempting to reconcile the two positions. Instead, he sees Hume as saddled with internal tensions of which he is often unaware. This, at least, is where Mounce begins, but he also goes further. After some introductory moves, he focuses each chapter on a particular issue in Hume, exposing the naturalist and the empiricist interpretations. He consistently decides that the naturalist Hume is entirely correct and the empiricist Hume is entirely wrong. Ultimately, the book fails to find its place as an introduction to Hume. The first problem for an introduction focused on the unseen tension but ultimate triumph of naturalism over empiricism is that we are never given a very clear definition of naturalism. Empiricism is presented straightforwardly as the idea that "our knowledge has its source in sense experience," (2) and at some points Mounce discusses naturalism in direct contrast to this definition , e.g., "our knowledge depends on what is given us by nature" (11). Elsewhere, however, Mounce defines naturalism as the notion that "our knowledge has its source not in our experience or reasoning but in our relations to a world which transcends both our knowledge and ourselves" (2). Given that this is an introductory work, we should expect more in the way of explanation as to whether these two definitions are really the same (they clearly seem not to be), and if they are not, then how they are related. The first topic to which Mounce brings his interpretation is Hume's account of causality. He begins with the problem of induction, and then moves to Hume's positive analysis of belief formation, in particular the formation of the belief in causality. Mounce has little good to say about Hume's account of belief, largely because it is entirely empirical. Although he admits that Hume's account of the difference between sensation and belief as a difference in vivacity is clever, he claims that "this analysis depends for its plausibility on our tacitly translating it into ordinary terms" (37)—that is, into the terms of external sensation and internal belief, terms that are only available to the naturalist who Hume Studies Book Reviews 155 sees our knowledge as the result of an organic interaction with the world. Hume's discussion of association between ideas occasioned by repeated experience is then criticized as not conforming to "ordinary circumstances" (37)—these being the circumstances of someone responding to an entirely novel sensation by associating it with something not yet experienced. In neither case do we see much of an argument in support of Mounce's assertion. Mounce then moves on to Hume's positive analysis of how we come by our idea of causality. Here Mounce essentially holds to the same line: Hume was correct when he makes the naturalist claim that our idea of causality is essentially instinctive and so not arrived at by experiencing causes in the world, but wrong in his empirical account of how we arrive at the idea by noticing the instinctive reaction to the experience of constant conjunction. Mounce defends the second point this way: "when we speak of events as causally related we are really speaking about what passes through our minds when we observe them. The trouble with this is that it is absurd and it requires little charity to restate Hume's views in terms which are not only acceptable in themselves but are faithful to his fundamental insight" (40...

Rapin, Hume and the identity of the historian in eighteenth century England

Paul de Rapin-Thoyras's History of England (1725–1731) has hitherto occupied a marginal position in most accounts of eighteenth-century historiography, despite its considerable readership and influence. This paper charts the publication history of the work, its politics and style, and the methods through which Rapin's British translators and booksellers successfully proposed the work as the model for new historical enquiry, and its author as the model for a modern historical writer. It is further argued that David Hume's writings and letters relating to his History of England (1754–1763) suggest a direct and critical engagement with Rapin's work, and with the identity of the historian, as it had been constructed through Rapin's success. By focussing on the mechanisms of production and circulation, and the impact which these had on the practice of historical writing in the eighteenth century, the paper aims to demonstrate the value of applying social–historical methods to the study of historical writing.

Aporias of Security

Maybe [task] nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we are. We have to...get rid of political double-bind, which is simultaneous individualization and totalization of modern power structures.... political, ethical, social, philosophical problem of days is not to try to liberate individual from state and from state's institutions, but to liberate us both from state and from type of individualisation which is linked to state. Michel Foucault, The Subject and Power ********** What does it mean to be secure? Should we even need to ask? Surely we know. We know that security is one of most fundamental human needs: an irrefutable guarantee of safety and wellbeing, economic assurance and possibility, sociability and order; of a life lived freely without fear or hardship. That security is a universal good available to all, and a solemn pledge between citizens and their political leaders, to whom their people's security is the first duty, overriding goal of domestic and international policy making. As such it has been able to trace a powerful path between subject and world, state and citizen, to promise simultaneously a solution to inchoate fears and insecurities of everyday life and enormous spatial, cultural, economic, and geopolitical complexities of government. In short, security remains one of modernity's most stubborn and enduring dreams. However, I believe that, more than ever, we do need to ask what it is to be secure. Surely we no longer know what security is--in that Platonic sense. Surely more than ten years after end of Gold War, after Clinton Doctrine and destruction of Twin Towers, after humanitarian and policy disasters in Indochina, Africa, East Timor, Middle East, and Central America, and after a growing body of humanist and critical scholarship has questioned security's unity, discursive structure, and political implications, security no longer possesses a credible wholeness. (1) This article begins from premise that security's claims to universality and wholeness founder on a destructive series of aporias, which derive firstly from growing sense that security no longer has a stable referent object, nor names a common set of needs, means, or ways of being, and secondly, from moral relativism that lies at center of dominant (realist) discourses of security that pretend to universality but insi st that our security always rests on insecurity and suffering of an-other. While this article argues strongly that security has no essential ontological integrity, it also argues that if power and sweep of security are to be understood and challenged, its claims to universality must be taken seriously. They underpin and animate sweeping forms of power, subjectivity, force, and economic circulation and cannot be dismissed out of hand. Nor, in hands of some humanist writers--who have sought to think human and gender security in radical counterpoint to realist images of national and international security--are such claims always pernicious. They have a valuable moral and political force that undermines, perhaps unwittingly, logocentric presuppositions of realist discourses they question. Yet a common assumption that security can be ontologically completed and secured does present a hurdle for kind of ontopolitical critique that we really need. (2) answer is not to seek to close out these aporias; they call to us and their existence presents an important political opening. Rather than seek to resecure security, to make it conform to a new humanist ideal--however laudable--we need to challenge security as a claim to truth, to set its meaning aside. Instead, we should focus on security as a pervasive and complex system of political, social, and economic power, which reaches from most private spaces of being to vast flows and conflicts of geopolitics and global economic circulation. …

The Role of Spain in Contemporary Race Theory

The Role of Spain in Contemporary Race Theory George Mariscal University of California, San Diego It is hard not to wonder how much of the recent enthusiasm for cultural studies is generated by its profound associations with England and the ideas of Englishness. —Paul Gilroy, The BUck Athntic The background for my essay is no less than four hundred and fifty years of what is popularly called "the Black Legend," that is, European writings that since the 155Os have cast Spain as the cruel, arrogant, irrational southern neighbor of the continent. It is well to remember that Erasmus refused to travel to Spain because, according to him, there were "too many Jews there" and that Spenser's judgement on Spanish bloodlines \xvA View of the Present State oflrefondwas that "of all nations under heaven I suppose the Spaniard is the most mingled, most uncertain and most bastardly." The extent to which these and other constructions of a Spanish other led inexorably to the Enlightenment's exclusion of Spain from the realm of the civilized and even to the U.S. hostile takeover of Spain's empire at the end of the last century is not my focus here, yet Spanish colonialism's role in contemporary race theory is necessarily predicated upon all of these earlier moments and the discursive networks that nourished them. Because the Spanish New World experience was the more dramatic one—early contact with complex indigenous societies, defeat of rival empires, access to precious metals—and therefore better suited to novelistic treatment, it has traditionally received a "privileged" notoriety compared to the English experience. ' By notoriety I mean a negative celebrity produced by a focus on the early decades of Spanish conquest and the massive destruction of indigenous societies in America. Those aspects of Spanish colonialism that get thrust into the foreground are in most cases the most stereotypical ones, the most violent and depraved ones, the ones, in short, outlined early on by Spanish humanist writers themselves in their critique of the colonial project. There is little doubt that Anglophone scholarship on colonialism and race has yet to escape the discursive heritage of Las Casas and his English translators. For English-speaking schoArizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Volume 2, 1998 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies lars, Spanish colonialism serves a double function—because Spain is the most fanatical representative of European expansionism, Spain is the least "European" of Europe's nations, or, in Spenser's words, "the most uncertain and most bastardly." Following this logic through, English, Dutch, and French colonial behavior, we are taught, could not have been anything like the Spanish. Yet we know that the principal players in the belated English colonial project looked to the Spanish experience for guidance. Despite their use of Las Casas in order to construct a barbarian Spain for European consumption, those writers who laid the groundwork for the English invasion of Ireland and North America conveniently bracketed his tolerant views of indigenous peoples and instead drew directly from Spain's most anti-Indian texts such as those by Fernández de Oviedo and López de Gomara. Richard Eden and Thomas Hacket, to name only two of the most influential ideologues, supplied the colonizers with precedents drawn from the Spanish experience, for the Spanish in America, Hacket claimed, had "invented good lawes and statutes for the brideling of the barbarous and wicked, and for the maintayning and defending of the just" (Canny 586). We can be fairly sure that many colonizers—Sidney and Spenser, for example—were acquainted with Spanish texts and took them to be models for colonizing "inferior" peoples such as the Irish and the Amerindians. One of the most striking features of early modern racialized discourse is its relatively limited vocabulary. English representations of the Gaelic Irish, for example, echo descriptions of Gypsies found in medieval Spanish texts: "Thei regards no othe, thei blaspheme, thei murder, commit whoredome, hold no wedlocke, ravish, steal and commit all abomination without scruple of conscience" (Canny 584). In seventeenthcentury English writing, the Spanish repression and final expulsion in 1609 of the moriscos would provide an additional model for the on-going colonization of Ireland. The historical...

Musical Commonplace Books, Writing Theory, and "Silent Listening": The Polyphonic Examples of the Dodecachordon

The phrase may seem out of place in the proceedings of a symposium titled as Heard-implying as it does the contrast of silent with an opposition of active and present-tense listening with the passive and past-tense heard. Yet these oppositions point to ways in which music is framed by the means and purposes of its transmission that are central to the issues considered in this paper. In conferences, lectures, and even informal discussions, we routinely employ sounding music examples.' When we transform such oral/aural events for the medium of print, we replace sounding words and sounding music with written text and examples.2 This paper explores the nature of this particular transition from sounded to notated by examining the means by which writing about music conveys, encompasses, and conceptualizes music itself through the mediation of musical notation. Music examples and citations have commonly occupied a minor role in histories of music theory and an even lesser place in broader humanistic studies; indeed, they normally merit mention only to the extent that they appear to clarify (or contradict) passages of text. Rarely do authors provide either direct or indirect evidence of how we are to understand the music included in a treatise, yet the manner in which we read such examples, indeed the manner in which we read music, is often taken as self-evident among a musically literate community. However, close study of such examples raises a host of questions and begs for a reexamination of the ways in which music reading functions in relation to reading habits in general. The polyphonic examples of Glarean's Dodecachordon provide the starting point from which this paper explores specific issues of how one humanist writer intended musical examples to function and what he expected of his readers. Because the examples are embedded in a discursive domain, they partake of the constraints of that format as well as those of the original (musical) format. The intersection

Hume's Aesthetic Theism

Hume Studies Volume XXII, Number 2, November 1996, pp. 325-337 Hume's Aesthetic Theism JOHN IMMERWAHR When it comes to religion, Hume's motto is corruptio optimi pessima, "the corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst" (NHR 338,339, SScE 73).1 He warmly endorses what he calls "true religion" and strongly attacks false religion, superstition and priestcraft. Hume's distaste for false religion is obviously sincere, but scholars have sometimes wondered how seriously to take Hume's "veneration for true religion" (DNR 219). Are his favorable comments about true religion honest or is this just one more smokescreen?2 In fact, Hume tells us very little about what he calls "true religion," "true theism" or "genuine piety." At one point Hume even drafted an apology to readers of his History of England for the fact that "the Mischiefs which arise from the Abuses of Religion, are so often mentioned, while so little in comparison is said of the salutary Consequences which result from true & genuine piety."3 In what follows I look at a number of the passages where Hume does discuss true religion, in an attempt to ask what makes true religion true.4 In brief, his answer is that the superiority of genuine theism results from its moral qualities rather than its epistemological warrant.5 Unlike other forms of religion, true religion is based on the calm passions rather than the violent ones and as such it alone is able to perform "the proper Office of religion" which is to reinforce and support morality.6 While Hume never wavers from his position that morality does not require any religious or theological commitment, he does feel that at least this one approach to religion has a positive moral contribution to make. John Immerwahr is at the Department of Philosophy, Villanova University, Villanova PA 19085-1699 USA. Email: Immerwa@Email.Vill.Edu 326 John Immerwahr True religion in Hume's writings Scattered through Hume's writings are a number of references to a minimalistic religion that is immune from the usual Humean critiques. The exempted form of religion is what Gaskin describes as an "attenuated Deism," which includes a conviction of the existence of God as the cause of order in the universe, together with a commitment to a secular human morality.7 Here are a few passages where this form of religion is mentioned: The Natural History of Religion: The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion. (NHR 309) History of England: In every religion, except the true, [the diligence of the clergy] is highly pernicious, and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the true, by infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly, and delusion. (HE III 135) Dialogues concerning Natural Religion: Philo: All the new discoveries in astronomy, which prove the immense grandeur and magnificence of the works of Nature, are so many additional arguments for a Deity, according to the true system of Theism. (DNR 165) It is, of course, dangerous to take anything Hume says about religion at face value. On the one hand, Hume's religious works, such as his essay on miracles, were a major force in attracting the kind of literary reputation which he so much desired. On the other hand, he lived with the constant possibility of persecution by the ultra-conservative wing of the Scottish church.8 One of his self-protective techniques is to criticize one religious position only from the framework of another. This allows him a certain "deniability" in that he can always say that he was only criticizing a specific form of religion, not religion generally.9 At least some of what he says about true religion can probably be written off as protective coloration. Nonetheless, if we take seriously what Hume says about the "suitable notions of [God's] divine perfections" (DNR 88) we come up with a model of true religion that is compatible with Hume's overall perspective. The justifiability of true theism What makes true religion true? Hume tells...

The Eighteenth-Century British Reviews of Hume's Writings

The Eighteenth-Century British Reviews of Hume’s Writings James Fieser The first printed reactions to Hume’s publications were usually book reviews which appeared in British, German, and French journals. Until recently, the most complete catalogs of these reviews were in T. E. Jessop’s A Bibliography of David Hume (1938), and E. C. Mossner’s The Life of David Hume (1954). 1 Since Jessop and Mossner, knowledge of the German reviews has advanced dramatically with two studies. First, Manfred Kuehn (1987) provides a comprehensive bibliography of references to Hume as they appear in Germany’s foremost eighteenth-century review journal, the Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen. 2 Second, Gunter Gawlick and Lothar Kreimendahl (1987) attempt a comprehensive analysis and catalog of eighteenth-century German discussions of Hume as appeared in both books and review articles. 3 These studies expand the list of German reviews of Hume from the five or so listed in Jessop and Mossner to several dozen. The German studies also suggest that more work is needed in cataloging the reviews from other countries, especially those from Great Britain. This essay will update the standard list of eighteenth-century British reviews of Hume’s writings by providing references to additional reviews which do not appear in the Hume literature. To Jessop’s list of eighteen British reviews, 4 thirteen new reviews are listed for first edition publications of Hume’s writings, and eight new reviews are listed for eighteenth-century abridgments and collections containing Hume’s writings. [End Page 645] A History of the Early British Review Journals The first European journal devoted exclusively to reviewing new books was the French Journal des Sçavans, founded in 1665. The journal focused on scholarly books, as opposed to popular publications, and the format of the articles consisted largely of extended excerpts from the book under review. This format was quickly adopted in Great Britain by newly founded review journals such as Weekly Memorials for the Ingenious (1682), The History of Learning (1692), The Complete Library (1692), and Memoirs for the Ingenious (1692). Most of these review journals survived only a few years and were frequently reincarnated with slight alterations in their titles. Because of their failure to tap into a stable readership market, the inconsistent appearance of the British review journals continued throughout the first half of the eighteenth-century. When Hume’s Treatise first appeared in 1739, the History of the Works of the Learned, edited then by Jacob Robinson, was the only review journal in publication. Like its forerunners, the History of the Works of the Learned had a fifteen-year checkered history of title changes and mergers with other journals (1728–43). The title “History of the Works of the Learned” was borrowed from a short lived early eighteenth-century journal by the same name. Typical of the review journals of the time, it was highly selective and focused only on scholarly publications. It is in this context that the History of the Works of the Learned reviewed Book I of Hume’s Treatise in 1739 and 1740. In a letter to Francis Hutcheson, Hume describes the review as “somewhat abusive.” 5 Indeed, the review contains a succession of sarcastic comments, such as “these are too dazzling for my weak Sight,” “our Author’s superlative Modesty,” and “A most charming System indeed.” Upon the publication of Hume’s Life in 1777, two writers commented on the demeaning tone of the review of the Treatise. The first notes that the review so highly provoked our young philosopher, that he flew in a violent rage, to demand satisfaction of Jacob Robinson, the publisher; whom he kept during the paroxysm of his anger, at his sword’s point, trembling behind the counter lest a period should be put to the life of a sober critic by a raving philosopher. 6 This story is countered by the second writer: We remember however, that it [i.e., the Treatise] was distinguished by the Reviewers of that time, though not in a manner suitable to the [End Page 646] expectations or wishes of the Author. It was treated with some degree of contempt by the Writer of the History...

The Eighteenth-Century British Reviews of Hume's Writings

Mise a jour des bibliographies chronologiques des revues anglaises du XVIII e siecle faisant paraitre les oeuvres de D. Hume. Retracant l'histoire de ces journaux europeens depuis la fin du XVII e siecle, l'A. apporte de nouvelles references qui ne figurent pas dans la liste etablie par T. E. Jessop en 1938

To Redeem Metal with Paper: David Hume's Philosophy of Money

David Hume's writings on political economy, and on money in particular, constitute only a small portion of his encyclopedic work.1 His stature in histories of economic thought appears correspondingly modest. In particular, Hume is credited by economic historians with having articulated an early version of the self-regulating mechanism of classical trade theory, and its relation to the quantity theory of money.2 This essay challenges the accepted view that money is a minor aspect of Hume's work. Instead, this essay argues that, by interpolating Hume's limited treatment of money into his wider philosophical concerns, money takes on a much wider significance for Hume's social thought than has been heretofore appreciated. Hume's analyses of the understanding and the passions do point to a central role for money in a Humean society. While such a role is only hinted at in Hume's actual discussion of money, his larger epistemological and moral doctrines imply that money transactions are the ideal units of social life. Money must become the mediator of social relations because a society actuated on Humean psychological principles would otherwise be an entropie one. This entropy is derivable both from Hume's doctrine of sensationalism and his formulation of utilitarian self-interest and sympathy in sensationalist terms. In short, implicit in Hume's thought is something like a Humean philosophy of money. This argument not only reintroduces money into Hume's other concerns, but highlights a triplet of reversals that are immanent in Humean social

Hume's Liberal Mind

Thirty years ago, Duncan Forbes published a short review, which, amongst other things, challenged the view that towards the end of his life David Hume turned Tory. Forbes's subsequent study of Hume's politics showed that, when strictly applied, ‘Tory’ and ‘Whig’ failed to capture the philosophical import of Hume's writings about politics and even of his semi-detached involvement with the politics of his time. If one took Hume at his own word, “sceptical whiggism”—a kind of moderate and scientific-minded appreciation of the relative superiority of modern commercial polities, and, in Britain, of the Hanoverian régime—was a more appropriate description of what Hume's political writings were about. It also avoided the invidious problem of whether Hume should be regarded as a liberal or a conservative.

Hume's Interest in Newton and Science

166 HUME'S INTEREST IN NEWTON AND SCIENCE Many writers have been forced to examine — in their treatments of Hume's knowledge of and acquaintance with scientific theories of his day — the related questions of Hume's knowledge of and acquaintance with Isaac Newton and of the nature and extent of Newtonian influences upon Hume's thinking. Most have concluded that — in some sense — Hume was acquainted with and influenced by Newton's thought in particular and scientific thought in general. The genesis of this paper is the recent point of view put forward by Peter Jones which challenges the many permutations of this almost ritualistic standard line by removing Hume entirely from the Newtonian and the scientific scenes of thought. Jones argues that Hume knew less about Newton and science, and needed to know less about Newton and 2 science, than he believes is required by the above interpretation. Indeed, Jones argues that Hume's fundamental assumptions, which, according to Jones, derive ultimately from a form of Ciceronian humanism, drive a "wedge" between Newton's thought and that of 3 Hume. Even Hume's introductory remarks in the Treatise about his universal "science of man" are, for Jones, a declaration of independence from the materialistic trend (as Jones sees it) of Newtonian 4 science and not, as so many commentators have maintained — however tenuously or strongly evidence for linkage of Hume's project with Newtonian or scientific thought. Jones baldly argues that Hume totally lacked interest in science in general and in Newton and Newtonian science in particular. Following J. H. Burton's observation that Hume's work is surprisingly free from the "opinions" of contemporary scientists, 167 Jones states there is no evidence that Hume ever studied science at the University of Edinburgh or that he "pursued" scientific studies of any formal sort. Regarding Newtonian scientific thought, he emphasizes the paucity of specifically Newtonian scientific textbooks in the early eighteenth century 7 which might have been available for Hume to study and argues that nowhere in Hume's writings is there evidence of precise and detailed knowledge of Newton's science beyond what is available in Q Chamber's Cyclopaedia. Jones acknowledges that, in the Introduction to the Treatise, Hume utilizes a "general version" of Newton's "Regulae Philosophandi" from the beginning of Book III of Newton's Principia. Nevertheless, in Jones' view, Hume's fundamentally humanistic orientation separates him completely from g any Newtonian influence. Finally, according to Jones, Hume does not betray the least bit of knowledge of Newton's mathematics and its role in Newton's experimental methodology. On this evidence Jones grounds his central claim of Hume's "total lack of interest in contemporary science." What references there are to Newton and to science in Hume's works Jones finds "traceable to essentially literary predecessors such as Fontenelle or Montesquieu, or to standard works of theologians ] 2 or free-thinkers." The absence of clearly direct references to what Jones feels are scientific works results both from Hume's "total lack of interest in science" and from his commitment to a form of Ciceronian humanism which is "inimical" to what Jones finds to be the obvious materialistic tendencies of 13 science in the early modern period. Jones' account of the Ciceronian and French contexts of Hume's thought is excellent. But his claim that Hume had no interest whatsoever in science 168 is simply too strong and finally forces us to view science in Hume's day as equivalent to science in our own time, a manifestly anachronistic point of view. Throughout this paper, my argument will be conditioned by my view that Hume's interest in science cannot be separated from his epistemology or his religious scepticism. Hume's interest in science was precisely that of a man of letters of the eighteenth century vitally engaged in determining the proper use of scientific methodology in establishing the limits of the secular science of man once it has 14 been freed from the fetters of theology. Hume's interest in theological and epistemological issues inevitably gave rise to a strong interest on his part in the science of his day and in Newton's contributions...

Prospect, Perspective and the Evolution of the Landscape Idea

The landscape concept in geography has recently been adopted by humanistic writers because of its holistic and subjective implications. But the history of the landscape idea suggests that its origins lie in the renaissance humanists' search for certainty rather than a vehicle of individual subjectivity. Landscape was a 'way of seeing' that was bourgeois, individualist and related to the exercise of power over space. The basic theory and technique of the landscape way of seeing was linear perspective, as important for the history of the graphic image as printing was for that of the written word. Alberti's perspective was the foundation of realism in art until the nineteenth century, and is closely related by him to social class and spatial hierarchy. It employs the same geometry as merchant trading and accounting, navigation, land survey, mapping and artillery. Perspective is first applied in the city and then to a country subjugated to urban control and viewed as landscape. The evolution of landscape painting parallels that of geometry just as it does the changing social relations on the land in Tudor, Stuart and Georgian England. The visual power given by the landscape way of seeing complements the real power humans exert over land as property. Landscape as a geographical concept cannot be free of the ideological overlays of its history as a visual concept unless it subjects landscape to historical interrogation. Only as an unexamined concept in a geography which neglects its own visual foundations can landscape be appropriated for an antiscientific humanistic geography.

A note on the ?is/ought? problem in Hume's ethical writings

A note on the ?is/ought? problem in Hume's ethical writings

The Value In Evaluation

he decade of the 1980s might well be remembered as the age of educational Evaluation has always been basic to education; however, it has never before been so comprehensively applied to so many areas to solve so many different types of problems. Although much controversy remains about what evaluation entails and how it should be used, few educators dispute the in However, I want to discuss a more subtle meaning to the phrase in evaluation. Testing, measuring, and grading have become such integral parts of education that we sometimes forget just what evaluation means. We forget that there is value in evaluation-that evaluation is actually a process of valuing. Theoretical support for the premise that evaluation is a valuing process can be found in the works of both behavioral and humanistic writers. David Premack of-

The methodological implications of phenomenological assumptions in humanistic psychology

This paper outlines three philosophic beliefs which humanistic writers in psychology tend to adopt. These amount to a subjective paradigm for conducting research which emphasizes the individual's personal experience. It is argued that this approach to research is more likely to resemble an art than a science.

Kant as Seen by Hegel

Few major philosophers show evidence of having studied the works of their predecessors with special care, even in cases where they were subject to particular influences which they were ready to acknowledge. Hume knew that he was working in the tradition of ‘some late philosophers in England, who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing’—‘Mr Locke, my Lord Shaftsbury, Dr Mandeville, Mr Hutchinson, Dr Butler, &c.’ But there is not much sign in the Treatise or elsewhere in Hume's writings of any close acquaintance with the works of these authors; the presumption must be that he had read them at some time and extracted the main ideas, but was not in the habit of returning to their texts. He had something more important to do, namely to work at philosophical problems of his own. Similarly Kant, though he said that the Critique of Pure Reason was not meant to be ‘a critique of books and systems, but of the faculty of reason in general’, had clearly felt the impact of the thought of some important past philosophers, but equally had never spent much time in finding out just what these philosophers had to say. Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Leibniz and Hume all get fairly frequent mention in his pages. But Kant takes his knowledge of Plato and Aristotle from J. J. Brucker's Historia critica philosophiae, a six-volume compilation which first appeared in 1742, or from doubtful sources such as Mendelssohn's doctored translation of the Phaedo, and though he doubtless knew the more recent authors at first hand clearly felt no need to study them in any depth. This was true even of writers to whom he attributed a particular importance, such as Leibniz and Hume. The references to Hume in the Critique and Prolegomena are all disappointingly general, and though the summary of Leibniz's philosophy in the section called ‘The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection’ has a certain force, it is not documented with references to Leibnizian texts. Kant knows that there is a difference between the views of the historical Leibniz and those which constituted the ‘Leibnizian-Wolffian system’ of his successors. But he is not very curious about the difference, or inclined to explore it.

Kant as Seen by Hegel

Few major philosophers show evidence of having studied the works of their predecessors with special care, even in cases where they were subject to particular influences which they were ready to acknowledge. Hume knew that he was working in the tradition of ‘some late philosophers in England, who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing’—‘Mr Locke, my Lord Shaftsbury, Dr Mandeville, Mr Hutchinson, Dr Butler, &c.’ But there is not much sign in the Treatise or elsewhere in Hume's writings of any close acquaintance with the works of these authors; the presumption must be that he had read them at some time and extracted the main ideas, but was not in the habit of returning to their texts. He had something more important to do, namely to work at philosophical problems of his own. Similarly Kant, though he said that the Critique of Pure Reason was not meant to be ‘a critique of books and systems, but of the faculty of reason in general’, had clearly felt the impact of the thought of some important past philosophers, but equally had never spent much time in finding out just what these philosophers had to say. Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Leibniz and Hume all get fairly frequent mention in his pages. But Kant takes his knowledge of Plato and Aristotle from J. J. Brucker's Historia critica philosophiae, a six-volume compilation which first appeared in 1742, or from doubtful sources such as Mendelssohn's doctored translation of the Phaedo, and though he doubtless knew the more recent authors at first hand clearly felt no need to study them in any depth. This was true even of writers to whom he attributed a particular importance, such as Leibniz and Hume. The references to Hume in the Critique and Prolegomena are all disappointingly general, and though the summary of Leibniz's philosophy in the section called ‘The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection’ has a certain force, it is not documented with references to Leibnizian texts. Kant knows that there is a difference between the views of the historical Leibniz and those which constituted the ‘Leibnizian-Wolffian system’ of his successors. But he is not very curious about the difference, or inclined to explore it.

David Hume and Monetarism

Of the twelve characteristics of modern monetarism, five are explicit in Hume's writings: the quantity theory, the Chicago transmission process, private sector stability, the vertical Phillips curve, which Hume originated, and preference for free markets. Two others, irrelevance of allocative detail and focus on the price level as a unit, are implicit. Preference for reduced-form models fits Hume's theory of causation. Preference for stable money growth fits the whole tenor of Hume's discussion. Two propositions on targets and indicators were irrelevant in Hume's day, but Hume rejected the monetarists' strong opposition to inflation.