Conclusion of this book.

 

APPENDIX

TEXTUAL NOTES

ENDNOTES

INDEX

SUGGESTED READING

001

002

Introduction and Suggested Reading © 2005 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

 

Books 1 and 2 originally published in 1739, Book 3 in 1740

 

This 2005 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

 

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ISBN-13: 978-0-7607-7172-3 ISBN-10: 0-7607-7172-3

eISBN : 978-1-411-42846-1

 

Printed and bound in the United States of America

 

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW EDITION

INFLUENCING ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of science, David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature remains unrivalled by perhaps any other work in philosophy. The Treatise is of interest, and not merely historical interest, to professional academic philosophers. It is remarkable that it can, and often does, also serve as one of the best introductions to philosophy—to what philosophers really do—for the novice. This is ample measure of its success, and it would have pleased Hume a great deal. The major topics that have dominated contemporary philosophy can nearly all be found in the Treatise, and in many cases they are the locus classicus for ensuing debates. Among these are the foundations of ethics, causation and induction, personal identity, skepticism and the external world, philosophical method, meaning and empiricism, and immortality.

David Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on April 26, 1711. His father died when he was two, and his mother, who did not remarry, raised him. He entered the University of Edinburgh when he was ten and left at fourteen without a degree.1 Largely self-taught, Hume started the Treatise when he was eighteen or nineteen, at a time when he was suffering from hypochondria and some other unspecified personal problems for which he consulted a doctor. He went to La Flèche in France (1735), where the young René Descartes was educated, and finished a large part of the Treatise there in about two and a quarter years when he was twenty-five.2 A leading figure of the Enlightenment, and at one time Britain’s best-known man of letters, Hume was perhaps more feted in French intellectual circles than in British ones. He was rejected for professorships at both the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow, and never held an academic post. Hume died in 1776.

Just about all of the editorial introductions to Hume’s Treatise quote his autobiographical plaint, that it “fell dead-born from the Press; without reaching such distinction as even to excite a Murmur among the Zealots.”3 It is odd that Hume would have thought the “Zealots” would have the slightest interest in his book. This complaint is striking in part, not only because of the recognition and influence the Treatise posthumously received, but also because it is a plaint echoed by authors of the vast majority of academic scholarly books published not only today but in any era. The other quotation you will not see an introduction without is Kant’s claim that reading Hume awoke him from his “dogmatic slumber”—though it is doubtful that Hume would have thought he awoke Kant from anything at all.

Hume’s stated intention in both the Treatise, which he described as “revolutionary,” and the later Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), was to undermine “dogmatic rationalism.” What is not always remarked, though Hume himself was quick to recognize it, is that the Treatise is a youthful, exuberant, earnest, heartfelt, and in some ways dogmatic and didactic work. It is a philosophical treatise that, genius aside, in tone if not always in substance, only a self-assured, albeit naïve and perhaps overly eager person in their early twenties might write. There are, however, some depressive passages at the end of book one that seem far less youthful and self-assured. Although there is nothing specifically autobiographical in the Treatise, there is so much of Hume the person in it that it is no wonder he took it “personally” when the publication of the Treatise did not result in the instantaneous astonishment and homage of the world of letters, as well as the adoration of the more general public, that Hume may have expected. In the Treatise, Hume writes, “The approbation of the public I consider as the greatest reward of my labours; but am determined to regard its judgment, whatever it be, as my best instruction.”

It is often not until old age that one once again, usually in error, comes to regard oneself as having the special insights and rapport with truth that is part of the “strength and pain of being young.”4 It seems, however, to be a feeling from which, for all his alleged modesty, Hume was never estranged. He remained disappointed about the reception of the Treatise—blaming himself in part, and probably mistakenly, in attributing its poor reception to stylistic issues. The simpler explanation is that it is a difficult and challenging book and like much, if not all, good philosophy it can be tedious at times. In the first essay of Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Hume acknowledges that “serious philosophy” cannot always be written in a way that is easy to understand. He was to rework some of the material in the Treatise for much of his life and it reappeared later in other published work. These changes were not always for the better, and some of the important sections of the Treatise, for example on personal identity and on the immateriality of the soul, were omitted entirely from the Enquiry while others were extensively cut and altered. Book one of the Treatise reappeared later first as Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, and later as An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

It is claimed that Hume disowned the Treatise in later life. In 1775, he sent an advertisement to his publisher to be included in future published work that repudiated the Treatise. But given that he reworked the material and published it in other forms it is unclear what his actions mean. His central concern seemed to be dissatisfaction with his style and mode of expression.5 Some of Hume’s views, especially his alleged atheism, caused him considerable difficulty in his professional life and may have cost him professorships at the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow—though it is impossible to be certain his views were the reason. Attacks on one’s religious beliefs were then, as now, often excuses and rationalizations for more insidious objectives. Undoubtedly Hume would have found it prudent to distance himself from some of his beliefs, especially those having to do with religion (e.g., miracles and immortality), in his professional life on occasion. And of course some of his beliefs really were misunderstood.

It is commonly thought that philosophers, unlike mathematicians, produce their most significant works later in life.