Scan barcode
A review by therealesioan
A Treatise on Human Nature, Vol. 1 by David Hume
2.0
Yeah I'm cheating here a bit by just reading the first book, but Hume's smug anglo-ism (despite being Scottish) is too much for me for 4 fucking volumes. Still, his system has some utility is in its empirical and logical rigor. I can certainly see how Hume kind of brought in a much more naturalistic and relatable approach to philosophy - as opposed to the rationalists who came before him - in a similar way that Aristotle and the Peripatetics changed up the more mystical Platonic style which was dominant.
Insights like how Spinoza's monism is the logical conclusion to the Church Father's thought is quite interesting. And similarly the take that Spinoza's philosophy must affirm the position of the immortality of the souls. In general I do support the more analytic, challenging and utilitarian turn Hume took philosophy with his empiricism. You have to remember that without Hume Kant never wakes up from his dogmatic slumber, and then we'd never have the Critiques.
But still, all that being said, Hume's system is disastrous. It's not that the critical phase of his philosophy is flawed, as the problem of induction and necessary connextion are compelling puzzles. Where he falls flat is in building much of an alternative system. And yes I'm aware he does most of that in the following books, but as I understand it there's a reason everyone really remembers Hume for his deconstruction - not his building back up.
By the end of this book he's already setting the tone for a radical skepticism of truth itself - ironic considering he's meant to be rejecting the skepticism of the Cartesians. He discards the concept of the self, the process of induction, much of mathematics, miracles, God, truth really. He himself clearly begins questioning his destructive attitude in the conclusion here: "Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escaped shipwreck in passing a small firth, has yet temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel". That is not the talk of a confident philosophical architect.
Insights like how Spinoza's monism is the logical conclusion to the Church Father's thought is quite interesting. And similarly the take that Spinoza's philosophy must affirm the position of the immortality of the souls. In general I do support the more analytic, challenging and utilitarian turn Hume took philosophy with his empiricism. You have to remember that without Hume Kant never wakes up from his dogmatic slumber, and then we'd never have the Critiques.
But still, all that being said, Hume's system is disastrous. It's not that the critical phase of his philosophy is flawed, as the problem of induction and necessary connextion are compelling puzzles. Where he falls flat is in building much of an alternative system. And yes I'm aware he does most of that in the following books, but as I understand it there's a reason everyone really remembers Hume for his deconstruction - not his building back up.
By the end of this book he's already setting the tone for a radical skepticism of truth itself - ironic considering he's meant to be rejecting the skepticism of the Cartesians. He discards the concept of the self, the process of induction, much of mathematics, miracles, God, truth really. He himself clearly begins questioning his destructive attitude in the conclusion here: "Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escaped shipwreck in passing a small firth, has yet temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel". That is not the talk of a confident philosophical architect.