Philosophy 224
Human Nature and Modern Philosophy:
Hume
Hume’s Treatise
Hume (1711-1776) is
arguably the most
important philosopher to
write in English.
 Like his fellow moderns,
Hume did not confine
himself to philosophy but
wrote influentially on a
wide range of topics.
 The Treatise was the most
important of the
philosophical works that
he produced. It’s aim is to
address the question of
human nature with the aim
of producing a “compleat
system of the sciences.”

A Compleat System



Why does Hume believe that such a system (faith in the
possibility of which marks Hume as a Modern
philosopher) can be produced via an account of human
nature?
As he notes at the beginning of our selection, all of the
human sciences (fields of human knowledge) refer,
directly or indirectly to human activity or human ends.
Using a martial metaphor, he insists that only by
pursuing the question of human nature do we get to the
center of the possibilities of human knowing, and thus
the ground necessary for establishing all of the various
specific forms of that knowing.
Experience and Observation
Hume’s approach to this (and any other
question) assumes that the only method
appropriate to this important topic is direct,
'experimental' observation, the heart of which is
Hume’s empiricism (more on this in a bit).
 What are we to make of this insistence on the
fundamental importance of experience and
observation?

◦ First of all, it’s a decidedly anti-metaphysical approach. Hume
insists that we can’t begin by assuming anything about the
ultimate structure of reality of our place in it, but must rather
start with what we are given: experience, as we experience it.
◦ Any conclusions we make must be appropriate generalizations
from this immediate data.
Impressions and Ideas

Hume uses the term “perception” to refer to all mental
contents.
◦ Perceptions are the basic material of experience. All knowledge
has its basis in these perceptions. This is Hume’s empiricism at its
most basic.

As Hume goes on to insist, all perceptions of the mind
are either impressions or ideas.
◦ The only difference between them is their force and vivacity.
◦ Impressions are direct, forceful perceptions (think sense data);
Ideas are representations or consolidations of impressions.

Both impressions and ideas can be further distinguished
into simple and complex.
◦ Simple impressions or ideas are those that cannot be
decomposed (red, color), while complex instances of either can
be decomposed (apple, Apple).
The First Principle

On the basis of this elaborated empiricist account of
consciousness, Hume articulates what he characterizes
as the first principle of the science of human nature he
is developing:
◦ “…all our simple ideas in their first
appearance are deriv’d from simple
impressions, which are correspondent to
them and which they exactly represent.”

It’s immediate implication is to provide the basis for the
rejection of the notion of innate ideas (ideas present
from birth, part of the fabric/structure of
consciousness), but it has important implications for an
account of human nature.
Putting the Principle to Work:
Substance
Hume begins to develop the implications of this first
principle by directing it to a key philosophical concept:
substance.
 This concept has a complicated history. In Hume’s time, it
was generally understood in one of two ways: that which is
the bearer of predicates (substance as subject), and as that
which remains the same through change (substance as
underlyingness).

◦ In either version, our understanding of substance is not
something we get from experience: it is a requirement of
thinking, or an innate idea.

Hume denies all of this, insisting that substance is not a
metaphysical element, or innate idea, but just a name we give
to collections of impressions or ideas to hold them in mind
(essentially, it’s the reification of the complexity of a complex
idea).
What about the Soul?
The soul is commonly understood as a kind of
substance (and has been so since Aristotle).
 As Hume makes clear, his empiricist treatment
of substance has similar consequences for the
soul.
 Consciousness is composed of impressions and
ideas. For Hume, there is nothing more than
this to consciousness.
 All talk of an innate, inborn human nature, of a
special substance which makes us what we are,
is nonsense.

So, what are we?
According to Hume’s Principle, any idea of the
self must have it’s origin in a corresponding
impression, “But self or person is not any one
impression, but that to which our several
impressions and ideas are supposed to have a
reference.”
 As a result, we are forced to conclude that the
idea of the self or person is a fiction.
 All that we find, insists Hume, when we try to
'catch sight' of ourselves, are individual
impressions or ideas.

A Bundle of Perceptions
On this view, human beings are,
“…nothing but a bundle or collection of
different perceptions, which succeed each
other with…rapidity, and are in a
perpetual flux and movement.”
 Hume uses an interesting metaphor: the
mind as a kind of theater.

◦ However we need to avoid an easy confusion:
the mind is not a place—it is just the movie.
Test Case: Virtue and Vice
This account of human nature has clear
implications for Hume’s moral theory.
 We can begin to see this when we consider
Hume’s account of virtue.
 In a discussion of a paired set of virtue and vice
(humility and pride), Hume makes clear that
regardless of the source of the disposition (in
“natural and original principles” or “from interest
and education” (133), it is evidenced by a ‘feeling’
(of delight or uneasiness) that is the basis for our
expression of approval or disapproval (for our
judgment of its rightness or wrongness).

Of Morals
In Book III of the Treatise, Hume moves to confirm
this insight by considering the source of moral
judgments.
 Such judgments are clearly perceptions, and so the
question becomes: are they immediately rooted in
impressions or ideas.
 The deciding factor for Hume is the practical
character of such judgments: the fact that they are
aimed at action.
 Following Aristotle, he insists that the identification of
ideas with reason, coupled with reason’s inability to
constrain the will, means that morality must be
rooted in impressions (§6, p. 137), “Moral
distinctions…are not the offspring of reason (138).

No “Truth of the Matter”

This claim seems confirmed by the gap
Hume notes between questions of truth and
falsity and questions of right and wrong.
◦ The latter distinction is appropriately applied to
actions, which the former is not.

Right and wrong, and indeed all moral
judgments, are neither true nor false. They
are not facts (145). The wrongness of
murder lies not in the act, but in the
sentiments that arise in the subject in the
face of the act (cf. p 146).