Customer Reviews

A Treatise of Human Nature

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Be aware that the reviews for a book are displayed not only for one edition, but for all editions under the same title. The Oxford Philosophical Texts edition of Hume's "Treatise" should be the standard student edition. The Prometheus Books edition is cheap, but it does not include a modern introduction or any study notes. I recommend the Oxford Philosophical Texts version if you want or need more than just the raw text.

Since Hume's Treatise first appeared in 1739-1740, several distinct editions have been published. While most of these are fine for casual use, the Oxford University Press edition, recently prepared by David and Mary Norton, stands alone as an outstanding scholarly achievement. Their edition, at present only available in the Oxford Philosophical Texts student edition, will within the next year or so also be available in a scholarly edition (Oxford's Clarendon Edition). These two versions have the same text of the Treatise. The difference between them lies in their introductions and annotations, which are suited to different sets of readers. Part of the value of both versions lies in these exceptional introductions and annotations. The other part, though, involves the Nortons' editing of the text of the Treatise itself, which, ironically, makes their edition more accurate than Hume's original. While the original edition of the Treatise was being printed, Hume instructed the printer to make changes to the text, and thus some first editions read differently than others. The Nortons have compared first-edition copies of the Treatise page by page to locate these changes. Pen in hand, Hume also scribbled other changes into several printed copies of the Treatise; the Nortons have accounted for those alterations as well. These are just two examples of many editorial tasks that have gone into making this the definitive edition of Hume's Treatise, the edition which will remain the standard for decades. Let me add a word regarding the critical comments that an anonymous amazon.com reviewer made about the Nortons' edition ("A reader", January 18, 2003). This reviewer's comments may be well-meaning, but I can say with confidence there is little substance to her/his objections. The edition has been widely hailed as a triumph by Hume scholars and scholarly reviewers, and the philosophy editors at Oxford University Press tell me they are completely delighted with the work.

Before he chose to diddle away his later years writing book after book of history, playing house with Rousseau, annoying the religious authorities, and forging a lasting reputation as an all-around good guy, Hume dedicated his youth to writing the this book, which is nothing less than the single greatest work of philosophy in the English language. Indeed, I don't think there are even any other close competitors for that title. Naturally, then, this work was largely ignored during Hume's lifetime.

Notwithstanding the widely told, and somewhat accurate, standard story of the history of modern philosophy according to which Kant's rearguard action in response to Hume is the culmination of the modern period, I think that this book rather than Kant's First Critique is where it's at. Certainly, no book of modern philosophy compares to this complex, intricately argued, inspiring, maddening, imaginative, iconoclastic, encyclopedic tome when it comes to influence on contemporary philosophers in the Anglo-American analytic tradition. And while it's true that Kant's system is almost unparalleled in the breadth of its influence, defenders of the traditional story of modern philosophy need to remember that 'almost'. For it seems to me that, among the moderns, Hume got there first. He, and not Kant, is the first modernist whose importance is manifest in all the main areas of philosophy: epistemology (skepticism and the problem of induction), metaphysics (causation, personal identity, etc.), philosophy of mind (action theory, rationality) meta-ethics (meta-ethical subjectivism, proto-noncognitivism, reason vs. emotions, moral psychology, etc.), normative ethics (importance of benevolence, justice as an artificial virtue, etc.).

Want some evidence of Hume's pervasive influence? It's not just that everyone working in this tradition has read Hume, though they have. Nor is it just that Hume's stamp is all over the concerns and positions of contemporary philosophers, though it is. Nor is it just that Hume's influence is celebrated (or bemoaned) by pretty much every philosopher you come across, though that's true as well. No, the true measure of his intellectual ascendancy is that there's a position dubbed "Humean" in pretty much every area of philosophy, and, depending on one's view of the topic, it's either the obviously correct view--it was Hume's position, after all!--or a pernicious heresy for which no good arguments have been provided and for which there isn't good reason to think it was even Hume's actual position. You know you've made it when both the defenders of the status quo and those who can't abide that status quo claim you as their own.

Why is Hume so important? I think there are two reasons, each corresponding to one of the influential interpretations of Hume's work as a whole. The first interpretation of Hume's corpus sees it as shot through with a radical skepticism about anything and everything, and corresponding to this interpretation is a conception of Hume's importance as consisting in his occupying the place of the philosopher opponent of common sense par excellence. Hume, according to this interpretation, takes the empiricism of Locke, which in his hands looks like nothing so much as self-conscious common sense, and wields it as a weapon against more or less everything we tend to believe. That is, we should see Hume as taking up the empiricism of Locke and Berkeley and pushes it to its logical conclusion: a thoroughgoing skepticism. Think you can know there is a mind-independent world of physical objects? Think you're a single person who persists through time? Think things stand in causal relationships to one another? Think you can know whether the sun will explode tomorrow? You should think again, Hume says, and he's happy to show you why empiricism leads to this conclusion. So, if this is right, the importance of Hume's project consists in its status as a for rationalists, for non-skeptics of all stripes, and for all ordinary, right-thinking folks.

Now, undoubtedly, there's some truth in the stereotypical view of Hume as the young radical who took empiricism to its implausible limits. But this isn't where his true importance lies--at least not among contemporary philosophers. What has been most influential among contemporary exponents of the Anglo-American analytic tradition is Hume's unrepentant and radical naturalism. This interpretation of his project downplays Hume's skepticism and emphasizes his professed intentions to provide a positive account of the operation of the human mind that appealed to nothing beyond the evidence of our senses. According to proponents of this interpretation, Hume is most interested in a description of the operation of the human mind. He's describing what human nature allows us to know and what it doesn't allow us to know. Here Hume's importance consists not in his providing a challenge to the views of philosophers and of the hoi polloi, but in his providing us with a model of how philosophy should be done.

I feel that I've strayed somewhat from the topic of the book here, but I suppose that was inevitable. It would, of course, have been pointless to attempt to summarize Hume's arguments, or even his conclusions, in a review of this length. The only summary of this book's content that the reader needs is this: Hume discusses nearly everything of importance in philosophy, and his discussions of nearly every issue reveal an unsurpassed (and rarely equaled) level of philosophical brilliance.

To whom do I recommend this book? The answer, in short, is everyone. If you're even slightly interested in philosophy, you simply can't get by without reading this. If you're at all interested in the history of ideas, you need to read this. If you're the slightest bit curious about our modern worldview and its origin, it would be a good idea for you to read this. If you're interested enough in Hume to have come across this review and read it to this point, you'll want to read this.

Concerning editions of this book. I wish Amazon would separate the various editions of this book so I could review them separately, but they haven't. I'd recommend either the edition jointly edited by the Nortons and published in the Oxford Philosophical Texts series or the Selby-Bigge edition, which was for some time the standard edition of the Treatise.

The Oxford Philosophical Texts series bills itself as "complete editions for students," and the texts do live up to their promise. Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature" is an excellent text and resource for the student. David Fate Norton's Introduction itself is worth the price of the book. In addition to the Introduction, this edition includes Hume's "An Abstract of . . . A Treatise of Human Nature," Editor's Annotations to both the "Treatise" and the "Abstract," a glossary, and references cited by Hume and by the Editor. This edition should be the standard student edition of the "Treatise."

According to David Hume, the mind and body are integral units, with one unable to exist or operate without the other. There are no "innate" ideas, nor logically a priori knowledge, only sense impressions that arise out of direct experience of the five senses and concomitant sense ideas that arise in the imagination. The imagination (i.e., mind) then makes associations. From these various sense impressions and ideas, the imagination commingles the ideas with inferences from resemblance, contiguity, and causality. Examples: The imagination relates one sense impression and its concomitant sense idea with another when they share similar characteristics or resemble one another, such as in shape, height, weight, distance, proportion, color, etc. The imagination associates one sense impression and its concomitant sense idea with another when they are in close contiguity, such as proximity in time, place, situation, connection, succession, etc. Lastly, the imagination associates one sense impression and its concomitant sense idea with another when there appears to be some cause and effect, for example when one turns on a wall switch, and a light appears, or one turns a key in an ignition, and a car starts, or other causal inferences. Only from the sense ideas and impressions, commingled with the imagination's inferences of resemblance, contiguity, and causality, can any opinion or belief or knowledge be known. The difference between an opinion, belief, or knowledge is only one of degree, namely, how strong, convincingly, and lively (Hume uses the word "vivacity") the senses, their ideas, and the inferences work themselves out in the imagination. Generally, knowledge is reserved only for the strongest of degrees of inference, such as those verifiable and not refutable by inferential (cf., deductive) logic or experimentation; all else is either opinion or belief. But no knowledge, no matter how often repeated and examined inductively, is absolute; all knowledge, like opinion and belief, is contingent. For "absolute" knowledge once held the earth to be flat, to be the center of the universe, and non-rotating. Even Einstein's Theory of Relativity had to be revised by a Special Theory of Relativity. We still don't understand how the universe can be "full" and still "expanding," yet both are true (so far!). Only knowledge, belief, and opinion derived from the senses, their ideas, and imaginative inferences have merit; all other "imaginations," such as the deductive existence of a "God" or Supreme Being, absolute morals, or correct emotions, are merely speculative imaginations, and ultimately all such speculation leads to nothing more than myth or superstition, false dogmas, and irrational beliefs.

The passions, better known as either sensations or emotions, are derived from sense experience as well and are derived from the other sense impressions and sense ideas. Sensations are those experiences that arise within the imagination itself, based on something the body itself produces, such as hunger, pain, thirst, pleasure, and uneasiness. Emotions are those experiences that arise from the sensations and sense impressions and their concomitant sense ideas. The four principle emotions are: (1) Pride, and its opposite (2) Humility; (3) Love, and its opposite (4) Hatred. Pride and Love are desirable, whereas Humility and Hatred are undesirable. All other emotions are derived from, or are in one degree or another, always reducible to these four. Beauty, for example, is the love of something well-figured and loved for its own sake, while ugliness is something disfigured or ill-figured and hated. Anger is a form of hatred, while happiness is a form of either Pride or Love or both. Jealousy is a form of hatred (of another), while compassion is a form of Love. All emotions, when considered in their origins, have these four emotions as their foundation; it's all a matter of degree and kind.

There is no absolute morality; no moral principle can be deductively arrived at (except to be pure speculation). Morals can only be inferred from the two principles of (1) maximize pleasure and (2) avoid pain. These principles are natural inclinations of the body itself, not derived from logic or reason (i.e., speculation), but by verifiable experimentation, inferred from experience itself, especially the emotions of pride, humility, love, and hatred. We like to be loved, we despise to be hated, so we do those things that maximize these natural inclinations, because we want pleasure and to avoid pain, and they alone are what count as "moral." All virtue is that which brings us pleasure; all vice is that which brings us pain. For example, we are just to one another, not because we ought to be, but because we desire that being just toward others will merit other's affection, whereas being unjust will cause others to avoid us; the first is pleasurable, the latter is painful. We respect each other's property because it brings us mutual pleasure to enjoy the fruits of our own labor, whereas it causes us pain to have our property taken from us. The origin of government is from the experience where doing things socially imparts pleasure, whereas doing things in isolation causes pain. No one is an island, is true. Warding off an enemy as an individual forces the individual to bear all the weight, thus causing pain. Fighting the enemy together fosters our mutual interests (i.e., pleasure), and allows all to participate in the fruits of individual endeavors. We benefit from mutual cooperation, which good government ought to foster, whereas we lose and experience pain when we try to fight all battles by our own selves. There really is benefit in "numbers," to having more people in favor of the things we collectively sponsor and work hard for, and are opposed to those things that oppress. Showing how "each person benefits by collective effort" is how to operate good government; showing "how each person loses by individual effort alone" is another good reason for government. Government's sole function and purpose is to advance the collective cooperation, wherein each individual ultimately flourishes (and brings pleasure).

That's an overstatement, certainly, but David Hume's 'Treatise of Human Nature' is unquestionably one of the most influential and important works of philosophy in the history of mankind. And considering current trends in academia, it is more timely than ever. As an undergraduate, I remember being stunned by Hume's seemingly irrefutable arguments on the nature of reason and reality. As a graduate student often disturbed by the uncritical acceptance of faddish theories, I was amazed to find that Hume is as relevant today as he was over two hundred and fifty years ago. Within the first few pages of the book, he manages to outline an intellectual framework that even today makes the arguments of the most highly-regarded theorists sound hollow and jargonistic.

Hume's ideas are now so widely accepted and taught that they affect the way we interact with the world on a daily basis, whether we realize it or not. Yet Hume was also groundbreaking in another sense-- he made profound philosophical ideas accessible, and even entertaining. Not only is the 'Treatise' notable for its clarity, but for a wit and charm that make it nearly as pleasant to read as Dumas' 'Three Musketeers.' No mean feat for a man recording ideas that would shape the course of Western civilization. Small wonder that even as philosophers acknowledge him as one of the greats of the discipline, so many have sought to emulate his clear prose, free as it is of jargon, neologisms, or esoteric concepts.

And as if that weren't enough, Hume was such a decent and well-liked individual in his own lifetime that he was referred to as 'le bon David' in France and 'St. David' in his native Scotland. It's a shame that not all of history's giants can be so appealing.

I have had this book for about a year now and I would say it is still the most helpful I have found for reading Humes' Treatise. Everything is explained well and completely, but it is the depth that impresses me, not only are the concepts explained with clarity, but in places where a point relates to an earlier concept it is noted down to the paragraph of where it appeared. Also when another philosophers view is similar or conflicts with Humes own view it is noted. The annotations in the back of the book alone by their helpfulness would give this book 5 stars, but the introduction is about as close as I have seen to a complete summary of Humes book without having to buy another book entirely. Overall the author has a good understanding of the text and can relate it to the student.

These reviews (with two notable exceptions) are as likely to turn the interested reader away from this eminently readable, enjoyable, prescient, sui-generis philosophical bomb shell of a book as anything I've ever read. - Isn't there a "philosophical forum" here on Amazon where one can vent one's petty quibbles about which version constitutes the "definitive" Hume? - Hume's Treatise is so refreshing and full of joie de vivre in comparison with any other philosophical work that all this squabbling seems quite out of keeping with the tenor of the work.

So, why do I think you should read Hume? As Hume states in the Introduction, philosophy was, and remains in such a state that "Principles taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduc'd from them, want of coherence in the parts, and of evidence in the whole, these are everywhere to be met with in the systems of the most eminent philosophers, and seem to have drawn disgrace upon philosophy itself."
It is my simple intention here to give the prospective reader examples of a few of the sacred philosophical cows Hume topples in order to whet his/her appetite. This is an Amazon review, after all, not a tedious dissertation:

1.) Cause And Effect - This is the notion which Hume is most famous for exploding. Various philosophers, most notably Kant, have attempted to upright this particular cow since its toppling, but to little effect. Our whole notion of cause and effect, says Hume, is based on our experience of the "constant conjunction" of events in our experience. When you release a ball from your hand, you, quite sensibly, expect it to fall to the floor. But there is no "necessary cause" involved. There is no reason that it might not fly up heavenwards the next time you do so. As Hume puts it in his whimsical manner, "One wou'd appear ridiculous, who wou'd say, that `tis only probable the sun will rise to-morrow, or that all men must dye; tho' `tis plain we have no further assurance of these facts, than what experience affords us." Stating it more properly, "We may observe that the supposition `the future resembles the past' is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is derived entirely from habit, by which we are determined to expect for the future the same train of objects, to which we have become accustom'd." So much for that grand philosophical notion of necessary cause!

2.) The Self - I'll let Hume do the talking here: "For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call `myself', I always stumble upon some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch `myself' at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions are remov'd for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of `myself', and may truly be said not to exist." Hume then whimsically mentions that there may be "some metaphysicians" that have such an idea apart from perception, knowing full well that the entire philosophical community clung to this notion of an intransient self. All one has to do; it seems to me, is to look at one's baby pictures and to try to discern if there is any immutable "self" that has survived from the time the picture was taken and the present moment. This notion of the transient "self" or of many coexisting "selves", it might be well to mention, is explored even more deeply by Proust.

3.) The Soul-I think it well to put this matter into some historical context. Today, such matters are explained by "faith" or some other notion not in the realm of philosophy. One is "surprised by joy" or something of the sort. Such an approach was unthinkable to Hume's contemporaries, and all manner of proofs for the existence of God and the soul abounded. Hume dismisses all of these: "Thus neither by considering the first origin of ideas, nor by means of a definition are we able to arrive at any satisfactory notion of substance; which seems to me a sufficient reason for abandoning utterly that dispute concerning the materiality and immateriality of the soul, and makes me even condemn the question itself."

I hope I've given in this brief overview covering so few topics so briefly, as befits an Amazon review, how instructive, original, thought-provoking and FUN it is to read Hume's Treatise, even if you disagree with him. As Hume puts it: "Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous."

Hume's `Treatise on Human Nature', the book, which, in the report of the author "fell stillborn from the press", and yet remains of continuing interest to us four centuries hence, is, among all else, the primordial exposition of a systematic psychology in the West. Hume's elevation of "the passions" ("Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.") and centralization of intentionality in the study of ourselves, are as significant contributions to the modern turn, more specifically, the transition to late modernity, as are the fruits of his more notorious skeptical detachment and trenchant empiricism and naturalism. Of all the so-called classical empiricists, none prefigures those characteristically late modern naturalist, positivist, analytic, and, to an extent, pragmatist, and even (surprisingly) existentialist outlooks as clearly as Hume. Also, the profound impact of Hume, the social scientist, on social organization and social forms is indisputable. In this work, Hume fathers the concept of rule utilitarianism (he was the original modern occidental utilitarian), the most influential articulation of which is found in the U.S. Constitution, established little more than a decade after his death in 1776.

The celebrated Selby-Bigge/Nidditch edition is, for the general reader or undergraduate, at under $5, still a terrific value. Why? First and foremost, the Index: among the best ever! Hume is complex. While his initial presentation is often (intentionally, I'd say) disarmingly direct, the justifications for and commentary on the ramifications of his assertions often engender and weave into vast and subtle conceptual patterns, which meander over a 662 page corpus of text. The index locates and situates the basic concepts and allows the individual to structure the reading. Incredibly useful -- as one may not wish to read all of Hume or all of Hume at once! More likely, the prospective reader is searching for a very specific concept or issue, and the precise and comprehensive Index makes penetration of what is in many places a difficult and arcane text quite doable.

the treatise is a masterpiece in every sense of the word, but the Nortons have done a disservice to the academic community with this edition. their editorial section, which comprises a solid third of this edition, is extremely subpar. i've even heard that many Hume scholars have demanded that Oxford recall the critical text that was published as a companion to this edition. the oxford edition of the enquiry's is just fine, but i would recommend the sellby-bigges edition of the treatise instead of this one.