Hume (The Arguments of the Philosophers)

293 Pages·1981·0.82 MB·English

by  Barry Stroud

HUME
The Arguments of the Philosophers
EDITED BY TED HONDERICH
Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic
University College, London
The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary
assessment and history of the entire course of philosophical thought.
Each book constitutes a detailed, critical introduction to the work
of a philosopher of major influence and significance.
Already published in the series:
Ayer John Foster

Augustine Christopher Kirwan
J.L.Austin Geoffrey Warnock
* Bentham Ross Harrison
* Berkeley George Pitcher
Bergson A.R.Lacey
Butler Terence Penelhum
* Descartes Margaret Dauler Wilson
Dewey J.E.Tiles
Gottlob Frege Hans Sluga
Hegel M.J.Inwood
Hobbes Tom Sorell
Husserl David Bell
William James Graham Bird
* Kant Ralph C.S.Walker
Kierkegaard Alastair Hannay
* Karl Marx Allen Wood
John Stuart Mill John Skorupski
G.E.Moore Tom Baldwin
* Nietzsche Richard Schacht
Peirce Christopher Hookway
* Plato J.C.B.Gosling
* Karl Popper Anthony O’Hear
* The Presocratic Philosophers Jonathan Barnes
Reid Keith Lehrer
* Russell R.M.Sainsbury
* Sartre Peter Caws
* Schopenhauer D.W.Hamlyn
* Socrates Gerasimos Xenophon Santas
Spinoza R.J.Delahunty
* Wittgenstein Robert J.Fogelin
* (cid:147)Available in Paperback
HUME

Barry Stroud

London and New York
First published 1977
by Routledge & Kegan Paul plc

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.

© 1977 Barry Stroud
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 0-203-16905-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-26441-X (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-03687-9 (Print Edition)
FOR SARAH,
BOOKLOVER

Contents
Preface ix
I The Study of Human Nature 1
II The Theory of Ideas 17
III Causality and the Inference from the Observed to
the Unobserved: The Negative Phase 42
IV Belief and the Idea of Necessary Connection:
The Positive Phase 68
V The Continued and Distinct Existence of Bodies 96
VI The Idea of Personal Identity 118
VII Action, Reason and Passion 141
VIII Reason, Passion and Morality 171
IX Morality and Society 193
X Problems and Prospects of Humean Naturalism 219
Notes 251
Bibliography 271
Index 277

vii

Preface
In this book I try to provide a comprehensive interpretation of Hume’s
philosophy and to expound and discuss his central problems against
the background of that general interpretation. But there are several
ways in which the task had to be limited. Hume had important things
to say on almost every question of human concern.
I say nothing, for example, about religion, and that is a serious
omission since the topic was of life-long importance to Hume, both
philosophically and, in another way, personally. Nor do I consider any
of his philosophical writings about economics. Of Hume’s politics I
discuss only the most general features of the theory of society and
government. His detailed treatment of particular passions or emotions
is ignored, but I do discuss at some length the role of what he calls
‘passions’ in the production of human action, and therefore in morality.
I also say nothing about his historical writings, although on the general
interpretation I offer they can be seen as much more of a piece with his
philosophical work than has usually been supposed. But these
limitations of subject-matter were necessary in order to deal more fully
with what must be regarded as the most fundamental parts of Hume’s
philosophy.
In discussing those central parts I do not try to give an exhaustive
treatment of Hume’s views or of the philosophical issues in question.
My aim throughout is to illustrate and support the general
interpretation by particular instances of its application, and thereby to
show how Hume’s views on those fundamental questions are best to be
understood and evaluated. If I am even partly successful I hope it will
be apparent how much of what has come to be the conventional
wisdom about Hume and the defects of his views is mistaken or
misguided. I do not suggest that those views are ultimately defensible,
ix