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Ainslie Hume's True Scepticism

2018, Journal of Scottish Philosophy

Ainslie's Hume's True Scepticism interprets Book I, Section 4 of David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, "Of the sceptical and other types of philosophy," as a mock-autobiographical paradigm shift, from "false" to "true" philosophy. According to Ainslie, Hume begins the work by analyzing vulgar approaches to sense experience, beliefs in physical substances, and beliefs

Ainslie, Donald C. Hume’s True Scepticism (Oxford University Press, 2015). Ainslie’s Hume’s True Scepticism interprets Book I, Section 4 of David Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature, “Of the sceptical and other types of philosophy,” as a mock-autobiographical paradigm shift, from “false” to “true” philosophy. According to Ainslie, Hume begins the work by analyzing vulgar approaches to sense experience, beliefs in physical substances, and beliefs about identities of objects over time. As expected, Ainslie depicts Hume concluding that vulgar opinions--that objects of perception are physical substances and properties rather than mere ideas, that sensible properties inhere in otherwise insensible substances, and that substances persist through time and space--arise from seemingly arbitrary mental habits and imagination rather than rational reflection or bonafide discovery. According to Ainslie, Hume comes to understand the objects of vulgar perceptions as concoctions of mental “images” grouped by imagined causal and spatial associations. These “vulgar objects” are the subjects of public discourse, vulgar thought, and so on (101). Thus, Hume finds the vulgar to be, strictly speaking, in error, but benignly so (108). The vulgar approach is functional, even if the vulgar cannot justify their views all the way down. For many readers, although perhaps not for experienced Hume scholars, Ainslie’s next moves will come as a surprise. Hume turns his philosophical weaponry on his own mind. Reconsidering philosophical understandings of perception and memory, especially the ideas formed of these mental operations, Hume concludes that perceptions consist of imagined causal and spatial associations and are therefore vulgar objects (131). That is, the philosophy that deconstructs vulgar accounts of property bearing, spatially related, temporally enduring substances depends itself on an account of the mind wherein the mind is imagined as a property bearing, non-spatial, temporally enduring substance. Philosophers err in roughly the same manner as the vulgar but regarding different subject matter. Ainslie reads the last section of Book I of Hume’s Treatise as an autobiographical realization, that his own ideas of perceptions and his self (or mind) are likely nothing more than concoctions of certain ideas, “bundled” by causal, spatial, and temporal associations. This is the inevitable outcome of the analysis begun by the philosopher’s critical analysis of vulgar opinion. The vulgar cannot justify their views all the way down, but neither can the philosopher. As Ainslie takes Hume, the conclusion is devastating (Treatise 1.4.7.8), at least at first. Ultimately, Hume makes his peace with philosophy’s internal failings. In the same way that the vulgar approach to substances turns out to be benign, so also is the philosopher’s approach to perception, the self, and the other “mind internal” elements that feature in the philosopher’s analysis (149-150). According to Ainslie, Hume’s transition, from philosophical criticism of the vulgar to enlightened acceptance that vulgar error is inevitable, is the evolution from “false” to “true” philosophy. And just as the vulgar continue to function in the face of their benign errors, so the philosopher may, if he chooses, continue to pursue the philosophical project. The true philosopher recognizes that as he philosophizes, he relies on habits and imagination as much as rationality, he treats the self and perception as the vulgar treat physical objects, and he understands that his conclusions hardly constitute an intellectual orthodoxy of any significant sort. He satisfies his philosophical curiosity in a merely superficial way, as a true and responsible sceptic. Ainslie organizes Hume’s True Scepticism into a preliminary Introduction and eight exegetical chapters. The first chapter outlines Hume’s path to scepticism. Chapters 2 and 3 trace Hume’s treatment of the vulgar notion of substance that leads to sceptical challenges. Chapter 4 is a highlight for anyone interested in Hume’s take on the relative pecking order of epistemic faculties. Based on parallel approaches to Treatise sections 1.4.1 and 1.4.2., Ainslie finds Hume leveling the same criticisms at both sense and reason. Chapters 5 and 6 interpret Hume’s comments about “ancient” and “modern” philosophers, completing his cases against substance metaphysics as well as modern understandings of the self-conscious mind. Ainslie highlights Hume’s bundle theory of the self as of particular importance. The book reaches its climax in Chapter 7, which offers an original interpretation of Treatise section 1.4.7. Ainslie is at his best here, moving quickly and clearly through Hume’s text as well as a variety of competing interpretations. As explained above, Ainslie treats the passage as an autobiographical progression from so-called false to true philosophy. Hume realizes that his project is plagued by internal contradiction, experiences a few moments of panic and despair, and then realizes that he can continue philosophizing so long as he does so with proper humility. Contra Plato, philosophy is not a special approach to life’s problems. It, like the vulgar approach, cannot account for its ultimate justification. But has a special appeal for the philosopher, so Hume can proceed to Books II and III. Chapter 8 addresses a peculiar passage in Hume’s “Appendix” to the Treatise, which Ainslie links to Hume’s earlier conclusion that the mind is essentially a “vulgar” object, nothing more than a bundle of perceptions. The most important shortcomings of Hume’s True Scepticism are stylistic. Apart from Chapter 7, its cumbersome sentence structures, limited metanarrative, and sparse summary passages tend to tax the reader. Some footnotes are needlessly long (for example, p. 220 n. 5 is eight paragraphs). It is difficult to imagine an undergraduate or many graduate students trudging through 267 pages of detailed analysis concerning only 58 pages of original text without better guideposts. Consequently, Ainslie’s work is best suited to the experienced Hume scholar, particularly one who loses sleep over the proper interpretation of the last section of Book I of Hume’s Treatise. It may also pay significant dividends to historical philosophers specializing in Reid, Kant, and others who follow in Hume’s wake. Since Ainslie’s Hume reads more like an eighteenth century Wittgenstein or Richard Rorty: completing his philosophical exercises only to discover that philosophy lacks the significance he originally attributed to it but also seeing value in philosophy’s ability to satisfy his personal taste for intellectual activity. Perhaps this Hume is not the villain of the Inquiry of the Human Mind. Various specialists will need to assess whether Ainslie’s reading of Hume has a significant bearing on how best to understand these later writers. Hume’s Scepticism features the binding and layout typical of Oxford University Press. Block quotes and footnotes are small but not difficult to read. The index includes subjects as well as names, and many referenced subjects include extensive subheadings.