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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
In this paper I examine Hume's theory of the emotions, as presented in his Treatise of Human Nature, paying particular attention to what he has to say about the relationships between emotion and thought. I begin by presenting, in some detail, Hume's views about the nature of the emotions, their causes, and their objects. I then consider the bearing of the private language argument on Hume's theory, and try to show that it is not sufficient to reveal the weaknesses in Hume's account of the connections between emotion and thought. Lastly, and most extensively, I attempt to show that Hume's account of these connections is in fact unacceptable, and I argue that his basic mistake is that of construing emotions as sensations. Along the way I sketch in the outlines of what I take to be a more adequate theory of emotion and thought.
1 On several main points my description of Hume's theory agrees with those presented in Àrdal, Páll S., Passion and Value in Hume's Treatise (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966), esp. pp. 7–40,Google Scholar and in Kenny, Anthony, Action, Emotion and Will (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), pp. 20–28Google Scholar. Despite this agreement, however, another description of Hume's theory of the emotions is required for two reasons. First, several quite interesting features of Hume's theory of the connections between emotions and thought are not discussed by either Àrdal or Kenny, and deserve to be noticed. Some of these are, as I shall argue, suggestive of a theory more adequate than that which Hume actually provides. Second, the most recent discussion of Hume's theory (Paul J. Dietl, “Hume on the Passions,“ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, [1968], 554-566) is a sustained critique of the kind of interpretation of Hume which Àrdal and Kenny develop. To reveal the unacceptability of Dietl's interpretation, however, requires a more detailed examination of Hume's theory than either Àrdal or Kenny provide.
2 All page references in parentheses are to Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge, L.A. (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1964)Google Scholar. Unless otherwise indicated, all italics are Hume's.
3 The passage continues: “When I am angry, I am actually possest with the passion, and in that emotion have no more a reference to any other object, than when I am thirsty, or sick, or more than five foot high” (415). Kenny claims that in this passage “Hume denies very explicitly the intensionality of the passions.” Kenny, p. 25N. It seems to me, however, that though Hume does deny the intentionality of the emotions, as I shall argue later, he does not do so in the passage which Kenny cites. In this passage, as the context makes clear, Hume is claiming not that emotions have no objects (in the contemporary intentionalist's sense) but that they are not appropriately described as either true or false. Indeed, Hume could well be an intentionalist in the contemporary sense, yet insist on the truth of his present point. Further, it is surely not the case that Hume is here denying that emotions have objects in his sense of “object.” Whether Hume's concept of objects is sufficient to reveal the intentionality of the emotions is a question I shall raise in section 3 of this paper.
4 In Hume's sense of “simplicity” an impression can be simple yet resemble other impressions. For a discussion of the tenability of this doctrine see Passmore, John, Hume's Intentions (London: Gerald Duckworth and Co., 1968), pp. 108f.,Google Scholar and Àrdal, pp. 12f.
5 The case of pity causes Hume to modify this condition in an interesting way. See Treatise, p. 381.
6 These thoughts, as we shall see, are thoughts of what Hume calls the “objects” of the emotions.
7 It is significant that, in defending his interpretation of Hume's theory of the emotions, Dietl rejects the appropriateness of applying this typically Humean doctrine, defended in Book I of the Treatise, to the theory of Book II. It is significant, too, that he attempts to play down the associationist, and thus empirical, character of Hume's account of the emotions. Dietl, pp. 563, 566.
8 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, trans. Anscombe, G. E. M. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), p. 476Google Scholar.
9 Dietl, for one, asserts that Hume is committed to the intentionality of the emotions. Dietl, p. 564.
10 In effect I shall argue that one must distinguish two quite independent lines of criticism of a theory of emotions like Hume's, one having to do with privacy, the other with intentionality. The failure to make this distinction imports important confusions into the discussion. Kenny seems subject to these confusions in his comments on Descartes’ theory of the emotions. See Kenny, pp. 13·14.
11 For an extended discussion of this point see Locke, Don, Myself and Others (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1968), chapter 5, esp. pp. 99–100Google Scholar.
12 Geach, Peter, Mental Acts (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), pp. 3–4Google Scholar.
13 Gardiner, Patrick, “Hume's Theory of the Passions,” in David Hume: A Symposium, ed. Pears, D. F. (London: Macmillan, 1966), p. 40Google Scholar.
14 Though Hume is primarily concerned to make an empirical investigation of the several emotions, and pays little attention to the analysis of the language of the emotions, he is clearly committed to the view that there is correlation between the ordinary English names of the several emotions, and the occurrence of the appropriate sui generis impressions. Thus: “as these words, pride and humility, are of general use, and the impressions they represent the most common of any, every one, of himself, will be able to form a just idea of them, without any danger of mistake” (277). One may justifiably, then, make against Hume the kind of objections which I am presently making.
15 This point is similar to one made by Ryle, Gilbert in The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchison, 1949), pp. 104–105Google Scholar.
16 Compare Gosling, J. C., “Emotion and Object,” The Philosophical Review, 74 (1965), 503CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 Hume, David, “A Dissertation on the Passions,” Essays, Literary, Moral, and Political (London: Ward, Lock and Co., n.d.), p. 389Google Scholar.
18 As noted earlier, p. 54f., it is Hume's view that the pleasantness or painfulness of emotions explains the role which reference to them plays in the explanation of human actions. This holds whether the emotion is, in Hume's words, “calm” or “violent.” Here it is tempting to suggest that the “violence” of an emotion is a matter of the sensations that accompany it. It is not the occurrence of these sensations which explains the behaviour resulting from the emotion, but the pleasantness or painfulness of the emotion itself. Compare Hume's contrast between the “violence” and the “strength” of an emotion (418 ).