In this article I shall attempt to place Ernest Hemingway in an intellectual tradition that continues to exert enormous influence on our civilization. The paradox of placing Hemingway, of all people, in an intellectual tradition will be dealt with in passing. What I wish to do straightaway is to say what I mean by an intellectual tradition; I shall then sketch the particular tradition I have in mind; the body of the article will be devoted to substantiating the thesis that Hemingway belongs to this tradition. By way of conclusion I shall say why I believe this kind of thesis, the establishment of which requires a combination of philosophical and literary analysis, is important.

It is not all that easy to say what is meant by an intellectual tradition in the present context. It does not refer to a single, unified philosophical system but rather to a set or series of philosophical systems that hang together naturally because of certain assumptions or methodological principles common to all of them. It is a fairly loose mesh of ideas the various strands of which represent distinct lines of development but nevertheless interconnect and sustain each other in certain important respects. The three main strands of the tradition to which I shall assign Hemingway are empiricism, behaviourism and naturalism. It will be necessary to say briefly what each is or stands for and why they can be considered as amounting jointly to a distinctive pattern of ideas.

Traditional British empiricism received its classical statement from David Hume and it is to Hume that I shall refer in outlining this philosophical option. The importance empiricism places on the senses and on sensations — what Hume calls ‘impressions’ — is vital. The contents of the mind are divided into ‘impressions’ and ‘ideas’, and ideas are said to derive from impressions.