>Sam wrote to Nicole:
>
>>Check out David Hume:
>>
>>"When we run over our libraries persuaded of these principles, what
>>havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or
>>school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask Does it contain any
>>abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain
>>any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No.
>>Commit it to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and
>>illusion."
>>Enquiry Into Human Understanding final paragraph.
>
>One thing that always struck me is that second-generation
>postmodernists (& later models) seldom exhibit any familiarity with
>primary philosophical texts (Plato, Kant, Rousseau, Hegel, etc.) on
>which first-generation postmodernists -- Derrida & Co. -- make
>endless marginal comments. That said, Hume has been seldom
>commented upon by first-generation postmodernists, even though Hume
>probably stands the closest to the postmodern worldview, especially
>his combination of the Separability Principle & the Conceivability
>Principle, which leads to the reification of perceptions (in the
>postmodern case the reification of discourse): "We may observe that
>what we call a _mind_, is nothing but a heap or collection of
>different perceptions....Now as every perception may...be consider'd
>as separably existent...it evidently follows, that there is no
>absurdity in separating any particular perception from the mind;
>that is, in breaking off all its relations, with that connected mass
>of perceptions, which constitutes a thinking being" (_A Treatise of
>Human Nature_, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1978, p.207). According to Hume,
>causes and effects are not necessarily connected (causes and effects
>are separable), so it is conceivable that causes exist without
>effects *and* effects exist without causes. Nothing is logically
>dependent for its existence on anything else (an effect of commodity
>fetishism at its most extreme). John Cook illustrates the logical
>consequence of Hume's position:
>
>"Indeed if we take Hume at his word, we must take him to be saying
>that he would see no absurdity in Alice's remark: 'Well! I've often
>seen a cat without a grin, but a grin without a cat! It's the most
>curious thing I ever saw in all my life!" (John Cook, "Hume's
>Scepticism with regard to the Senses," _American Philosophical
>Quarterly_ 5 [1968], p. 8).
>
>Hume was, however, not interested in pursuing the logic of his
>argument to radical scepticism of the Pyrrhonian kind (and its
>recommended attitudes of epoche & ataraxia -- suspending judgement
>for the Pyrrhonian sceptics meant living without belief [dogma] and
>hence with tranquility). "Thus the sceptic still continues to
>reason and believe, even tho' he asserts that he cannot defend his
>reason by reason; and by the same rule he must assent to the
>principle concerning the existence of body, tho' he cannot pretend
>by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity. Nature has
>not left this to his choice..." (_Treatise_, p. 187).
>Postmodernists don't even want to concede this much. They'd rather
>go down the rabbit hole and play with the Cheshire Cat (the world
>disappears into discourse, and discourse achieves Platonic
>independence from the world and human beings).
>
>Yoshie
So why haven't post-modernists taken Hume seriously? Especially since
a lot of what I read from them sounds like it was cribbed from Hume?
Brad DeLong
