Hume's Extreme Skepticism in Treatise I IV 7

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Hume's Extreme Skepticism in Treatise I IV 7Author(s): Ira SingerSource: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 595-622Published by: Canadian Journal of PhilosophyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40231929 .

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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY 595 Volume 25, Number 4, December 1995, pp. 595-622

Hume's Extreme Skepticism in Treatise I IV 71

IRA SINGER Northwestern University Evanston,IL 60208-1315 USA

Introduction

Hume finds himself in an appalling state during Treatise I iv 7 (the conclusion of Book I). He is almost bereft of beliefs; he believes, for a short time, only that he cannot believe anything else. But, being an assiduous student of human nature, Hume makes this extreme skeptical crisis into material for naturalistic study. He carefully reports how extreme skepticism comes about, what it is like, and how it passes.2 So

1 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, William Paterson College of New Jersey, and Wake Forest University; I owe thanks to the audiences at those places for useful discussions. I am grateful to John Carriero, Bob Fogelin, Ed Minar, Sam Scheffler, Barry Stroud, Mike Williams, and especially Janet Broughton, for helpful comments on and criticisms of various ancestral drafts.

2 Here I follow Fogelin, who argues that the Treatise supplies a 'natural history of philosophy' - a narrative of the phenomenological and causal sequences of philosophical states of mind. See Hume's Skepticism in the Treatise of Human Nature (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1985), Ch. 7. See also Fogelin's discussions in 'The Tendency of Hume's Skepticism,' in Burnyeat, ed., The Skeptical Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press 1983); and in 'Hume's Scepticism,' in The Cambridge Companion to Hume, David Fate Norton, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993).

Part of my aim in this paper is to supplement Fogelin by exploring in detail the natural history in I iv 7. But another part of my aim is to suggest, contra Fogelin, that extreme skepticism is a problem rather than a tool for Hume, and that Hume is better at developing extreme skepticism than he is at domesticating it.



596 Ira Singer

I iv 7 has two aspects: involved personal experience of a skeptical crisis, and detached naturalistic reflection on that crisis. Interpreting the text correctly requires taking both these aspects seriously.3

An old interpretive tradition ignores or downplays Hume's detached naturalistic reflections in I iv 7, and focuses only on his involved personal experience of skepticism. Oddly enough, interpretations in this tradition tend to treat Hume's experience dismissively and derisively. For instance, Thomas Reid notes that Hume philosophizes and is driven to skepticism 'only in solitude and retirement/ while in 'society' he yields 'to the dominion of common sense,' and remarks: 'Surely if his friends apprehended this, they would have the charity never to leave him alone.'4 But this joke is an unfair response to Hume. True, only solitude enables Hume to reflect, and so to experience extreme skepticism; but solitude also makes healthy non-skeptical reflection possible, so that the problem Hume presses on us is how to sustain reflection without invit- ing skepticism. Moreover, Hume does not present himself as subject to a special malady, as Reid's joke implies; Hume presents himself as a representative philosopher, engaging in full and free reflection and for that reason alone menaced by extreme skepticism. He then works hard to understand the character of extreme skepticism, and its entangle- ments with reflection in general. So Reid's premature ridicule of skepticism only threatens our chance to understand both skepticism and reflection better.

It is more common these days to take Hume's naturalism seriously, but ignore or downplay (or treat as a mere mask or stratagem) his personal experience of skepticism.5 But this treatment of the text, by focusing only on the fact that Hume the naturalist doesn't consider a permanent state of extreme skepticism to be a live (or livable) option, tends toward a telescoped account of Hume's states of mind in I iv 7. The generic telescoped account of I iv 7 is: 'Hume draws skeptical conclusions, and can't think of any way to refute them. Then he immerses himself in everyday life and returns to everyday belief, and that's it.' But

3 These two aspects of the text are matched by two roles for Hume. First, he is the subject of philosophical states of mind; second, he is the author writing about Hume the subject. I try to make clear, either by context or more directly, which of these roles the word 'Hume' picks out in different parts of this paper.

4 Reid, Inquiry and Essays (Indianapolis: Library of Liberal Arts 1975), 8-9

5 For a paradigm case of this sort of interpretation, see Chapter 1 of Strawson, Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties (New York: Columbia University Press

1985).



Hume's Extreme Skepticism in Treatise I IV 7 597

Hume really offers a far richer account of the skeptic's states of mind. Attending to this rich account of skepticism helps us to appreciate more fully both Hume's naturalism, and his naturalism's problems.

So Hume's detailed description of his skeptical experiences deserves close and balanced attention. As I read the description, it involves seven distinct phases.

I Psychological Stage-Setting

Hume begins I iv 7 in a doubly reflective mood: he has examined human cognition at length, is about to turn to other matters, and feels inclined to reflect on his results and his prospects. But from the start his reflections are negative. He remembers his 'past errors and perplexities,' and that memory convinces him that his faculties are weak, disordered, and altogether in a 'wretched condition' (264).

6 He sees that he cannot expect any support or comfort from other people; for his philosophy has placed him in a 'forlorn solitude' (264). He cannot mix with 'the crowd/ for as a philosopher he sees their 'deformity' (264). But no one will leave the crowd to join him in his unenviable position. Finally, his solitude does not - as it might - increase his assurance and determination. Without the 'approbation of others' (265), he has no confidence in his own reasoning, but instead dreads 'error and absurdity.' All these reflections flow from and reinforce Hume's 'melancholy' and 'despair' (264), and predispose him to skepticism.

This epistemological pessimism engulfs Hume suddenly, and fits badly with much of Book I. Indeed, someone who has read all of Book I except for the Conclusion might reasonably put these words in Hume's mouth: 'having refuted metaphysical conceptions of the understanding and having sketched a proper scientific account of that phenomenon, I am eager to extend the science of human nature by examining the passions and morality.' How, then, are we to understand Hume's pessimistic turn? Perhaps in this way: in Book I Part iv, he has seen skeptical arguments (about reason, body, personal identity) triumph again and again. Each time he has maintained his optimism about cognition by noting that the skeptic's triumph must be ephemeral. But by I iv 7 Hume's 'sentiments' have been transformed; because of his extended study of skepticism triumphant, despair has displaced hope, and he is

6 All parenthetical page references in the text are to the Selby-Bigge/Nidditch edition of the Treatise (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1978).



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ready to think the worst about human cognition, even before reflecting on particular skeptical arguments. Presently, I will suggest that this sort of pessimistic turn about cognition is not arbitrary; instead, it (or, at least, its possibility) bears an internal relation to investigating cognition naturalistically. For now, he important point is that Hume's description of extreme skepticism is itself naturalistic - causal - from the ground up: he sets the stage for reviewing extreme skeptical arguments by describing the history and the states of mind that render him receptive to those arguments.

II The Triumph of Extreme Skepticism

In the second phase of Hume's skeptical progress, he roundly condemns the imagination, the human faculty that is crucial if we are to get and retain many beliefs, and so he plunges into extreme skepticism.

Hume reaches extreme skeptical conclusions by citing and reflecting on arguments from Parts iii and iv of Treatise Book I. But before citing these arguments, he attacks human cognitive faculties in general (not merely, as in the psychological stage-setting I have just discussed, his own cognitive faculties). The attack is twofold: first, he laments his lack of any 'criterion' of truth (265). Second, he laments what's left to him (and to the rest of us), namely 'a strong propensity to consider objects strongly in that view, under which they appear to me' (265). This propensity is the imagination's crucial feature; without the propensity we could have only beliefs about the uninterpreted contents of present consciousness.7 Yet Hume attacks the propensity as 'seemingly ... so trivial, and so little founded on reason' (265), at the same time that he emphasizes the crucial role it plays in ordinary belief.8

7 See Treatise: 'the memory, senses, and understanding are, therefore, all of them founded on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas' (265).

8 Two readings of 'seemingly' are possible. On one reading, Hume foreshadows a naturalistic refutation of skepticism even as he gives his skeptical arguments. The imagination's tendency to enliven some ideas beyond others only seems trivial; rightly understood, the tendency is an original propensity of human nature, not subject to the skeptic's condemnation. Cf. John Immerwahr, 'A Skeptic's Progress: Hume's Preference for the First Enquiry/ in Norton, Capaldi, and Robison, eds., McGill Hume Studies (San Diego: Austin Hill Press 1979), 233. But if that's what Hume means by 'seemingly,' why doesn't this naturalistic argument against skepticism ever become explicit in I iv 7? Instead, the rest of I iv 7 confirms the negative epistemic assessment of the imagination (though of course it also emphasizes that this negative assessment can have no durable practical effect). Therefore, a different




This attack on the imagination is curious, just as Hume's pessimistic turn at the start of I iv 7 was curious. In the rest of Book I, Hume has shown that the imagination is a crucial faculty, without which human beings would have few beliefs. He could now underscore this positive naturalistic result. Instead, he suggests that the imagination is trivial, before citing any relevant arguments. Why does Hume attack, rather than extol, the imagination?9

The simplest answer is that Hume has in mind the arguments that (he believes) force us to think of the imagination as trivial. Perhaps that is the whole answer. But I think that there is also at work here an unacknow- ledged shift of attitude, a sudden move from thinking of the human constitution as epistemically enabling to thinking of it as epistemically disabling. To elaborate: once we have isolated and described any crucial, causally efficacious feature of human cognition, call it X, X will strike us in two different ways. Sometimes we will be glad that we have X, because it makes possible so many beliefs (or even so much knowledge). At other times, though, all our beliefs will seem threatened just because they rest on X, and X seems incapable of bearing so much weight. When X strikes us as thus insufficient or trivial, arguments against X will come to mind; the shift comes first, the arguments second. The shift makes entertaining the arguments possible, and makes them seem obviously right. Natural- istic epistemology will, then, make possible a pessimistic turn, which carries the seeds of extreme skepticism.10

reading of 'seemingly' is in order. On this second reading, that word points to: (1) the fact that the judgment of triviality is provisional, awaits confirmation (which it receives); and (2) the discrepancy between the small role we feel such a propensity should play in determining our beliefs, and the large role it in fact plays.

9 Note that Hume's derogation of the imagination in I iv 7 has a precedent. In I iv 2, on 217, he says that the qualities of imagination that lead us to believe in continued and distinct existence of objects (a natural, indispensable belief on Hume's account) are 'trivial.' Still, it seems to me that Hume makes the charge of triviality abruptly in both contexts. And in both contexts Hume might well have said: the imagination yields indispensable belief x, so is ipso facto not trivial.

10 To clarify two important points: (1) I am not arguing that all naturalists are stuck with pessimism and skepticism, but only that a form of pessimism that makes skepticism psychologically possible, and perhaps also argumentatively plausible, has a non-arbitrary connection to naturalism. (2) I do not try here to settle the issue how much of Hume's extreme skepticism flows only from his naturalistic commitments as deformed by the 'theory of ideas,' and how much of it flows from other features of his naturalistic commitments. I assume that something other than the theory of ideas does some work in driving Hume to skepticism - partly because, of the three skeptical arguments Hume cites in I iv 7, only that broached in I iv 4



600 Ira Singer

Mapping this notion of a shift of attitude on to I iv 7 yields the following reading: Hume's pessimistic predisposition to think of the human constitution as an epistemic infirmity creates a tendency to lose all belief; that tendency is expressed and developed in slightly different forms in the different skeptical arguments. Hume's resistance to these arguments is perfunctory, his progress to skepticism smooth, because he is antecedently inclined to reach skeptical conclusions. According to this reading, then, Hume takes the crucial step in his skeptical progress at the margins of the text; so that, if we are to understand and criticize skepticism in a way that does justice to Hume, we must ultimately focus not on his detailed skeptical arguments, but on the character (and aptness) of his initial pessimistic shift.11

However, even if the detailed skeptical arguments Hume cites in I iv 7 play their role only after a pessimistic shift, still their role is essential: they turn epistemic pessimism into skeptical despair, they cause Hume's suspect beliefs to cease to be beliefs.12 So, continuing the task of looking closely at Hume's narrative of his states of mind in I iv 7, we need to see what these arguments are and how they do their work.

Hume cites three skeptical arguments in I iv 7. He arranges them so that the second argument removes hopes we are left with after the first, and the third removes hopes we are left with after the second, so that at the end we are deprived of all cognitive hopes.

seems to me to depend irrevocably on the theory of ideas; and partly because Hume seems inclined to think that any 'anatomizing' can 'trivialize/ On this last matter see (a) Treatise III iii 6, 620-1; and (b) Hume's letter of 17 September 1739, to Hutcheson, in Grieg, ed., The Letters of David Hume (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1932), 32-3.

For a forceful statement of the position that Hume's skepticism depends entirely on the thorough deformation of his naturalism by the theory of ideas, see Martin Bell and Marie McGinn, 'Naturalism and Skepticism/ Philosophy 65 (1990) 399-418. Despite my prima facie disagreement with Bell and McGinn about the role of the theory of ideas, I agree with them that Hume's extreme skepticism is the ruin rather than the helpmate of his naturalism. I also find valuable their suggestion that the indispensable first step toward skepticism is a certain sort of open-mindedness: namely, the thought that it is after all possible, though unlikely, that fundamental parts of 'our ordinary outlook' are subject to a thoroughly negative theoretical assessment.

11 I say a bit more on this score in my concluding section; but my aim there is not to spell out an understanding of the pessimistic shift, but to add some support to the claim that the shift is what we need to understand.

12 For an illuminating account of extreme skepticism as the natural causal product of reason, see Janet Broughton, 'Hume's Skepticism about Causal Inferences,' Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64 (1983) 3-18.




The first argument, from I iv 4, says that the imagination is unreliable because its operation yields a manifest and irremediable contradiction. The imagination produces causal beliefs, by enlivening certain ideas beyond others when certain impressions are present to the mind. The imagination also, by following a convoluted and mistake-strewn path, produces the belief that objects continue to exist even when we do not perceive them, and exist distinct from our perception of them. These two operations of the imagination are, Hume says, 'equally natural and necessary' (266). And so far, so good, Hume suggests - even though the belief in continued and distinct existence has a dubious heritage, must bear the mark of the bar sinister.

But now an inescapably skeptical point emerges: 'in some circumstances' these 'equally natural and necessary' operations 'are directly contrary.' Why? Roughly because good causal reasoning tells us not to believe that secondary qualities are anything in the objects themselves, but we cannot conceive of primary qualities being in the objects themselves without conceiving of secondary qualities being in the objects themselves, so that good causal reasoning tells us that we cannot conceive of objects distinct from our perceptions. That is to say, if we reason causally and carefully, we render the continued and distinct existence of objects inconceivable, and so a fortiori incredible; and if we can conceive of and believe in continued and distinct existence, that can only be because of a failure in causal reasoning. The details here are obscure, and the argument might well tangle up conception and belief in fatally flawed ways. But details and flaws aside, the gist of the argument is this: the imagination, by means of two natural and necessary operations, produces two natural and necessary beliefs. We can have no grounds for preferring one belief to the other. But the beliefs directly contradict each other. This problem taints the faculty of the imagination in general, and so taints all its products (our beliefs).

With this first argument, if it is sound, Hume has already dealt human cognition a devastating blow; but worse is in store. For Hume's second argument destroys the fallback position we naturally take up after the first skeptical argument (or at least the fallback position he thinks we naturally take up). He describes that position in the following passage:

This contradiction in our reasoning would be more excusable, were it compensated by any degree of solidity and satisfaction in the other parts of our reasoning.... Nothing is more curiously enquir'd after by the mind of man, than the causes of every phaenomenon; nor are we content with knowing the immediate causes, but push on our enquiries, till we arrive at the original and ultimate principle. We wou'd not willingly stop before we are acquainted with that energy in the cause, by which it operates on its effect; that tie, which connects them together; and that efficacious quality, on which the tie depends. This is our aim in all our studies and reflections.... (266)



602 Ira Singer

The suggestion is this: if causal reasoning informs us of necessary connections, that in some measure compensates or consoles us for the skeptical discovery that the imagination produces contradictory beliefs. That skeptical discovery undercuts the rational status of our causal beliefs; but, if we can discover necessary connections, our causal inquiries still reach deeply satisfying results.13

Unfortunately, Hume notes, there are no necessary connections between events (as he has argued in I iii 14). There is only a feeling of necessity that we experience when passing from a present impression to the idea of its customary attendant, a feeling that we mistakenly project onto events or 'objects/ Our 'aim in all our studies and reflections' must then be thwarted, so that our causal reasoning yields no solid or satisfying results.14

Even after this second argument, though, we might have some hope for human cognition. So long as we continue to have causal beliefs, we are reposing faith in the products of a contradiction-generating faculty, and doing so for the sake of conclusions that are neither solid nor satisfying. Now we are so constituted that we cannot long avoid having causal beliefs; but we can set such beliefs aside for a short time. Suppose that we can, during this time when we are bereft of causal beliefs, retain other beliefs that are undeniably reasonable (in the sense that reason endorses the content of the belief).15 Then we would be able, after the

13 Hume presents his skeptical arguments as additive in this way, so that each destroys cognitive hopes that the previous one left intact. But we might well think that

'knowledge' of 'necessary connections' wouldn't furnish any solace if the faculty from which all beliefs (including beliefs about necessary connections) flow were irremediably unreliable. That is, we might think that the argument against the imagination already leaves us as badly off as we can be. So, Hume's presentation of the skeptical arguments aside, perhaps they are really best conceived of as assaults on cognition from different directions.

14 Why is it 'our aim in all our studies and reflections' to discern real necessary connections? Why must our more modest causal discoveries be unsatisfactory, insubstantial, beside the point somehow? Is this opinion about necessary connections another instance of (or product of) a shift of attitude?

15 Hume's use of 'reason' is notoriously slippery, and there have been fierce interpretive debates about whether and how Hume can think of some beliefs as reasonable. In broad terms and as a matter of overall interpretation, one can claim that Hume is in the end concerned about whether beliefs are reasonable to hold, that is whether the beliefs are useful for us, pleasant for us, or even inevitable for us. Or one can claim that he is primarily concerned to show, contra some species of rationalism, that reason does not generate our crucial beliefs. Or one can claim that Hume argues that reason impugns the content of our central beliefs - even when, as is the case with beliefs concerning matters of demonstration, the beliefs are both reasonable to




most skeptical inquiries, to avoid full-fledged extreme skepticism, because we would retain beliefs other than the extreme skeptical belief.16 We would have the satisfaction of discovering, and briefly following, a rigorously rational but non-skeptical policy with respect to belief: 'discard the beliefs in continued and distinct existence of objects, and in causes and effects, and for that matter in the accuracy of memory or in real personal identity, and retain only beliefs of the favored type.' True, because we would not be able to follow this policy for long, because it is not 'reasonable' or 'rational' in the sense of 'practical'; but it is a policy that will yield some beliefs whose content is endorsed by reason, and no beliefs of any other sort. It is, in short, a last-ditch defense against extreme skepticism, a defense possible in the closet only.

But what beliefs could be 'beliefs of the favored type'? There are two obvious candidates: (1) beliefs about the uninterpreted contents of present consciousness, and (2) beliefs produced by demonstrative reasoning. Hume does not even consider that (1) might be beliefs of the favored type, probably because he aims at avoiding extreme skepticism, and the belief that the present contents of consciousness are present seems too paltry a belief to count as non-skeptical. He does, though, wonder whether we can save some more significant beliefs from the ravages of skepticism by resolving 'to reject all the trivial suggestions of the fancy and adhere to the understanding' (267). To caricature the suggestion: we might save ourselves from both irrational belief and extreme skepticism by doing sums, and geometry, and logical proofs, until we either die or (what is far more likely) find nature compelling us to take up again the delusory beliefs of common life.

Now, though, human cognition encounters its final misfortune:

the understanding, when it acts alone, and according to its most general principles, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree of evidence in any propo- sition, either in philosophy or in common life. (267-8)

Hume refers here to the argument of I iv 1, 'Of Scepticism With Regard to Reason': we are fallible, and so must take into account the possibility of error in all our reasonings. Even demonstrative reasoning is subject

hold and produced by the faculty of reason. Or one can mix and match these interpretive claims. Here I only want to claim that, in his descent into extreme skepticism, Hume comes to think that reason condemns the content of his beliefs.

16 A reminder: I am conceiving of the extreme skeptic as believing only that she cannot (reasonably) believe anything else - or, at any rate, as not believing much more than that.



604 Ira Singer

to error, so that, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that everything we call 'knowledge' is really only probability. And, as we continue to reflect on the possibility that we have erred in our reasoning, including the possibility that we have erred in estimating our chances of error, the probability of the original belief - or, alternatively, our confidence in the original belief - must eventually be so diminished that we cease to hold the belief.

I want to leave to one side questions about how best to interpret this argument, or about how bad it is, or about how to reconstruct it. I want to consider only the role the argument plays in I iv 7, where Hume assumes it is cogent as can be. In I iv 7, the argument robs us of our only remaining hope for avoiding full-fledged extreme skepticism, for retain- ing some reasonable belief other than the skeptical belief itself. Non-trivial reason needs the trivial properties of the imagination, especially the imagination's tendency to avoid lengthy and abstruse reasoning, else reason is self-destructive. Thus, even our best candidate for a solid and satisfactory faculty is really drastically unsatisfactory; we can't be fully rational and retain beliefs other than the skeptical belief, even if we adopt the unnatural and impractical policy of adhering entirely to reason.

Hume has by now exhausted all rational resources against extreme skepticism. He tries, therefore, to invoke instead a natural resource: extreme skepticism is based on very refined reflections, and 'very ref in'd reflections have little or no influence upon us' (268). It is tempting to see in this observation the outline of a principled two-part response to extreme skepticism: (1) skeptical conclusions are necessarily idle, cannot influence us or remain in our minds for even a moment; and (2) the idleness of skeptical conclusions, though it does not refute skeptical arguments, does give us a sort of reason to ignore both arguments and conclusions.17 But both (1) and (2) are false to the text, and also just plain false.

Claim (2), that the idleness of skeptical conclusions gives us reason to ignore them, is false to the text because Hume is clear about the status of his claim 'very ref in'd reflections have little or no influence on us': it is at best the observation of a brute fact, and does not in any way entitle us to dismiss some or all refined reflections. For 'we do not, and cannot establish it for a rule, that they [refined reflections] ought not to have any influence' (268, my emphasis). Claim (2) is just plain false because Hume's evaluation is right: that a piece of reasoning does not affect us

17 See Strawson's discussion of Hume and Wittgenstein in Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties.




does not by itself imply that it ought not to affect us, that we have any good reason (of the requisite sort) to ignore it. (To have such a reason, we would need at least a further premise to the effect that, even in our closet-bound speculations, manifest contradictions matter not at all.)

Claim (1), that skeptical conclusions are necessarily idle, is false to the text because Hume immediately withdraws his claim that refined reasoning always lacks efficacy:

But what have I here said, that reflections very refin'd and metaphysical have little or no influence upon us? This opinion I can scarce forbear retracting, and condemn- ing from my present feeling and experience. The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. (268-9, emphasis in the original)

Here Hume says that skeptical arguments and conclusions do have a great effect on him - though, as it turns out, the effect can only be temporary. Claim (1) is then straightforwardly false to the text of Treatise I iv 7, though it might well be true to other passages in Hume.18 Further, it seems to me that (1 ) is just plain false because the experience that Hume here reports is genuine: though nature saves us from extreme skepticism most of the time, there are for some people moments in which nature in fact compels them to be skeptics.

Now Hume has exhausted not only all argumentative resources against extreme skepticism, but also the resource usually provided by the human tendency to limit reflection: for his reflections, unusually but not unnaturally, have not been limited. He has himself become, for the moment, an extreme skeptic.

18 For instance, in Treatise I iv 1, 183, Hume writes of skepticism: '[N]either I, nor any other person, was ever sincerely or constantly of that opinion.

Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable necessity has determin'd us to judge as well as to breathe and feel.... Whoever has taken the pains to refute the cavils of this total scepticism, has really disputed without an antagonist, and endeavour'd by arguments to establish a faculty, which nature has antecedently implanted in the mind, and render'd unavoidable/

This passage fits well with claim (1), and perhaps also with claim (2). But it also contains a crucial mistake. That total skepticism cannot be constant does not show that it cannot be sincere; and in I iv 7 Hume looks for all the world like a sincere but

temporary total skeptic. In forming his picture of Hume, Strawson relies on p. 183 and passages like it,

while he ignores the passage from p. 268 that I quote in the text.



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III Common Life as (Unprincipled) Cure

Immediately after becoming a skeptic, Hume begins to recover from skepticism. In a famous passage, his recovery seems rapid and simple:

Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour's amusement, I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther. (269)

This passage is often taken as Hume's last word on skepticism, and taken in this way: philosophical skepticism is a grotesque and mistaken view, a type of 'delirium' and a tendency to see 'chimeras.' But reason does not help us see these facts about skepticism. Instead, healthy engagement in the ordinary affairs of life shows up skepticism for what it really is: a cold, strained, and ridiculous view, a 'malady' (218) to be cured by returning to common life.19

But this interpretation misses two important facts: First, Hume's abuse of skepticism is as sudden and unsupported as was his abuse of the imagination. He is entitled to say that skeptical doubts seem, from the perspective of common life, to be chimeras, but not to say that they actually are chimeras. After all, we can 'forget' - repress - all sorts of unpleasant truths about ourselves by busily involving ourselves in common life: the avid conversationalist can divert her attention from her own mortality, the man enjoying himself at backgammon can find in his playing some refuge from his troublesome conscience. Doesn't common life in just this way hide the truth of skepticism from us? Hume must address this problem; he is not, contrary to the interpretation we are considering, entitled to assume that the perspective of common life is correct.

Second, Hume continues to discuss skepticism, in a way that suggests he is aware that his criticism is unsatisfactory. If he believes that the criticism is satisfactory, why does he 'feel such remains of my former disposition, that I am ready to throw all my books and papers into the fire, and resolve never more to renounce the pleasures of life for the sake of reason and philosophy' (269)? This feeling and this resolution indicate that Hume remembers extreme skepticism not as cold, strained, ridicu-

19 This, again, is intended as a sketch of Strawson's view.




lous, an extravagance of reason and philosophy, but as painful, threat- ening, unvanquished, intimately bound up with reason and philosophy.

So the 'back-gammon passage' does not refute skepticism; and Hume does not intend for it to refute skepticism. Instead, the passage embodies and describes a temporary state of mind. After Hume experiences extreme skepticism, he returns to everyday employments and amuse- ments, setting philosophy aside. This participation in common life forces him to abandon skepticism, because it forces him to have beliefs. He remembers that he has philosophized, and arrived at skeptical conclusions; but his immediate natural reaction, immersed in common life as he is, is to dismiss his previous philosophical opinions as 'chimeras.' That is to say, from the perspective of unreflective common life Hume assumes that common life is privileged, and that opinions conflicting with common life are false or absurd. But the least reflection - and Hume's nature is such that he cannot successfully banish reflection - reveals that this assumption of privilege is unprincipled, suspect.20 Be- cause Hume sees that common life and its judgments are suspect, the immediate return to common life doesn't complete his recovery from skepticism.

IV Natural Dogmatism

The next stage of Hume's progress flows from his attachment to the pleasures and ease of common life, his memory that reflection infallibly yields unpleasant skepticism, and his minimal reflective awareness that skepticism looks to be correct. Hume resolves to safeguard his pleasure and ease by renouncing reflection, and so resolves only because he still feels skepticism's force. To recur to, and give more fully, the crucial passage:

But notwithstanding that my natural propensity, and the course of my animal spirits and passions reduce me to this indolent belief in the general maxims of the world, I still feel such remains of my former disposition, that I am ready to throw all my books and papers into the fire, and resolve never more to renounce the pleasures of life for the sake of reasoning and philosophy. For these are my sentiments in that splenetic humour, which governs me at present. (T 269)

20 Hume must go on, it seems, either to substantiate the privilege, or to weaken his claims against skepticism (to something like 'nature breaks the force of my skeptical reflections, even though the reflections are entirely correct'). But he does not explicitly take either course, which is why I iv 7 is in the end so unsatisfactory.



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This stubborn attachment to common life and rejection of reflection, this desperate struggle to remain in the common course of nature, I call natural dogmatism.

The differences between the immediate return to common life and natural dogmatism are important, though they are easily and often overlooked. From the standpoint of common life, skepticism is a misuse or mistake of reason; we should abuse and ridicule it, not fear it. From the natural dogmatist's standpoint, skepticism is the inevitable and correct result of reasoning; we should fear it for the pain it brings, and shun it. The philosopher who has just returned to common life feels no inclination to forbid abstruse reflection - she just doesn't engage in such reflection - or to call skepticism true. But the natural dogmatist forbids herself to reflect abstrusely, because she acknowledges the truth of unmitigated skepticism: Tf I must be a fool, as all those who reason or believe anything certainly are, my follies shall at least be natural and agreeable' (270, Hume's emphasis).21

What accounts for this difference? How does Hume move from sug- gesting that skepticism results from mistaken reflection, to declaring that reflection itself is the problem? Simply by reflecting again. From the standpoint of unreflective common life, it is easy enough to condemn skepticism as a mistake, or even to condemn all philosophy as a gro- tesquery of reason. But the natural dogmatist has concluded that the standpoint of common life doesn't have those privileges, and those protections, that it supposes itself to have. No madness, only reason, is needed to overthrow common life and establish skepticism. So the friends of common life - all of us, for most of our lives - must protect it by actively restricting reason.

21 Immerwahr takes this passage to be a denunciation of dogmatism, a recommenda- tion of probabilism: abandon certainty and make do with probability ('A Skeptic's Progress/ 229-30). But it is more natural to take 'certainly' to modify 'are/ than to take it to modify 'reason or believe' (as Immerwahr does). For one thing, a happy- go-lucky probabilism hardly seems 'splenetic' Also, the extreme skepticism whose 'remains' still affect Hume tells equally against dogmatism and probabilism. Fi- nally, it sounds odd to say 'Smith reasons certainly' rather than to say 'Smith is certain about the conclusions of his reasoning.'

Even on the natural reading, though, it is puzzling why Hume emphasizes 'certainly.' Is he trying to exhibit the dogmatism of the position he is describing? Or is he trying to suggest, by way of a little joke, that extreme skepticism and its effects are incoherent because of their reliance on the 'certainty' of skeptical conclusions? Cf.: 'A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction' (Treatise 273).




V Mitigated Skepticism in Everyday Life

So far Hume has experienced two unsavory alternatives: he can either reflect unrestrictedly and be driven to total skepticism, or save himself from skepticism by (involuntarily or voluntarily) severely restricting reflection. But neither of these alternatives is stable for him - or will be stable for us, either, insofar as we are like Hume. Skepticism is unstable because no human being can survive long without beliefs, and because nature will not allow us to court destruction by remaining long without beliefs. But natural, unreflective belief is unstable too, for curious, reflective, active minds. Food, games, and conversation will never perma- nently stupefy the reflective person; reflection will always recur, mounting in intensity until it threatens all belief. Nor will the reflective person be satisfied by a severe restriction on reflection, imposed on herself because she recognizes that reflection leads to skepticism and that skepticism is painful. For, being reflective, she must be aware that she has nothing to say against skepticism's truth; her own rule, that she must not engage in philosophy, must seem to her arbitrary and hard to obey; her self-enforced 'indolence' will increase rather than relieve her 'spleen.' Her very nature will drive her to philosophical reflection and so to skepticism.

So Hume has portrayed for us a type of two-mindedness, a split epistemic personality. Moreover, neither side of the personality can be content: skepticism requires a painful struggle against belief, natural dogmatism a painful struggle against reflection and curiosity. (True, a person immediately involved in unreflective common life will often be content; but as one experiences bout after bout of extreme skepticism, such involuntary unreflective innocence will become ever more rare. After once being convinced of the truth of extreme skepticism, it is possible to refer that conviction to a philosophical 'delirium'; but after the hundredth skeptical episode, the natural reaction is surely to treat skepticism as an unpalatable truth rather than a patent falsehood. Oth- erwise, why would skepticism keep recurring?) Now perhaps this dis- contented two-mindedness is the best we can do, is the reflective person's fate. But Hume hopes for a better fate, for a disposition making for a whole and happy personality: mitigated skepticism.22

22 Hume uses the term 'mitigated scepticism7 in the Enquiry Concerning Human Under- standing, section XII, part iii; see the Selby-Bigge/Nidditch edition of the Enquiries (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1975), 161-2. He does not use the term in the Treatise. But though the term is absent from the Treatise, the philosophical position or state of mind is present, and described in some detail. So, for the sake of convenience, I employ the well-known Enquiry term to describe the Treatise text.



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It is hard to understand, though, what this mitigated skepticism could be. For Hume has taken pains to show how common life and extreme skepticism seem irreconcilable, yet his mitigated skepticism is supposed somehow to reconcile these apparent irreconcilables (rather than just embracing both irreconcilables and the oscillation between them).23 The content of the reconciliation is thus from the start obscure. And the method of reconciliation is breathtakingly obscure. Hume says only that he 'recovers' from natural dogmatism not by means of argument, but by means of a change in disposition. To cite the crucial passage:

These [the natural dogmatist's opinions] are the sentiments of my spleen and indolence; and indeed I must confess, that philosophy has nothing to oppose to them, and expects a victory more from the returns of a serious good-humour'd disposition, than from the force of reason and conviction. In all the incidents of life we ought still to preserve our scepticism. If we believe, that fire warms, or water refreshes, 'tis only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise. Nay if we are philosophers, it ought only to be upon sceptical principles, and from an inclination, which we feel to the employing ourselves after that manner. Where reason is lively, and mixes itself with some propensity, it ought to be assented to. Where it does not, it never can have any title to operate upon us. (270)

This passage makes clear at least that mitigated skepticism is supposed to be a more stable and pleasant disposition than any of the alternatives available to a reflective person, and that mitigated skepticism is Hume's own considered response to the opposition between philosophical reflection and common life. So we must try to understand this obscure mitigated skepticism.

A good place to start is with the startling claim that 'in all the incidents of life we ought still to preserve our scepticism.' This claim is ample proof that Hume is no longer talking about extreme or unmitigated skepticism, which is inimical to life. But what sort of skepticism is Hume talking about? What sort of skepticism is compatible with life, will even make for an improved life? Hume provides a slight clue in the next sentence: 'If we believe, that fire warms, or water refreshes, 'tis only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise.' Now a person standing outside of

23 Richard Popkin argues that Hume advocates (as the most 'natural' position) an oscillation between dogmatism and skepticism, in 'David Hume: His Pyrrhonism and His Critique of Pyrrhonism,' reprinted in V.C. Chappell, ed., Hume: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1966) 53-98. Barry Stroud criticizes Popkin in 'Hume's Scepticism: Natural Instincts and Philosophical Reflection,' Philosophical Topics 19 (1991) 271-91. According to Stroud, Hume is recommending that we reflect on both our 'dogmatic' and 'skeptical' moments, and so bring ourselves to a new and distinctive state of mind, one that will be healthier and more pleasant than a mere oscillation (however 'natural') could be.



Hume's Extreme Skepticism in Treatise I TV 7 611

common life, an extreme skeptic, could make this proclamation, and then perhaps return to the common-life attitude that she believes fire warms because it does warm. But that's not what Hume has in mind here; he speaks of someone preserving her skepticism in all the incidents of life, therefore someone whose ordinary beliefs are somehow transformed.

Three different transformations, not mutually exclusive, are possible: (1) What we believe is changed; we have fewer beliefs, for instance because we discard metaphysical and theological beliefs. (2) How we believe is changed; we hold our beliefs less strongly or more flexibly than we did before. (3) We change our ordinary opinion about why we believe what we do; we no longer hold that our beliefs are determined by the truth of what we believe, but instead hold that our beliefs are determined by nature or expedience. The passage from p. 270 of the Treatise does not necessarily point to the first transformation, a reduction in the number of our beliefs, though this is of course an important Humean theme. (That extreme skepticism renders us less vulnerable to metaphysical and theological beliefs is supposed to be its payoff.) But the passage clearly points to the third transformation, a different opinion about why we hold our beliefs: for the person Hume is describing seems to follow the principle that she should allow expedience to determine her beliefs ('where reason is lively, and mixes itself with some propensity, it ought to be assented to'), and follows this principle because she recognizes that she really has no alternative.24 And the second transformation, a weak-

24 How, then, can this be a principle? How can the determination to let nature or expedience determine my beliefs make any difference, if these were bound in any case to determine my beliefs? This is a difficult problem for Hume. He might want to employ his distinction between two senses of 'natural': one all-embracing, the other denoting health (see 225-6). Then the mitigated skeptic would be the person who, aware that beliefs are always determined by human nature, took care that her beliefs were determined by healthful natural principles. However, this line merely postpones the problem, for now we need to know what makes some principles healthful and others not.

Alternatively, Hume might argue that a person conscious of the natural determi- nants of her belief will, just as a matter of fact, struggle less to meet some other, unattainable standard - and so will be more peaceful, psychologically healthier. This proposal makes some sense. If I believe that my beliefs can be determined by the truth, I will naturally tend to struggle so that my beliefs will be so determined. If I believe that my beliefs are determined by nature and expedience, then I will naturally tend (perhaps) to struggle less, to believe complacently what I happen to believe. The problem with this proposal is that this version of mitigated skepticism seems in danger of reverting either to dogmatism ('why should I be critical of my beliefs, if criticism won't get me any closer to the truth?') or extreme skepticism ('how can I believe anything, if all belief is determined by nature or expedience?'). Hume might respond that a full surrender to expedience will usually maintain a



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erring of belief, seems bound up with the third: a person who consciously allows expedience to determine her beliefs will be readier to change beliefs, and less fervent even about those beliefs that are likely to remain fixed, than a plain person would be.25 The plain person believes so strongly that fire warms that she will ridicule or abuse any suggestion to the contrary; the mitigated skeptic will accept the suggestion as a possibility, but nevertheless continue to believe that fire warms.

Hume's description of mitigated skepticism in everyday life is only the first stage of his general description of mitigated skepticism, and I want to move on to the other stages. But let me make two points, in passing: (1) At this initial stage of mitigated skepticism, it seems clear that Hume is recommending weakened belief in everyday life - clear that the mitigated skeptic's everyday cognitive activities differ from the plain person's. (2) Though the mitigated skeptic derives comfort from discovering and accepting that human cognition flows from expedience, one could as easily derive pain from this discovery and acceptance. The mitigated skeptic, being in a good-humored practical mood, draws from this fact the lesson that we should take our beliefs more or less as they come, not troubling too much over them; the extreme skeptic, being in a theoretical mood, draws the lesson that she shouldn't (can't) believe anything; the natural dogmatist, being in a practical but splenetic mood, tries to avoid acknowledging the fact at all, so that she won't be com- pelled to draw its skeptical lesson. Each reaction follows from a mood or disposition. No reaction seems obviously more 'appropriate' than any other, though the extreme skeptic's reaction has a claim to priority because it involves rigorous unrestricted reflection.26

desirable balance between criticism and complacency, skepticism and belief. But

why are we lucky enough for nature to give us this gift of a desirable balance? And

according to what standard, with what validity, do we proclaim the balance desirable, better than the alternatives?

25 What is it like to become less fervent about one's everyday beliefs, to hold them less

strongly than before? One possibility is that the mitigated skeptic is less certain, more tentative, than the non-skeptic. The non-skeptic thinks that fire certainly warms, the extreme skeptic has no opinion about whether fire actually warms, and the mitigated skeptic thinks that fire probably warms. That is to say, the weakening of belief amounts to a shift from dogmatism to probabilism.

26 Perhaps the mitigated skeptic replies: 'My view too has a claim to priority, because it is founded on wide experience. My reaction is caused by all that has preceded it, including both the plain person's beliefs and the skeptic's doubts.' But this appar- ently amounts at best to practical, not to theoretical or rational, priority; the extreme

skeptic seems to have the only good claim to this latter sort of priority.




VI Mitigated Skepticism in Philosophy

Hume first recommends mitigated skepticism, as we have seen, as an attitude to take up in common life. Compatibly with that recommenda- tion, we might never again philosophize: the upshot of the whole philosophical venture might be a new and lower opinion of the basis of our beliefs, weaker beliefs, and an abiding refusal to think philosophically (based on nothing more than the sentiment that philosophy is painful, inexpedient).27 But, quickly acknowledging that some people will philosophize, Hume also recommends that those people pursue philosophy as mitigated skeptics: '//we are philosophers, it ought only to be upon sceptical principles, and from an inclination, which we feel to the employing ourselves after that manner' (emphasis added). So if we philosophize, says Hume, we should do so as mitigated skeptics.

But should we philosophize? Are the philosophical tendencies that some people have salutary, or ineradicable, or both, or neither? Toward the end of I iv 7, Hume says that the philosophical urge is at least very hard to get rid of, and also that that urge does more good than harm (because those who are philosophically inclined spend most of their time as mitigated, not unmitigated or extreme, skeptics).

Hume again carefully describes the circumstances in which he philosophizes - though this second description differs signally from his first. In the first description Hume emphasized his solitude, ignorance, insecurity, and pain; now he emphasizes his leisure, curiosity, ambition, and pleasure. He philosophizes when he is 'tir'd with amusement and company' (270, my emphasis) - when he is sated with, not deserted by, others. (This seems to me to be a deliberate allusion to Hume's earlier resort to company and amusement in order to save himself from extreme skepticism. Many readings of I iv 7 miss this attempt at balance, this attempt to appreciate the virtues of both practical life and reflection. Hume announces in dramatic terms that practice must correct reflection; his less dramatic announcement that reflection must correct practice is easy to overlook.) While a sentiment of ineradicable ignorance plays an important role in the genesis of extreme skepticism, philosophy in general can trace its origins to the more wholesome sentiment of curios-

27 This position does not blend in well with natural dogmatism. For the natural dogmatist is uneasy that her beliefs are based on nothing more or other than expedience, and so guilty about dismissing philosophy only because of its inexpe- dience. But the mitigated skeptic I envision is content that her beliefs are based only on expedience, and so also content to dismiss (provisionally and non-dogmatically) any beliefs or activities she finds inexpedient.



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ity about even fundamental things - a curiosity that Hume, for one, 'cannot forbear having' (270, my emphasis). True, Hume as mitigated skeptic is made 'uneasy' by his own ignorance, and that of the learned world in general; but the same observation that feeds an extreme skeptic's despair, causes Hume as mitigated skeptic to feel an ambition to remedy all this ignorance. Finally, the same general activity of philosophizing that causes such pain for the extreme skeptic is a source of pleasure for the mitigated skeptic. Thus, there is at least this much to be said for philosophy: even if it is, along with every other human activity, a form of 'folly,' it is sometimes a 'natural and agreeable' folly. And it is most natural and agreeable when the philosopher is hopeful and ambi- tious, rather than despairing.

So far Hume has argued that philosophy comes naturally to some people, and is often a source of pleasure for them. But being a source of pleasure is not philosophy's only use, he contends; for philosophy can also help make the whole of life better, at least for some people, than it would otherwise be. Philosophy improves our lives by distracting us from superstition, a far more dangerous force (271-2).

Hume classifies both philosophy and superstition as 'speculations without the sphere of common life,' and assigns both to the same aspects of the human constitution: 'curiosity and ambition,' that is to say strength and activity of mind; and a 'weakness of mind' that amounts to credulity and wishful thinking. He is unclear, though, about how wide- spread the danger of superstition is. At one point, he suggests that the danger is nearly universal:

Since therefore 'tis almost impossible for the mind of man to rest, like those of beasts, in that narrow circle of objects, which are the subject of daily conversation and action, we ought only to deliberate concerning the choice of our guide [the choice being between philosophy and superstition], and ought to prefer that which is safest and most agreeable. (271, my emphasis)

A page later, he suggests - satirically, in my view - that a large class can resist the blandishments of both superstition and philosophy:

[T]hese two cases of strength and weakness of the mind will not comprehend all mankind, and ... there are in England, in particular, many honest gentlemen, who being always employed in their domestic affairs, or amusing themselves in common recreations, have carried their thoughts very little beyond those objects, which are every day expos'd to their senses. (272)28

28 Annette Baier discusses this passage in 'Doing Without Moral Theory?' in Postures of the Mind (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press 1985), 237. She there




However, even if it is not a universal danger, superstition is certainly a danger for many people, including Hume himself.

Superstition is dangerous because it 'seizes ... strongly on the mind, and is often able to disturb us in the conduct of our lives and actions' (272). That is to say, superstitious doctrines are often natural and appeal- ing, have enough force to change our lives, and change our lives for the worse. Philosophy is different. Good philosophy - mitigated skepticism - 'can present us only with mild and moderate sentiments' (272); it cannot change our lives much, and changes them for the better insofar as it changes them at all (perhaps by making us more nonchalant about our beliefs and practices, certainly by safeguarding us against superstition and its baleful influence). Bad philosophy - rationalist metaphysics and, in this context, extreme skepticism - does not have enough force to change our lives; bad philosophy, unlike superstition, can 'seldom go so far as to interrupt the course of our natural propensities' (272).

Philosophy, then, is useful as well as natural for many people, so long as it finally takes the form of mitigated skepticism. It is useful because it helps gratify the natural human passion of curiosity, because it makes us more content and easy, and because it diverts us from superstition. (Notice that Hume praises mitigated skepticism for its character-forming and diversionary aspects, not for its critical force. Hume does not say that mitigated skepticism shows up superstition for the collection of falsehoods it is; he says that we are less likely to be superstitious if we invest our energies in philosophy, and that the philosophical life is more comfortable or pleasant than the superstitious life.29) Mitigated skepticism is not only a way of life, it also is and ought to be a way of doing philosophy.

reads the passage only as a plea for more solid common sense in philosophy. Surely it is that, but also more; Hume is poking fun at these 'honest gentlemen/ in effect congratulating them for having minds so tranquil and impoverished that they can 'rest, like those of beasts, in that narrow circle of objects, which are the subject of daily conversation and action/ (Perhaps it is significant that Hume says these gentlemen are in England, not in Scotland?)

29 In other writings, Hume tries to use mitigated skepticism as a critical standpoint; he seems to want to say that the mitigated skeptic is on better cognitive ground than the non-skeptic. (See, for instance, the section on miracles in the first Enquiry, and the whole of the Dialogues.) But he runs into a problem: how can anybody be on better cognitive ground than anybody else, since no one has any reply to extreme skeptical arguments? It is deeply unsatisfying to say that rational criticism of superstition is impossible, but that we can nevertheless safeguard ourselves from superstition. Saying this leaves unanswered (and unanswerable) the question why we should prefer not to be superstitious.



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VII Yielding to the Propensity to Feel Certain, in Particular Instances

But Hume realizes that an unresolved tension afflicts mitigated skepticism as it has been so far described. Mitigated skepticism is supposed to cater to the reflective person's ease and pleasure. But it is difficult and unpleasant always to be tentative and flexible; the mitigated skeptic must often make a special effort to retain her skepticism in all the affairs of life, and so will live less comfortably than someone whose mitigated skepticism is dormant except when specially needed (say, to fight off an attack of superstition). Indeed, it might just be impossible always to refrain from having positive opinions, even positive philosophical opinions. Hume resolves this tension by altering his description of mitigated skepticism to allow for occasional certainty.

Hume introduces this altered description of mitigated skepticism by returning, in a scaled-down way, to the optimistic naturalism found in his Introduction to the Treatise. Philosophy tempered with common sense can arrive, Hume claims, at

a system or set of opinions, which if not true (for that, perhaps, is too much to be hop'd for) might at least be satisfactory to the human mind, and might stand the test of the most critical examination. (272)30

Indeed, the mitigated skeptical philosopher hopes to 'contribute a little to the advancement of knowledge,' and to point out to other intellectuals 'those subjects, where alone they can expect assurance and conviction' (273).

This optimistic naturalism is, in context, peculiar. How could Hume, having experienced extreme skepticism, and admitting that he has no good response to such skepticism, hope to produce satisfactory opinions, to advance knowledge, to show others where to search for knowledge? Surely he is not entitled to hope for so much; surely at best he can produce opinions that will be satisfactory to the constrained inquirer, can contribute to the proliferation of beliefs, can show others where to search for sturdy but irrational dogmas. Now if Hume could forget or repress his skepticism, then we could understand his optimism. But Hume wants to preserve a mitigated form of skepticism in all the affairs of life; and even mitigated skepticism, as so far described, dashes all our

30 'Most critical examination' must be either ironic, or elliptical for 'most critical examination possible when we hold fixed the fundamental beliefs of common life/




hopes for knowledge, certainty, opinions that are really so 'satisfactory' as to 'stand the test of the most critical examination/

We can partly explain this peculiar passage by citing Hume's well- known irony. A project that began in earnest optimism ends with an optimistic profession, but a profession stated in a mocking tone.31

But Hume's renewed optimism also has principled grounds. A mitigated skeptic accepts nature's rule consciously and gladly; but explicitly preserving your skepticism, even your mitigated skepticism, in all the affairs of life, will entail often struggling against nature. A mitigated skeptic will not hold tenaciously to any philosophical dogma; but, paradoxically, mitigated skepticism is itself a philosophical dogma of sorts, so mitigated skepticism itself dictates that people sometimes put aside their belief in mitigated skepticism and think in other ways. Only a false skeptic will be so wedded to doubt that she refrains from all convictions:

a true skeptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them. (273)

Thus Hume distinguishes between ubiquitous skepticism, which at- taches itself to every moment, and background skepticism, a general willingness or tendency to doubt which allows for moments of conviction, and he gives the preference to background skepticism.32

Indeed, background mitigated skepticism has within it room not only for conviction, but also for (occasional, momentary, limited) certainty:

Nor is it only proper that we shou'd in general indulge our inclination in the most elaborate philosophical researches, notwithstanding our sceptical principles, but also that we shou'd yield to that propensity, which inclines us to be positive and certain in particular points, according to the light, in which we survey them in any particular instant. Tis easier to forbear all examination and enquiry, than to check ourselves in so natural a propensity, and guard against that assurance, which always arises from an exact and full survey of an object. (273-4, Hume's emphasis)

31 Note the distinction between Hume's project in writing the Treatise, and the Treatise itself. I would not claim that the optimistic Introduction to the Treatise contains no irony; but I do claim that the Introduction reports the experience of straightforward hope and ambition.

32 This distinction suggests two interpretations of 'preserving skepticism in all the affairs of life': (1) being skeptical at every moment, never believing wholeheartedly or straightforwardly. (2) Having one's life shaped by skepticism, but for that very reason having moments of wholehearted, straightforward belief.



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This is Hume's final vision of mitigated skepticism in I iv 7, and his strongest suggestion that the mitigated skeptic returns to the pre-skeptical position of holding natural beliefs as reasonable. (How can I be certain of anything, even of a small point for a short time, if at that time I concede that my belief is caused solely by nature and expedience, and is - because of the particular causes involved - unreasonable?)

This position is the end of Hume's recovery from extreme skepticism in I iv 7. I do not want to suggest that it is a clear or unproblematic position. First, it seems Hume has gotten far from the aim of preserving skepticism in our lives. This sort of mitigated skeptic 'preserves her skepticism in all the affairs of life' only in the attenuated sense that she is always ready to concede the truth of skepticism, even though she seldom in fact makes the concession, and even though she holds many of the same beliefs people ordinarily hold in the same way people ordinarily hold them. Second, even if we can make sense of a sort of mitigated skepticism that is a practical compromise between extreme skepticism and ordinary belief, that position will not be a principled response to extreme skepticism. As Robert Fogelin observes, Hume does not argue to mitigated skepticism, but finds himself there at the end of his reflections and as a causal result of those reflections.33 The difficulty is that, without a principled defense of mitigated skepticism as reflectively satisfactory, the position will not be the sort of stable hybrid of philosophical reflection and ordinary belief that Hume seemed to be pursuing. Nevertheless, this position, in light of everything that leads up to it, is far richer, more interesting, and more suggestive than an immediate return to our ordinary beliefs.34

Conclusion

Now that we have before us the full story of Hume's skeptical progress in Treatise I iv 7, we are in a position to use that section to shed light on more general interpretive questions. Close attention to I iv 7 calls into question, at least, certain standard views.

33 'The Tendency of Hume's Skepticism/ 404

34 Does mitigated skepticism resolve or just dodge the epistemological problems Hume has raised? Is it a coherent psychological state, fit to do the work he assigns it? As the text of this paper hints, I am inclined to pessimism about mitigated skepticism on both these scores. But these issues deserve separate and extended discussion. Here my aim has been to clarify Hume's final position in I iv 7, not to assess that position in detail.




First, it is often argued that Hume shows extreme or Pyrrhonian skepticism to be impossible, so that any Humean dalliances with extreme skepticism are harmless. But Hume, despite mocking passages in the Treatise and (especially) in the first Enquiry, never shows that extreme skepticism is impossible. He shows instead that extreme skepticism is impossible to sustain. It is therefore no practical threat to our most important beliefs; still it can be a threat to the status of our most important beliefs, can compel us (when we reflect) to admit our beliefs are contradictory or otherwise deeply unsatisfactory.35

Second, even interpreters who take Hume's skepticism seriously, like Stroud36 and Fogelin, follow Kemp Smith in asserting that 'skepticism supports naturalism.'37 They then search for some way in which extreme skepticism is useful in the context of a positive naturalistic project. That means they search for some way in which extreme skepticism 'clears the ground' for naturalism by getting rid of a mistaken rationalistic picture

35 A certain school of Hume interpretation will (correctly!) emphasize Hume's positive naturalistic program, and also the scorn he often heaps on extreme skepticism as an untenable, unlivable disposition, and argue that therefore Hume never takes extreme skepticism seriously. For him extreme skepticism must be at most a tool for overthrowing his philosophical opponents, or a dialectical moment to be tran- scended with alacrity. (That is, Hume is 'skeptical' in just the way that Descartes is 'skeptical' in the Meditations.) This interpretation depends on Hume's being in substantial control of his philosophizing all along; but Hume's work strikes me as including elements that are in tension with each other, and a struggle to fit these elements together into a unified package. That is, even though he has a positive naturalistic program, Hume's reflections lead him to take extreme skepticism seriously, as a certain sort of real threat (despite the fact that it is an untenable, unlivable disposition). Then Hume must turn his energies to taming extreme skepticism, to somehow assimilating it into his more general positive program. But the dialectical contortions of Treatise I iv 7 indicate to me that Hume does not have a leash round the neck of extreme skepticism from the start.

36 In Hume (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1977); see especially 116-117, and 248-250.

37 Fogelin's tendency to speak about the constructive point or uses or upshot of extreme skepticism is most pronounced in Hume's Skepticism (see especially Chapter 11 of that book). Fogelin's recent essay 'Hume's Scepticism' seems less concerned than was his earlier work to discern such constructive aspects of extreme skepticism. This may be just a matter of omission rather than of change in interpretation. Still, on p. 94 of 'Hume's Scepticism/ Fogelin says of nature's victory over Pyrrhonism: "The irony is that the ways of nature, when revealed, hardly fill us with confidence or with a sense of human dignity.' And if the experience of extreme skepticism makes us acutely aware of nature's warped workings, it is hard to see how extreme skepticism supports or coheres with naturalism, or is a likely cause of a stable and cheerful mitigated skeptical disposition.



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of human life, or in general by attacking reason in the service of nature. Now Hume does employ various 'skeptical' arguments in this ground- clearing way in Treatise I iii; he argues there that reason has limited scope and efficacy, that many of our most important beliefs are products of the non-rational imagination. But Hume's extreme skepticism is not directed against reason, but against the imagination, the beliefs produced by the imagination, the standards of assessment that flow from the imagination. It is about the unreliability and triviality of imagination and the general incapacity of human faculties. It derogates not reason, but rather nature. So extreme skepticism does not support, but rather subverts, naturalism.38

Now I am by no means advocating a return to the old tradition of interpreting Hume as a mere destructive skeptic. Hume clearly has important positive naturalistic aims, and a healthy regard for the power and resilience of 'common life.' But not everything in Hume fits together into a neat naturalistic package; I take it that his extreme skepticism is a deep problem for his naturalism, and that that is one reason why in the Enquiry he treats extreme skepticism quickly and in a cool, detached fashion. (However, he has no more of an argument to offer against this skepticism in the Enquiry than he does in the Treatise.)

I have already mentioned a third significant issue of interpretation in passing. According to many interpretations, and many uses, of Hume, he recovers from his bout with extreme skepticism by means of a straightforward return to pre-reflective ordinary belief. But in I iv 7 Hume's recovery from skepticism involves achieving (or trying to achieve) a proper balance between nature and reflection, achieving a position that somehow incorporates both crucial ordinary beliefs and reflective doubts. In general, while Hume contends that philosophy cannot overthrow nature, he also contends that philosophical reflection can alter nature, at least in small ways, for good and for ill. Getting this point straight is not only a matter of doing justice to Hume; it is also a

38 I do not deny that naturalism and extreme skepticism are closely connected for Hume; but the connection is not one of mutual support. For Hume, naturalistic investigation leads inexorably to extreme skepticism, and extreme skepticism is disastrous for naturalistic investigation. It is practically disastrous, because it renders the skeptic (temporarily) incapable of such investigation; and it is theoretically disastrous, because it constitutes an entirely negative epistemic assessment of human cognition. (Naturalism is the thesis that we can explain human beings and human phenomena in purely natural terms. Naturalism is then a belief that we can adequately and reasonably explain certain things; and a successful naturalistic project would include a wide variety of beliefs, most of which would have to be reasonable and held as reasonable.)




matter of understanding just how problematic it is to suggest that philosophy 'leaves everything as it is/39 even when philosophical reflection leaves (must leave) most of our pre-reflective beliefs intact.

Quite apart from issues of Hume interpretation, this reading of Treatise I iv 7 can help us understand epistemological skepticism more deeply. I have suggested that the extreme skepticism in I iv 7 depends on a predisposition to think of the crucial elements of human cognition as trivial, as epistemically disabling rather than epistemically enabling. Once that predisposition is in place, the easiest and best path to skepticism is simply citing the facts about cognition. Thus, our most important beliefs and practices depend entirely on the enlivening activity of the imagination. But this description makes the natural source of belief seem trivial, and so makes the beliefs seem trivial, unworthy of belief, just as if we were told (say) that all our opinions followed straightforwardly from our diets, and could never be assessed, or worse could only be unfavorably assessed, from an independent standpoint. And as we study the operations of the human mind, we find that our beliefs indeed are as badly off as we expected them to be.

Suppose that this movement of thought is the core of extreme skepticism in Treatise I iv 7. Suppose also that this text is representative of one important kind of epistemological skepticism. (To draw together the threads: this kind of epistemological skepticism is driven by a predisposition to think of the crucial elements of human cognition as trivial or epistemically disabling; the predisposition strikes us 'with a force like that of sensation/ as Hume famously says in another context,40 and is not the conclusion of any argument; and the predisposition is not easily shown up as mistaken or unreasonable.) We could see then how epistemological skepticism arises out of a seemingly innocent aspiration to explain our beliefs, and why this skepticism can seem so hard to avoid to those who are troubled or menaced by it. Surely it must be legitimate to explain our beliefs? And surely it cannot be legitimate (or, at any rate, reflectively acceptable) to cut our reflections short just because we see that continued reflection will undermine our beliefs? Yet with the skeptical predisposition in place, any explanation of cognition is bound to seem disappointing.

This last point is of the first importance. Some kinds of epistemological skepticism flow from disappointment with the specifics of a given

39 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan 1968), section 124

40 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Norman Kemp Smith, ed. (New York: Macmillan Library of Liberal Arts, 1989), 154. (The speaker is Cleanthes, in Part III.)



622 Ira Singer

naturalistic explanation of cognition. We can respond to such skepticism by telling some other or richer story about the source of our beliefs - some story that will make us less ready to call the source of all our beliefs 'trivial.' But Treatise I iv 7 points, it seems to me, to a kind of epistemological skepticism that doesn't depend on the particulars of any naturalistic explanation. Instead, this skepticism begins with the predisposition to think that any comprehensive naturalistic account of our beliefs will make the source of our beliefs and so our beliefs themselves seem trivial, insubstantial. The crucial issue is then how we should understand and combat the pessimistic turn. Does it flow only from being in a fully reflective mood, being in one's study, having the courage or foolhardi- ness to examine one's beliefs to the bottom? Or does it flow from more dubious motives and circumstances, so that it is liable to reflective disapproval? I do not believe that Treatise I iv 7 (or the rest of Hume's work, for that matter - but that is another story) provides fully satisfactory answers to these questions.41 But the richness of I iv 7 consists in the issues it raises, first by making especially vivid the deepest skeptical dangers bound up with Hume's naturalistic reflection, and second by explaining Hume's skepticism itself naturalistically.

Received: August, 1993 Revised: August, 1994

41 There is, of course, a great deal of controversy on this point. For instance, Annette Baier, in A Progress of Sentiments: Reflections on Hume's Treatise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1991), argues that I iv 7 does refute extreme skepticism by means of a narrative reductio. Baier's case is, roughly, this: at the start of I iv 7, Hume adopts a rationalist persona. He is solipsistic (or at least isolated), rationalistic, and neurotically questing after truth. But these habits of thought lead Hume's rationalist persona straight to extreme skepticism. He therefore adopts new habits of thought: he turns clubbable, naturalist, and good-natured fallibilist.

This story is plausible, and I think in some respects true. For instance, Hume in I iv 7, and perhaps in the Treatise overall, does move away from a full-blooded quest for truth, toward satisfaction with the best (most durable and pleasant) beliefs we fallible human beings can reach. But I don't see Hume turning from solitude to sociability in I iv 7: he consistently thinks of philosophy as a solitary pursuit, but as making free use of such social resources as shared beliefs. More importantly, Hume's extreme skeptical reflections don't follow from any specially demanding rationalist view, but from the self-contradictions of naturalism (or the way in which naturalism closely examined sounds the death knell for certain 'weak and widely shared' human cognitive hopes) - once he has taken his pessimistic turn. There is, to be sure, some story to be told about Hume's shifts between pessimistic and optimistic naturalism; but I don't think that talk of a shift from rationalism to naturalism quite does the job.



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Hume's Extreme Skepticism in Treatise I IV 7