Hume's observations on art are set in the framework of social life, which is why he considers both the making of, and response to, works of art as human actions subject to the analysis he has offered of other human actions. Although he never published his intended treatise on “criticism” (T Adv [xii]) and no explicit theories of beauty, art, or criticism are to be found in his works, by bringing together his scattered remarks on these subjects, and by looking at his general aims and the context in which he wrote, we can identify his principal views on these topics.

CONTEXT

In establishing Hume's views on what today we call aesthetics, it is important to note their date and their context, and also to recognize that his experiences and references, in almost every respect except the crucial one of classical literature, were narrower than those of an informed modern reader. Concepts of, and attitudes to, the different arts in the 1740s differed from ours, as did artistic practices and expectations,- access to the arts and the availability of them were limited. Hume always claimed to base his tenets on experience, and it is therefore doubly important to understand the intellectual environment in which he wrote. Most of his observations were made within a thirty-year period beginning in the late 1720s, at the outset of the social and intellectual revolutions that were to gain rapid momentum in the second half of the eighteenth century and to transform Europe.

David Hume's essays were “the cradle of economics” suggested John Hill Burton, in the first important biography of Hume. Although this may be a biographer's exaggeration, there can be no doubt that Hume's work provides an important contribution to economics as a discipline together with a significant critique of the types of policy recommendations which are associated with the mercantilist position.

ECONOMICS: THE BACKGROUND

Mercantilism is difficult to define. It has been aptly described as "a shifting combination of tendencies which, although directed to a common aim - the increase of national power - seldom possessed a unified system of policy, or even a harmonious set of doctrines. It was a very complicated web of which the threads mingled inextricably." Hume, unlike Adam Smith, made no attempt to treat mercantilism as a system, but he did identify a number of "threads" in the literature.

First, Hume drew attention to the position that foreign trade is more important than domestic, a point of view which is admirably summarised by the title of Thomas Munn's England's Treasure by Forraign Trade. Or, The Ballance of our Forraign Trade is the Rule of our Treasure (1630). Second, he identified the associated concern with the determinants of the rate of interest when he examined the view that interest was determined by the quantity of money. Third, he considered the claim that industry "would not emerge spontaneously, it would have to be induced by legislation, " a point which is neatly caught in William Petyt's Britannia Languens (1680).

Among all the philosophers who wrote before the twentieth century none is more important for the philosophy of science than David Hume. This is because Hume is widely recognized to have been the chief philosophical inspiration of the most important twentieth century school in the philosophy of science - the so-called logical positivists. These philosophers began to work in Vienna in the late twenties, but by the end of the Second World War most of them had come to the United States. Many of them preferred the name logical empiricists, in part to emphasize their greater debt to Hume than to Comte. They recognized that Hume raised a variety of issues that set the agenda for their program in the philosophy of science. It is jointly because of his impact on this agenda and because of the influence the philosophy of science acquired over this period that, after the First World War, Hume came to be regarded as the most important philosopher to have written in the English language.

Hume's knowledge of the science of his time is a matter of some controversy. Although in the Treatise he announced that he intended to bring "the experimental method of reasoning" to moral subjects, substantive science plays only a small role in Hume's writings, and there is little discussion of issues raised by Newtonian mechanics, the focus of much work in the philosophy of science in the twentieth century. As Noxon says, the Treatise "is as unmathematical as Ovid's Metamorphoses." Yet there seems ample evidence to suppose that Hume's philosophy was animated by his interpretation of Newton's substantive and methodological views, as well as those of Hooke and Boyle.

The first volume of Hume's History of England, dealing with the early Stuarts, appeared in 1754. The final volumes, covering the period from the invasion of Julius Caesar to 1485, appeared in 1762, although Hume was occupied with revisions of the whole work until his death. In writing history, Hume was partly creating, partly responding to, a new market. In 1757, he thought history “the most popular kind of writing of any” (HL 1: 244). In 1770, he wrote, “I believe this is the historical Age and this [Scotland] the historical Nation” (HL 2: 230). He knew of no less than eight histories that were currently being written. The year before, in England, he had declared, “History, I think, is the Favourite Reading”(HL 2: 196). Hume and his friend William Robertson were in large part responsible for this new popularity of history, much of it written by Scotsmen for English readers. Hume himself had received unprecedented payments for his History (for which he sold the copyright on each volume, rather than collecting royalties): he made at least £3,200 on the whole, at a time when a friend of his could consider himself well to do on £80 per annum (HL 1: 193, 255, 266, 314). Although in practice his History seems to have sold less well during his lifetime than the various volumes of his Essays, Hume was consistently of the opinion that this was his bookseller's fault. The market for history books was potentially far larger (HL 2: 106, 229, 233, 242).

The above passage comes from a pamphlet written by David Hume to secure a readership for his largely unappreciated Treatise of Human Nature. Though not successful in this regard, the Abstract remains a valuable guide to Hume's Treatise, for it offers his own assessment of the significance of that work. Here, at least, Hume is unequivocal in describing his philosophy as “very sceptical.” But even if Hume describes his philosophy in this way, and even if, at the time, his philosophy was almost universally taken in this light, it remains unclear, first, what this scepticism amounts to and, second, how this scepticism is related to other aspects of his philosophical program. The goal of this essay is to answer both of these questions. I begin by giving a broad sketch of the role of scepticism in Hume's philosophy and then, in succeeding sections, offer a detailed analysis of the central sceptical arguments.

David Hume believed that most of the views about society and politics prevalent in his day had roots in one or another of “two species of false religion” superstition and enthusiasm. Both were developments of conflicting theological doctrines that appealed to two different types of personalities. Both had come to be associated with opposing political interests. Both sprang from ignorance. And, while the two species had been universally present in society and in individuals in varying degrees throughout history, the peculiarity of modern post-Reformation Europe was the violent oscillation between them, as evidenced by the many wars of religion. Their more extreme adherents were also, not least, responsible for the plight of modern Britain, both north and south. One of the tasks of the philosophical historian, Hume believed, was to explain the preponderance at particular times of one or the other of these persuasions. The task he set for his political theory was to explain why both were philosophically misconceived, empirically untenable, and, in their extreme forms, politically dangerous.

THE POLITICS OF RELIGION

One part of humanity, Hume notes, has a tendency to "weakness, fear, [and] melancholy, together with ignorance." In this state, the imagination conjures up forces operating under the surface, and the mind is prone to grasp methods of influencing these forces by "ceremonies, observances, mortifications, sacrifices, presents, or [by] any practice, however absurd or frivolous which either folly or knavery recommends to a blind and terrified credulity." This condition and these practices Hume calls superstition. In religion, priests, church establishments, and rituals are used to mediate between the individual and these forces. In society and in politics, the superstitious person is disposed to accept established forms and powers as inherent in the nature of things and to see society as a hierarchical structure with a monarch as the unitary source of authority and sovereignty as a divine right (E-SE, 74).

Hume's critique of religion and religious belief is, as a whole, subtle, profound, and damaging to religion in ways which have no philosophical antecedents and few successors. Some of the damage and a little of the subtlety will, I trust, become evident in Part II of this essay, where Hume's seminal discussions of the design argument for the existence of God, miracles, morality, and natural belief are examined. Before this, however, certain preliminaries need attention. First, there is the difficulty caused by the old-fashioned or unfamiliar terminology used by Hume and his commentators in describing and assessing what he has to say. Second, although the scale of Hume's writing on religion is reasonably obvious (it exceeds his output concerning any other subject except history), the fact that it is dispersed over a number of publications and partly embedded (sometimes none too clearly) in several more, as well as having to be drawn from essays, letters, and minor writings, needs to be understood before any informed discussion is possible. Third, there is the problem of seeing what he wrote not as ad hoc criticisms turned out piecemeal, but as a comprehensive critical strategy. Finally, a problem of interpretation results from Hume's “abundant prudence” in covering his real opinions with ambiguous irony and even, on occasions, with denials of his own apparent conclusions.

Sir

Not being acquainted with this hand-writing, you will probably look to the bottom to find the Subscription, & not finding any, will certainly wonder at this strange method of addressing to you. I must here in the beginning beg you to excuse it, & to perswade you to read what follows with some Attention, [and] must tell you, that this gives you an Opportunity to do a very good-natur'd Action, which I believe is the most powerful Argument I can use. I need not tell you, that I am your Countryman, a Scotchman; for without any such tye, I dare rely upon your Humanity, even to a perfect Stranger, such as I am. The Favour I beg of you is your Advice, & the reason why I address myself in particular to you need not be told. As one must be a skilful Physician, a man of Letters, of Wit, of Good Sense, & of great Humanity, to give me a satisfying Answer, I wish Fame had pointed out to me more Persons, in whom these Qualities are united, in order to have kept me some time in Suspense.

Within Hume's philosophical system and his account of human nature one finds a number of elements that are intimately related to his moral objectives. I refer, widely, to his moral objectives, rather than more restrictedly to his ethical theory, because his whole system has a moral thrust that can be discerned in many places where the immediate subject-matter is not ethical at all.

HUME AND HIS PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM

In 1927, A. E. Taylor concluded his Leslie Stephen Lecture David Hume and the Miraculous with a judgement of Hume's attitude to his philosophical work that has been held by many others:

David Hume (1711-76) may be best understood as the first postsceptical philosopher of the early modern period. Many of Hume's immediate predecessors, particularly the Cartesians, had attempted to refute philosophical scepticism. In contrast to these predecessors, Hume was a self-proclaimed sceptic who consciously developed a philosophical position that is at one and the same time fundamentally sceptical and fundamentally constructive. His position is sceptical in so far as he shows that knowledge has nothing like the firm, reliable foundation the Cartesians or other rationalists had claimed to give it; his position is constructive in so far as he undertook to articulate a new science of human nature that would provide for all the sciences, including morals and politics, a unique and defensible foundation. For nearly two centuries the positive side of Hume's thought was routinely overlooked - in part as a reaction to his thoroughgoing religious scepticism - but in recent decades commentators, even those who emphasize the sceptical aspects of his thought, have recognized and begun to reconstruct Hume's positive philosophical positions.

For Hume, understanding the workings of the mind is the key to understanding everything else. There is a sense, therefore, in which to write about Hume's philosophy of mind is to write about all of his philosophy. With that said, I shall nonetheless focus here on those specific doctrines that belong to what we today call the philosophy of mind, given our somewhat narrower conception of it. It should also be remembered that Hume describes his inquiry into the nature and workings of the mind as a science. This is an important clue to understanding both the goals and the results of that inquiry, as well as the methods Hume uses in pursuing it. As we will see, there is a thread running from Hume's project of founding a science of the mind to that of the so-called cognitive sciences of the late twentieth century. For both, the study of the mind is, in important respects, just like the study of any other natural phenomenon. While it would be an overstatement to say that Hume's entire interest lies in the construction of a science in this sense - he has other, more traditionally “philosophical” concerns, as well - a recognition of the centrality of this scientific conception of his subject is essential for understanding him.

Of “late years” there has been, Hume wrote in his Treatise of Human Nature, a controversy that has “so much excited the curiosity of the publick, whether these moral distinctions be founded on natural and original principles, or arise from interest and education” Those who adopted the second of these views-those who traced the alleged distinction between virtue and vice to self-interest and education - had claimed, as Hume puts it, that morality itself has "no foundation in nature" but is, rather, founded merely on the pain or pleasure that arises from considerations of self-interest. In contrast, those who ranged themselves on the other side of this issue - those who said that moral distinctions are founded on natural and original principles - claimed that "morality is something real, essential, and founded on nature" (T 2.1.7, 295-6).

“We are all jingoes now,” the New YorkSun wrote immediately after the 1898 war, “and the head jingo is the Hon. William McKinley.” The term “jingo” came from an 1878 British music hall song about “jingo” Englishmen who were aching to fight Russia. The term also came from the Japanese empress, Jingo, who sometime before the fourth century A.D. invaded Korea in an uproar of nationalism, war, and all-out expansionism. By the late 1890s it was a household term. Given the lineage, however, McKinley was no “jingo.” He disdained seizing parts of the Spanish empire and approached Cuba, Puerto Rico, and – above all – the Philippines incrementally and with a superb politicians sensitivity to the need for consensus. His objective was not a colonial empire but the minimum territory needed to obtain his conquest of world markets, along with the taking of strategic points necessary to protect that conquest. To achieve such a conquest, however, McKinley was willing to endure disorder and bear upheavals, even full-scale insurrection in the Philippines, or the threat of becoming involved in war on the Asian mainland.

Destroying Order for Opportunity: Annexing the Philippines

On May 4, 1898, even before he received official word of Admiral George Dewey’s conquest of Manila, the president ordered 5,000 troops to embark for the occupation of the Philippines “and such service as may be ordered hereafter.” These troops quickly encountered the forces of Emilio Aguinaldo, who had led the Filipino independence fight in 1896–7 against Spain.

The 1865–1912 era in U.S.–Latin American relations began with Secretary of State William Seward forswearing landed conquest in Mexico and the Congress rejecting footholds in the Caribbean– Central American region, even when tempted by the centuries-old dream of exclusive rights to an isthmian canal. The era ended with the United States exclusively owning and fortifying the canal, militarily and economically dominating the Caribbean through a network of bases, occupying Nicaragua with U.S. Marines, and verging on an invasion of Mexico. Clearly these years are pivotal in understanding how the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which ruled out foreign interference in Latin American affairs, became the Monroe Doctrine of 1912, which justified unilateral U.S. intervention in those affairs.

It is equally clear, given the prominence of U.S. military forces in the region after the 1880s, that the nation’s foreign policies did not primarily seek order and stability in Latin America. They instead placed the greatest emphasis on obtaining economic opportunity and strategic footholds from which they could move to obtain further opportunities. These policies, even by the early 1890s, led to disorder and clashes that, in turn, helped pressure U.S. officials to build the naval forces necessary to maintain their new interpretations of the Monroe Doctrine.