David Hume and the Problem of Other Minds

Anik Waldow

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781441151407
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

The problem of other minds has widely been considered as a special problem within the debate about scepticism. If one cannot be sure that there is a world existing independent ly of one's mind, how can we be sure that there are minds - minds which we cannot even experience the way we experience material objects?
This book shows, through a detailed examination of David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, that these concerns are unfounded. By focusing on Hume's discussion of sympathy - the ability to connect with the mental contents of other persons - Anik Waldow demonstrates that belief in other minds can be justified by the same means as belief in material objects.
The book thus not only provides the first large-scale treatment of the function of thebelief in other minds within the Treatise, thereby adding a new dimension to Hume's realism, but also serves as an invaluable guide to the complexity of the problem of other minds and its various responses in contemporary debate.

Chapter 1
Scepticism versus Naturalism

Chapter 1 begins with a revision of Hume’s sceptical arguments. This is necessary because, in principle, the belief in other minds comes as much under scrutiny as all other beliefs when being exposed to Hume’s sceptical arguments in Book I. It will be shown that, for Hume, scepticism has a strategic aim, namely, to establish the science of human nature as the one and only philosophy in contrast to metaphysical conjecture. Doubts here merely have the function to call us on the alert against the untenable speculations about the hidden real that metaphysicians suppose to lie beyond the realm of perceptions. Against this background it will be suggested that a suitable approach towards the belief in other minds consists in the examination of the processes directing the formation of ideas about other minds. This approach exhibits what Hume defines as ‘just philosophy’ – a form of intellectual activity that is an appropriate reaction to scepticism, for it merely aims at the elucidation of the procedures governing human beliefs without deciding their status.

1.0 Introduction

Traditionally Hume has been regarded as a sceptic whose philosophy is, at best, of historical value. Hume’s re-discovery began when Norman Kemp Smith labelled him as a naturalist by pointing towards Hume’s particular interest in the analysis of the perceivable and the positive role of our natural cognitive abilities within this approach; thus he opposed claims that Hume’s principle aim consisted in refuting the belief in the existence of an external world.¹ Despite this new classification, it remains debatable today how Hume’s sceptical arguments, mainly to be found in Book I of the Treatise, are to be assessed. After all, however naturalistic his perspective might be, it can barely be denied that Hume challenges our common understanding of causal powers, substance and persons. A new attempt to come to terms with this challenging side of Hume’s philosophy has been made by the so-called sceptical realists: John Wright, Edward Craig, Galen Strawson, to name only a few of them.² One of their central points is that Hume’s philosophy leaves enough room for accommodating contentful thought about the real, conceived as lying beyond the realm of perceptions. Thus, they seek to rebut the traditional view that Hume’s aim is to restrict our ideas to those corresponding to the realm of the experienceable.

For our purposes this line of argument is interesting for the following reason. If it can be endorsed that Hume accepts a world despite our inability to reach it directly in perception, the grounds on which the belief in other minds could be accepted are prepared. Other minds may not be perceptible, but, if we follow the realist reading, this is insufficient for a denial of their existence. They could be accepted to exist as much as a material world, in as far as both are equally barred from our perceptible grasp. In the following work we will continuously pursue the plausibility of this argument. Thus, Chapter 2 ponders the conceivability of other minds, while Chapter 3 unravels the parallel structure underlying the formation of belief in body and mind. In contrast to this overall development, the focus of Chapter 1 is laid on the discussion of possible impediments to a realist reading. This serves the purpose of establishing a firm fundament on which Hume’s philosophical project can be discerned to stand. This foundation is needed because one danger of treating Hume as a realist consists in putting him alongside those philosophers he ventures to criticize: the metaphysicians who indulge in speculations about the inaccessible beyond rather than engage in profound scientific examination of the perceivable. In view of this, it seems to be advisable to understand first the limits of a realist reading before endeavouring to pin down the precise conditions that render thoughts about something unperceivable like other minds not only possible but entirely legitimate.

In the preface of the Treatise as well as on the first pages of the Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding³ Hume is explicit about the aims of his investigation. His main target is to limit the influence of ‘abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition … gives it the air of science and wisdom’.⁴ The proposed method by which this degeneration of philosophy could be reverted is taken to be experimental reasoning. This sort of ‘accurate and just reasoning’⁵ does not pretend to aim at an explanation of areas which lie beyond our grasp. It is preoccupied with the examination of our mental processes:

It becomes, therefore, no inconsiderable part of science barely to know the different operations of the mind…. The task of ordering and distinguishing, which has no merit, when performed with regard to external bodies, the objects of our senses, rises its value, when directed towards the operations of the mind, it is at least a satisfaction to go so far.⁶

This is a clear appeal for the restriction of the task of philosophy. One is not to search for an understanding of the metaphysical nature of things. One is to content oneself with the examination of human nature, that is, the nature of our operations of the mind, and an understanding of how we come to perceive, think and believe the way we do. This programme invites one to think that Hume is a psychologist rather than a philosopher. If this is true, a defence of his realism becomes a very difficult task. Hume would not be concerned with the world and questions about what we can know about it, but with the human mind, because all he reaches for is the description of those cognitive processes underlying our conception of the real, an endeavour which leaves it undecided whether or not this conception conforms to the world:

As to those impressions, which arise from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly inexplicable by human reason, and ’twill always be impossible to decide with certainty, whether they arise immediately from the object, or are produc’d by the creative power of the mind, or are deriv’d from the author of our being. Nor is such a question any way material for our present purpose.⁷

This chapter will present a possibility to defend Hume’s status as a philosopher without arguing that he is a realist who firmly advocates the existence of the world independent of our perceiving it. Thus, it will be endeavoured to show that Hume may not be able to remove doubts about the truth of our knowledge claims. Instead, it will be pointed out that he nevertheless offers a method for the consolidation of our beliefs by means of which the interference of our imaginative powers and speculations can be limited to a minimum. Hume’s concerns thus remain epistemological. He presents us with a solution to the problem of how knowledge can be approached, albeit the impossibility of ultimate proofs. At the heart of this interpretation lies the appreciation of the tension between the vulgar and the philosopher’s view. In a first step we will therefore compare the two perspectives and evaluate Hume’s attitude towards them. This will lead us to an understanding of the nature and extent of Hume’s scepticism as well as provide a grasp of the function perceptions possess within his framework. As a result, the preliminary conclusion can be drawn that Hume’s definition of perceptions as mind-dependent entities prevents a philosophically approvable conception of the real that would be able to host other minds as real beings in a real world. With the intention to defend our natural belief in other minds, we will then gesture towards a standard of belief which dispenses with a correspondence theory of knowledge. That is a theory of knowledge which appreciates only those instances of belief which correspond to facts that exist, if we follow Hume, somewhere in an obscure beyond. Alternatively it will be suggested to view natural beliefs as the fundament on which philosophical reflection needs to fall back. With this approach we will finally create a means by which one can reconcile the apparent tension between Hume’s commitment to a naturalistic concept of knowledge, that suggests experience to be the foundation for claims about the real, and his acknowledgement that it is impossible to access external objects as they exist independently of our perception. As we will see, in the danger of total scepticism caused by the degeneration of reason, it is our natural propensities which are able to prevent the loss of all knowledge. Just philosophy respects the influence of these propensities and thus succeeds in confining itself to a use of reason which is free of speculative elements, on the one hand, and able to preserve the ability to judge, on the other. Against this background, natural beliefs, such as the belief in other minds, will turn out to be the invisible foundation without which the envisaged advancement of knowledge would fail. Hence, an argument for the acceptance of natural beliefs as a precondition for reflection will be found.

1.1 The Vulgar and the Philosopher

When Hume speaks about the vulgar he refers to the common man who is ignorant of the opinions of philosophers. Often it even seems that the vulgar view does not involve reason or reflection at all. Philosophy generates its opinions by the use of reason, while the ‘conclusions, which the vulgar form on this head, are directly contrary to those, which are confirm’d by philosophy’.⁸ This opposition between the vulgar and philosophy becomes particularly clear in Hume’s discussion of the ‘idea of double existence’ to be found in the chapter ‘Of scepticism with regard to the senses’ in the Treatise:

Philosophy informs us that everything, which appears to the mind, is nothing but a perception, and is interrupted, and dependent on the mind; whereas the vulgar confound perceptions and objects, and attribute a distinct continu’d existence to the very things they feel or see.⁹

Hume here points out that it is foreign to the common man to distinguish between the perception of a thing and the thing itself as it exists independently of us. Thus, it is natural for us to believe that our perceptions are the perceived things themselves and not mere images of them. The philosopher, however, would reject this view: reason clearly shows that perceptions are mind-dependent entities, and that they are therefore not capable of existence, regardless of whether we perceive them or not. Hence, for the philosopher, our belief that perception acquaints us with the things themselves is nothing but the result of fiction.

At first sight, it seems that Hume strongly identifies with the position that claims perceptions to be mind-dependent and internal existences. This is because, for Hume, all perceptions ‘are the same in the manner of their existence’.¹⁰ At the same time he points out that, for philosophers as well as the vulgar, it is clear that perceptions of pleasure or pain are ‘merely perceptions; and consequently interrupted and dependent beings’.¹¹ It would only be some extravagant modern philosophers who surrender to the powers of the imagination in accepting that perceptions of primary qualities are less mind-dependent than perceptions of secondary qualities:

’Tis also evident, that colours, sounds, &c. are originally on the same footing with the pain that arises from steel and pleasure that proceeds from fire; and that the difference betwixt them is founded neither on perception nor reason, but on the imagination.¹²

If these claims are taken together, it turns out that, on Hume’s account, all perceptions are equally mind-dependent, regardless of whether they deal with pains, solid objects or smells. This interpretation gains further support if we consider that Hume suggests that perceptions are fully transparent, so that they ‘must necessarily appear in every particular what they are, and be what they appear’.¹³ This precludes that a perception can, if exposed to the light of reflection, appear to be dependent on our mind, in as far as it persist only for the time of our perceiving, and at the same time be mind-independent. It appears as what it is; and if it appears to be mind-dependent, this is precisely what it is.

Although the comparison between the vulgar and philosophy seems to reveal that Hume opposes the vulgar view and candidly supports philosophy – at least in its claim that the perception of an object is not to be confused with the object itself – one needs to be careful. On numerous occasions Hume has nothing but contempt for philosophy and acts as one of its fiercest critics. Take for instance the following passage, in which Hume ponders the so-called idea of double existence:

The natural consequence of this reasoning shou’d be, that our perceptions have no more continu’d than an independent existence; and indeed philosophers have so far run into this opinion, that they change their system, and distinguish … betwixt perceptions and objects, of which the former are suppos’d to be interrupted, and perishing, and different at every different return; the latter to be uninterrupted, and to preserve a continued existence and identity. But however philosophical this new system may be esteem’d, I assert that ’tis is only a palliative remedy, and that it contains all the same difficulties of the vulgar system, with some others, which are peculiar to itself.¹⁴

Hume here challenges philosophy for its tendency to incorporate the mistake inherent in the vulgar system. This mistake consists perhaps not in believing that perceptions are mind-independent in themselves, but in assuming that these perceptions relate to some independent existences instead, such as material substances. Hume becomes even more explicit in his rejection of the philosophical system. He calls it the ‘monstrous offspring of two principles, which are contrary to each other, which are both at once embrac’d by the mind, and which are unable mutually to destroy each other’.¹⁵ By principle one, perceptions would be acknowledged as mind-dependent, by principle two, the existence of some mind-independent objects would be preserved; and it would merely be through the supposition of a correspondence between perceptions and objects that these principles could be reconciled. Otherwise, the presence of perceptions would be insufficient for grounding claims about objects existing independently of our perceiving them.

Why is Hume so enflamed about the philosophical system? One answer to this question is that this system presupposes entities as a given fact without paying attention to the lack of experiential evidence for their existence. Perceptions, as outlined above, are taken to be mind-dependent; from this it seems to follow, at least for Hume, that they lack the ability to inform us about mind-independent entities. To understand why this is so, let us have a closer look at Hume’s category of perceptions. First of all, it is important to realize that for Hume ‘perception’ is a technical term for mental occurrences called impressions and ideas:

Here therefore we may divide all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or species, which are distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity. The less forcible and lively are commonly denominated Thoughts or Ideas. The other species want a name in our language, and in most others; I suppose, because, because it was not requisite for any, but philosophical purposes, to rank them under a general term of appellation. Let us, therefore, use a little freedom and call them Impressions.¹⁶

Impressions can be either of the senses or reflection, such as sensations, passions or other emotions, while ideas stand for thoughts, memories, phantasms and beliefs. The category of perception thus stands for everything which comes to the mind, including mental activity as well as its contents: ‘Nothing is ever present to the mind but its perceptions; and that all the actions of seeing, hearing, judging, loving, hating, and thinking, fall under this denomination.’¹⁷ This way of putting things already reveals that Hume is not prone to the thought that the minds could be acquainted with something other than perceptions:

Now since nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions, and since all ideas are deriv’d from something antecedently present to the mind; it follows, that ’tis impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an idea of any thing specifically different from ideas and impressions.¹⁸

Every thought that we form is still a perception, while access to a perception-independent background is barred. Things that enter the mind through our impressions enter them as perceptions. Hence, all materials from which thoughts about external existences could be derived are perceptions: that is, our impressions and ideas.

In general it applies that ideas are the copies of preceding corresponding impressions: ‘Our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv’d from simple impressions, which are corresponding to them, and which they exactly represent.’¹⁹ Simple ideas are capable of existence only if they correspond to a preceding impression; complex ideas are excluded from this condition. Their existence merely requires that every one of their simple constituents is derived from a corresponding impression. Perceptions are simple if they admit of no separation, while a perception’s separablility is defined in terms of the distinguishability of its qualities. Thus, the idea of an apple counts as complex because we can distinguish its different qualities, such as its colour, taste and smell: ‘Simple ideas are those which admit of no distinction or separation. The complex are the contrary to these and may be distinguished into parts.’²⁰ This suggests that thoughts about things in the world usually tend to be complex. We think about an apple by entertaining the combination of a variety of simple ideas: the ideas of the apple’s smell, taste and colour. Or speaking more generally, thoughts about objects in the world can be taken to manifest in our having complex ideas of a bunch of different qualities attributed to the objects in question.²¹

When Hume here speaks about apples, one gains the impression that his criticism of the ‘idea of double existence’ is inconsistent. Hume himself seems to admit implicitly of the conception of ideas as representatives of external existences, namely real apples in a real world. And indeed many have thought along these lines and have taken Hume to endorse a representationalist theory of perception. One of the proponents of this view is Jerry Fodor, who draws a comparison betwe...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Scepticism versus Naturalism
• Chapter 2: Conceiving Minds
• Chapter 3: The World and the Other
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index