First, let me apologize to those who were kept "waiting." I am still new to this, and I have to figure out how to admit everyone without going through the waiting process. I am really, really sorry. I admitted people who were waiting until I started, and then I got caught up in what I was saying and forgot to look at the upper right corner of the screen where it says whether someone is waiting.
The video is now up on YouTube. The title is "Robert Paul Wolff David Hume's Theory of Knowledge Lecture One" [catchy :) ]
On to Lecture Two.
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28 comments:
Thank you for the lecture Professor Wolff.
Concerning the quality of Aristotle's lost dialogues: I've heard it said that Cicero wrote "if Plato’s prose was silver, Aristotle’s was a flowing river of gold."
Thanks.
However, did Spinoza write dialogues?
Yup. Between the first and second parts of the Short Treatise.
Richard, far be it from me to contradict the immortal Cicero. Nevertheless ...
Thanks. I googled the complete works of Spinoza and did not see any dialogues listed there, but I've never read the Short Treatise and I have no doubt that Spinoza's ability to write dialogues is lesser than that of Plato and Hume, since Spinoza seems to want to reduce reality to an equation while Plato revels in all of life's richness.
Thank you very much professor!
I just couldn't watch it because I'm in Japan and the time difference was a bit much so I appreciate your upload!
Thank you!
Thank you. Just marvelous. I thought I would be lost but for me the lecture flowed nicely - replete with delicious story telling.
I also liked very much the larger framing of Hume's project, the epistemological turn and so on. Maybe one day you can do a series on Wittgenstein, while explicating the 20th century turn.
(A technical comment: I liked the interaction with students; nice to see other faces pop in and out. I'm assuming students can ask questions throughout - not just at the end? Also, I think the camera on you is a little high. It felt as though we were looking down on you just a bit. If your positioning could rise a little so that you take up more of the frame would be better.)
Just watched it and I'm getting very excited! Thank you again for doing this.
Looking forward to more and just want to say please do wear a mask. I live in Japan and it's a standard practice that does help.
Take care please and I hope you have a nice day.
Thank you
Professor Wolff,
Thank you for doing this. At the end of the lecture someone asked a question about Hume’s relation to Newton and I had a follow-up: Hume is sometimes regarded as (1) an empiricist, (2) a skeptic, and (3) a naturalist (“Newton of the mind”). But how can be all three at once? It may be that a certain kind of skepticism is compatible with empiricism, but how can be both a skeptic and naturalist? It also seems like empiricism and naturalism are bound to run into conflicts, most notably on the issue of the necessity of natural laws. When these approaches conflict, which do you think is the most important for Hume’s project in the Treatise?
Thank you for your time. I’m looking forward to the second lecture next week!
In prep for the next zoom session, finished reading part 1. It was straightforward until section 7, abstract ideas. I'll have re-read that again before Saturday. Thanks. --Dave F.
Thanks for doing this, Prof. Wolff - definitely looking forward to more!
If it's all right, I'd like to take a shot at Tyler's question. I say this as an amateur, but my sense is that Hume is all three of those things, and it is indeed a challenge to reconcile them, as well as to decide their logical ordering, i.e. which of the three would be fundamental, and which derivative. A good first step is to clarify the terms:
(1) Empiricism: roughly, that the key characteristic of knowledge is its dependence upon experience. (Compare Hume: "no idea without a prior corresponding impression.")
(2) Skepticism: roughly, that human beings do not possess knowledge, or are not entitled to certainty in their beliefs. Here it's useful to make a distinction between (a) "mitigated" skepticism, and (b) "unmitigated" skepticism (what Hume calls "Pyrrhonism," I believe): On (a), it is proper for us to behave and feel as if we do have certain knowledge, despite the problems with its character and foundations; but on (b), this would not be proper. (For (a), compare Hume: "Custom is the great guide of life"; "Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions.")
(3) Naturalism: roughly, either (a) methodological naturalism (that the methods of the natural sciences are unrivaled in producing genuine, reliable knowledge, or at least something approximating to knowledge); or (b) metaphysical naturalism (that the reality studied by natural science is the only reality there is).
Regarding Hume's naturalism, I don't have much to add to what's said about the "Newton of the mind." I guess it's debatable whether Hume was agnostic about, or simply inclined toward, metaphysical naturalism. And I *think* he'd want to say that "methodological naturalism" is pretty much the same thing as empiricism. (Does the term "empiricism" appear in Hume, by the way? I don't remember offhand who coined it.)
Now, as to the logical ordering of the three: My take, FWIW, is that Hume is an empiricist, who makes a strong case that empiricism strictly leads to unmitigated skepticism; but he also contends that our makeup obliges us to reject unmitigated skepticism, and this contention is supported naturalistically. ("Nature has determined us to judge as well as to breathe and feel.") If this is right, then his empiricism and naturalism would be the starting-point(s) of his philosophy, and his mitigated skepticism would be a consequence of these.
Take this all with a grain of salt, of course. (I figure Prof. Wolff and others can tell you if you should best overlook this post, or if this is a case of "too many cooks in the kitchen.")
In _The Passions and the Interests_ (1977), Albert Hirschman notes that Hume's view that reason is subordinate to the passions left him "badly in need of the consoling thought that one passion can function as the counterpoise to another" (p.24), a notion that Hirschman suggests is shared by many eighteenth-century writers.
the sound is terrible on youtube, I prefer to wait for the 2n lecture, I can´t hear it as it is now
Dear Michael,
I basically agree with your interpretation of Hume. Hume's empiricist principle about how there can be no 'ideas' without first originating from an 'impression' ultimately leads him to a sceptical position about how we cannot know the 'secret ties' or the 'essence of phenomena' which bind cause and effect relations or events, as epitomised by the billiard-ball example in the 'Abstract'. However, in the 'Conclusion' to Book I of the Treatise - in the famous 'back-gammon' passage - Hume casts aside all his philosophical scepticsm about causation when confronted with the the events of ordinary, everyday life. As he says: 'If we believe, that fire warms, or water refreshes, 'tis only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise'. I think that Hume offers a pragmatist conclusion to his philosophical doubts; in other words, he takes note of what 'nature herself' (the real world) teaches us. Indeed, I would argue that Hume offers non-philosophical reasons for rejecting his philosophical sceptical conclusions about causation which follow logically from his empiricist principle about ideas and impressions, which form the foundational or starting point of his Treatise.
Anyway, just a few thoughts as a way of saying how much stimulated I was by your account of Hume.
Thanks, I appreciate that!
I would agree that Hume reads like a pragmatist, or rather a proto-pragmatist - though it also seems possible (not that your comment is guilty of this!) to use the word "pragmatist" too rigorously, partly because classical as well as contemporary pragmatists are often at odds about how to understand the term. The -isms in these comments are useful for us in that they allow us to understand past thinkers in our own language, but I worry a little that there's risk of anachronism. Not a huge deal, though; that goes for just about any -ism retrospectively applied. (Of those mentioned thus far, I think the only one I've seen in Hume's writings is "skepticism.")
I tend to think of pragmatism as: (a) a reaction against the "classical" (if that's the right word) theories of truth and meaning, and (b) a view of knowledge as fallible, dynamic, relative to the needs and purposes of human communities. I'd expect Hume to have a great deal of sympathy with (b), but I might have some reservations with (a) - I'd have to think about it some more.
Also, the "backgammon" passage is wonderful, isn't it? :)
To pick up on part of Jerry's response regarding the linguistic turn I would like to pose a question or two. I would judge that the epistemological turn was quite productive over the past several centuries. Q. 1. Has the linguistic turn actually established a compelling basis for the reorientation of philosophy and social theory? Q. 2 Is it as much of shift from the past as is implied in the phrase "linguistic turn."
I am no expert in Wittgenstein, but it appeared to me that his shift to language was taken up as a critique of scientism/ positivism in British influenced philosophy and social theory. The neo Marxist critique of positivism started well before Wittgenstein's later work, as did a focus on language which had been the concern of historians for hundreds of years (Dilthey, hermeneutics).
@ Christopher J. Mulvaney
My two cents off the cuff:
The phrase "linguistic turn" is ambiguous, because: (1) there was a linguistic turn in mid-20th century Anglo-American philosophy, but then (2) somewhat later in the 20th century some cultural historians started talking about a linguistic turn, by which they meant something quite different than what the Oxford philosophers of language were doing in the mid-20th century. This second sense of the linguistic turn relates more to hermeneutics, mentioned in your comment above.
My sense is that linguistic turn number 1 pretty much stayed within academic philosophy, though one or two political scientists did get interested in Wittgenstein and J.L. Austin and speech acts. (The whole movement also elicited, unsurprisingly, some criticism in the mid-20th century, partly b.c it pretty much had the effect of relegating political and moral philosophy to the sidelines, where they more or less stayed until the '60s. Ok, very broad brush strokes here, but it's a blog comment box after all.)
As for linguistic turn number 2, it produced some interesting work in cultural and social history but played itself out a while ago, I think.
Developments in social theory are something else again (though everything is connected at some level). Richard J. Bernstein's The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory was a helpful survey when it was published, but it's more than 40 years old. I'm sure there are comparable works that are much more recent, but I'm not exactly sure what they are (though see mention of Joel Isaac, below).
My further sense is that most budding historians and social scientists who go through graduate school today, at least in the U.S., are pressed to focus fairly quickly on their substantive research agendas; while they have to have a nodding acquaintance with debates about methodology/methods and theory sufficient to get them through their general exams, they basically don't have to worry too much about any of this. The exceptions among the social scientists and historians would be (1) the minority who happen to have strong philosophical and/or theoretical interests and (2) those who happen to specialize in modern intellectual history, esp. the intellectual history of the 20th century. Re (2): my impression is that there has been some really good work in recent years on the history of the social sciences in the 20th century, and to write that, depending on the particular focus, you prob. need to do a fairly deep dive into debates on theory. I'm thinking here of a book like Joel Isaac's Working Knowledge: Making the Human Sciences from Parsons to Kuhn, which regrettably I have not made the time to read. (Sigh.)
P.s. Re the hermeneutics-oriented "turn," meant to mention Geertz, _The Interpretation of Cultures_.
C. Mulvaney is right that none of this was esp. new, it goes back to at least the mid 19th cent. debates in Germany among philosophers and historians on issues of method and approach etc. (I don't know German but it's not hard to figure out what Methodenstreit means.)
But the language of a "turn" signals, to me, not so much complete novelty as a movement in intellectual fashion or trends, which will rarely be completely new but rather will often have antecedents. But it was easier for most people to read something more recent and perhaps more accessible than Dilthey, Rickert, or (even) Weber in some of his work.
This might be a bit off topic - I've been following your lectures on Kant and I would like to ask you this: what are your thoughts on Arthur Schopenhauer's remarks on the critique? And why is this philosophical genius under-taught in academic circles? From a Arthur Schopenhauer-idolizing philosophical autodidact in Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Given what Schopenhauer has to say about academic philosophers, why would you expect them to teach him?
By the way, I enjoy Schopenhauer myself.
LFC - thank you for your response. I was studying history before I got to UMASS and had to switch fields. As a result, I came to social theory/political science with a strong background in historiography and intellectual history. Social and political theory had turned into a kind of inane debate between practitioners of schools of thought. Each were intent on proving that their theory had something that others didn't and was therefore better. What at the time was called Interpretive Theory at UMASS was a new contestant in the debate inspired by Wittgenstein, Austin, Taylor, etc.
"Turn" signals to me a completely different direction, and the use of it to describe the epistemological turn is on the mark. As you know,
the epistemological turn was a very real and substantive shift from a Medieval world to a modern world. The shift from metaphysics to the human subject was a total paradigm shift. History shifts from being the working out of god's plan and chronicles of kings to man makes history, can understand it, and is thus a legitimate object of study. The study of the state and its legitimation replaces justifications of divine kingship, and so on. The development of all the social sciences grow from this revolution.
It didn't seem to me at the time that there was anything close to that level of importance in the linguistic turn. So as you put it, it was something of a fad. Come to think of it, "linguistic tangent" might be more accurate!
Thanks again for taking the time to respond. By the way, my first guess would be you teach intellectual history?
Thanks, Christopher.
I don't teach intellectual history but I'm interested in it and have written occasionally for the U.S. Intellectual History Blog (which, despite its title, is not restricted to U.S. topics).
Academic background in brief: PhD in international relations from American University, where most of my professors were political scientists. Undergraduate degree from Prof. Wolff's alma mater, in Social Studies, a program that Wolff was present at the creation of. (That was before my time, though not quite as much before my time as I wish it were. ;)) And for me a number of years separated college and grad school, as I worked in "the real world" among other things. But I don't teach, and if I did I probably wouldn't be commenting on blogs so much, for various reasons including time.
LFC,
I started out at the G'town School of Foreign service. I was dividing my time between anti-war stuff, study, and playing in a band and they kicked me out after two years. I heard Dr. Wolff talk about the social studies program when, to my great surprise and pleasure, asked me to teach a seminar in the Social Theory and Political Economy Honors Program at UMass, the new and improved social studies program! My older son went to American.
Btw the particular grad program I went through at AU had a somewhat more theoretical bent than most programs in IR, I'd say. (I'm not sure how true that still is.)
Unlike you, I was never rebellious enough to have been kicked out of anywhere. I occasionally wonder how I would have acted (i.e., with what amount of radicalism etc.) had I been in college in 1969 or thereabouts, but by the time I was a freshman the Vietnam War was (definitively) over.
On the topic of Schopenhauer, here's a fun fact, courtesy of my inner 13-year-old. :)
Somewhere in Parerga & Paralipomena, our author uses the word "dickhead" to describe someone, probably indeed a contemporary in academic philosophy. (I don't remember where, or if it was English in the original.)
Now there's a first for a great philosopher!
Someone should compile a list of notable insults and put-downs in philosophy. Here's another: Eriugena's Periphyseon was condemned by Pope Honorius III, who described it as "swarming with the worms of heretical perversity."
So that's where I got the title of my punk album from the early eighties. "Swarming with the worms of heretical perversity". I always thought it was from my overly devout sister's description of me.
Michael,
I am sure John the Irishman would have responded with "...authority proceeds from true reason, but reason certainly does not proceed from authority." And he might have added, 'It certainly doesn't come from the throne you sit on."
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