A Treatise of Human Nature (review)

Hume Studies Volume 30, Number 1, April 2004, pp. 188-190 DAVID HUME. A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by John P. Wright, Robert Stecker and Gary Fuller. London: J. M. Dent, 2003. Pp. lxx + 392. ISBN 0-460-88224-4, paper, $12.50. No reader of Hume Studies is likely to make use of an abridgement of the Treatise . Everyman editions, however, are aimed not at scholars but at members of that elusive species, the intelligent general reader (henceforth "IGR"); and the Treatise surely constitutes a paradigm case of a book that needs to be trimmed and tidied for consumption by non-speciaUsts. This was something Hume himself came to realize : hence the Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and concerning the Principles of Morals. But perhaps Hume trimmed and tidied too much. Perhaps the IGR should not feel she has to restrict herself to the Enquiries; perhaps she should be able to explore the secret passages and unused rooms of the Treatise, while remaining confident that she will easily find her way back to the principal corridors and chambers. This new edition might weU introduce Hume's first book to a readership it does not have at present, and is therefore to be welcomed. If my experience is anything to go by, in fact, even a reader of this journal might benefit from a read straight through a stripped-down version of the Treatise—a point I shall return to below. The Everyman text comes with a chronology, an introduction, a relatively small number of explanatory notes (seventy-seven for the entire Treatise), a summary (with quotations) of the principal trends in 250 years or so of Hume interpretation, a bibliography, and a comprehensive index. I have a feeling that the IGR might find the introduction a bit daunting, interesting though it most certainly is in its assessment of the nature of scepticism contained in the Treatise, and in its speculations as to why Hume came to repudiate his first book. I wonder whether the IGR approaching Hume and the Treatise might not want, first and foremost, a map, and a sense of what to look out for on the journey. Like any tourist, she will probably also want a bit of historical context: who were Hume's most important predecessors and contemporaries, what were the questions being discussed by philosophers when Hume was formulating his ideas, and how Hume altered the state of the art. The introduction dwells almost wholly on the last of these questions, and, in particular, on the debate, such as it was, between Hume and Reid. The difference between these two philosophers is characterized in terms of their understanding of the relation between science and common sense: for Reid science is an extension of common sense, while for Hume science challenges common sense, and inevitably generates scepticism as it does so. As I have said, this is very interesting; but I am not sure that it is likely to help the IGR to navigate her way through the immense depths of Hume's philosophy. Hume Studies Book Reviews 189 Most notably absent from the introduction is help with making sense of the subtitle Hume chose for the Treatise. Explanation of what experimental reasoning is, what moral subjects are, and what Hume means when he says he is introducing the former into the latter are all things a first-time reader of the book might feel grateful for. These matters are relegated to the notes to the text—and consequently might well escape the notice of the IGR. The notes make frequent reference to the letter to Michael Ramsay in which Hume encourages his friend to read Descartes, Malebranche, Bayle, and Berkeley as helps to the understanding of the Treatise. Perhaps this would have been a better point of departure for the introduction. The chronology provides a good deal of information about Hume's cultural and political context, but contains a regrettable number of typographical errors (especially when giving the titles of French works). The copy-editing of the supplementary material (but not of the text itself) is in general rather poorr in the introduction, though not in the chronology, the date of publication of Reid...