Did Beattie Defer to Hume?

69. DID BEATTIE DEFER TO HUME? Robert Paul Wolff, in his essay, "Kant's Debt to Hume Via Beattie," points out a 'rather interesting mistake ' made by Norman Kemp Smith in his Commentary to Kànt's Critique of Pure Reason. In the Commentary Kemp Smith considers the similarities of the respective theories of self of Kant and Hume and finds it intriguing that the two philosophers agree" .. .that there is no single empirical« 2 state of the self which is constant throughout experience" . In spite of this agreement of doctrine Kemp Smith insists Kant must have arrived at his conclusions independently of any reading of Hume. We are told this is so because "Hume's view of the self is not developed in the Enquiry, and is 3 not mentioned by Beattie". And since, as Kemp Smith argues, Kant had only the Enquiry and certain passages of Hume's Treatise as quoted by James Beattie in An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth available to him, this agreement must be considered an accident rather than evidence of an 4 influence of Hume on Kant. Here then is the 'interesting mistake'. Wolff does not wish to dispute the more or less canonical assessment that Kant's knowledge of Hume rested on first hand acquaintance with the Enquiry and Beattie' s Essay rather than the Treatise. However, Wolff does want to question Kemp Smith's account of how much Hume Kant could have gleaned from Beattie. Kemp Smith tells us that in the Essay Beattie says nothing of Hume's theory of self. But as every reader of the Essay knows Beattie spent no less than six pages on Hume's discussion of self and personality, and considered it very important: at least important enough that he seems to have felt that a mere description of Hume on the self would serve as a reductio on the Humean body of beliefs . Still, according to Wolff, what appears to be a mistake made by Kemp Smith turns out not to be one at all. Wolff infers from the 1776 date of Beattie' s Essay which 70. Kemp Smith cites that he was working from the sixth edition, the edition which Beattie, responding to Hume's attempt in the Advertisement for the Enquiries to deny responsibility for the Treatise, "...altered his discussion of Hume's philosophy so that his criticism would not apply to the Treatise alone". Such an alteration of the Essay meant, according to Wolff, making the topics of the Essay line up in number and content with those of the Hume's Enquiry. But as we all know Hume does not discuss personal identity in the Enquiry. Thus this topic is omitted from the sixth edition of Beattie's Essay. And thus Kemp Smith's "mistake" turns out not to be one at all. Even if this dissolution by Wolff of what appears to be a mistake by Kemp Smith were correct we would still have puzzles to contend with. For example, the discussion of causation in the Enquiry has long been recognized to differ ? significantly from that of the Treatise. One would then expect that Wolff would also cite some change in the sixth edition of the Essay on this score. Yet Wolff does not mention any alteration in the sixth edition account of causation, and in fact a comparison of the relevant sections of the sixth with an earlier edition will not yield any significant difference in the texts. But, be this as it may, where before we had one seeming mistake and the promise of its being dissolved, we now have two strange mistakes both irresolvable. For the discussion of Hume on personal identity which Wolff and Kemp Smith say does not occur in the edition of Beattie's Essay of 1776 is really there, substantially unchanged from earlier editions . For the sake of completeness it should be noted also that even though Wolff refers only to the sixth edition printed in 1776 there are also at least three other printings of the sixth edition (in 1777, 1778 and 1805), but this makes little difference since Beattie's treatment of the topic of personal identity...