Norms for a Reflective Naturalist: A Review of Annette Baier's A Progress of Sentiments

Hume Studies Volume XIX, Number 2, November 1993, pp. 317-323 Book Reviews Norms for a Reflective Naturalist: A Review of Annette Baier's A Progress of Sentiments JANE L. McINTYRE ANNETTE C. BAIER. A Progress of Sentiments: Reßections on Hume's Sentiments. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991. A Progress of Sentiments presents Annette C. Baier's reflections on the Treatise, and on how to read the Treatise. Displaying some of the reflexivity that Baier sees as characteristic of the Treatise itself, these two aspects of her work—her interpretation of the main philosophical themes of the Treatise and her theory about its interpretation—are intimately connected. Baier's interpretative approach is fairly simple to state, but its employment leads to a work that is complex and subtle. Baier takes the three books of the Treatise to comprise a unified work exhibiting a progression of thought. This does not mean merely that the later books build upon the earlier ones, but also that the discussions of the later books shed light upon, and complete, the discussions of the earlier books. "One cannot say that epistemology is done, and finished with, within Book One, that passions are reserved for Book Two, and that Book Three is an appendix of interest only to moral philosophers" (vii). Within each book of the Treatise as well, later parts and sections reflect back on the earlier. On Baier's view, the Treatise cannot be read (as it often has been) as a series of discrete essays: every theme, even familiar Jane L. Mclntyre is at the Department of Philosophy, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH 44106 USA. e-mail: R1188@CSUOHIO.BITNET 318 Book Reviews topics often dealt with in isolation from the rest of the Treatise, such as causal inference and personal identity, must be understood in the context of the account of human nature presented in the completed work. When Baier surveys the Treatise from this standpoint, two interrelated themes stand out. First, the whole philosophical enterprise in the Treatise is "a search for norms with the sort of grounding a reflective naturalist can accept" (97). As will be discussed below, Baier argues that Hume develops such norms, not merely with respect to moral evaluation but also with respect to the understanding, particularly in our causal reasoning. This is connected to the second of Baier's themes, that Hume aims in the Treatise to enlarge our conception of reason, "to make it social and passionate" (278). Baier's work displays her interpretative approach in every chapter by drawing upon passages from throughout the Treatise, weaving connections among them. Her extensive discussion of the passions, for example, is especially valuable precisely because it integrates the relatively unfamiliar themes of Book Two into the Treatise as a whole. Underlying issues in Book Two that serve to forge links with Books One and Three are identified: Reflexivity, indirectness, conflict—these are the opening themes [of Book Two] and they are all themes that are of importance for understanding Hume's version of morality, as well as being themes that are carried over from Book One. (134) Baier's account of association provides an example of a familiar topic transformed by this interpretative approach. Even readers who are well acquainted with all three books of the Treatise will find challenges in Baier's wide-ranging discussion. Not only does Baier bring together the well-known material from Book One with the less recognized but relevant sections from the later books, she also analyzes this material in a highly original way. Baier notes that the Treatise deals with three kinds of associations: associations among persons, among passions and among ideas (52). She argues that, far from being Newtonian, social and biological metaphors drawn from personal associations dominate all these accounts, even in Book One. Baier has her own view of what this entails for a Humean account of reason, which is only fully developed in the final chapter of her book, and this will be commented on below. As described by Baier, the reflective naturalist's search for norms is not an altogether peaceful journey. Each of the individual books of the Treatise depicts conflicts: in Book One...