In Defence of Hume's Historical Method

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Notes

¹An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the conference ‘Hume Studies in Britain II’ at the University of Edinburgh in September 2002. I would like to thank all the participants for their helpful comments. I am also grateful to Edward Craig, Simon Blackburn, Cain Todd, Richard Gray and an anonymous referee of this journal for their advice and support.

²The New Humeans support a ‘sceptical realist’ reading of Hume's philosophy. (2000): The New Hume Debate, ed. by Read and Richman, London: Routledge.

³By ‘historical province’, I mean a historical period constituted by particular norms and values.

⁴D. H. Fischer (1971): Historian's Fallacy: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 203–6.

⁵A. Stern (1962): Philosophy of History and the Problem of Values, S'Gravenhage: Mouton, 147.

⁶J. B. Black (1965): The Art of History: A Study of Four Great Historians of the Eighteenth Century, New-York, 77–216.

⁷Hume (1902): Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 83 (hereafter quoted as Enquiry). Cf. also Hume (1978) A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 547 (hereafter quoted as Treatise) and A Dialogue, in Hume (1902): Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 336 (hereafter quoted as A Dialogue).

⁸For instance, ‘it is not fully known … what may be expected from mankind from any great revolution in their education, customs, or principle’ (‘Of Civil Liberty’, in Hume (1994): Political Essays, ed. by K. Haakonssen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 51.)

⁹This misunderstanding is strengthened by a confusion between history and its use for the science of man. According to Hume, ‘the advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue’ (‘Of the Study of History’, in Hume (1987): Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, ed. by E. F. Miller, Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 510 (hereafter quoted as Essays)). Thus, nothing in history as such involves the task of searching for similarities. But being the analysis of the collective memory of mankind, history provides the philosopher with the material in which he can discern the laws of nature at work: history ‘furnish[es] us with materials from which we may form our observations and become acquainted with the regular springs of human action and behaviour’ (Enquiry, 83). It is in the material supplied by history that the science of man uncovers the similarities that are the foundations of its laws. Therefore, Hume makes it clear that we should distinguish between history and its use within the framework of the science of man.

¹⁰We do operate every day on the assumption that human behaviour is, on the whole, regular and predictable:

Were a man, whom I know to be honest and opulent, and with whom I live in intimate friendship, to come into my house, where I am surrounded with my servants, I rest assured that he is not to stab me before he leaves it in order to rob me of my silver standish.

(Enquiry: 91)

¹¹‘Of Commerce’, in Political Essays, 95.

¹²

The Rhine flows north, the Rhone south; yet both spring from the same mountain, and are also actuated, in their opposite directions, by the same principle of gravity. The different inclinations of the ground, on which they run, cause all the difference of their courses.

(A Dialogue: 333)

¹³Cf. my ‘Hume and the Notion of Moral Progress’, Hume Studies, vol. xxvi, 2000.

¹⁴Adam Smith (1976): The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Oxford: Clarendon Press, V.2.7: 204.

¹⁵‘Of the Coalition of Parties’, in Essays, 495.

¹⁶‘Of the Immortality of the Soul’, in Essays, 597. This interpretation is supported by Hume's theory of historical evidence. A central problem for historians is that their relation to the past is mediated by documents conveying evidence from historical agents. According to Hume, the authenticity of a fact is established through truthful testimony, while the truthfulness of a witness is established through the degree of probability of the fact. Thus, the historian is related to the historical witness by the belief in a continuity of human nature.

¹⁷R. G. Collingwood (1973): The Idea of History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 82.

¹⁸Peter Jones (1999): ‘Hume on Context, Sentiment and Testimony’ in Religion and Hume's Legacy, ed. by Phillips and Tessin, London: MacMillan, 252 refers to d'Alembert (1770): Mélanges de Littérature, I.99 (hereafter quoted as Mélanges).

¹⁹See for instance:

It is almost as if one were trying to express [a] proposition by means of a language whose nature was being imperceptibly altered, so that the proposition was successively expressed in different ways representing the different states through which the language had passed. Each of these states would be recognized in the one immediately neighbouring it; but in a more remote state we would no longer make it out.

(Mélanges: I.47)

²⁰For instance, Hume saves some ground for the intentional action of Henry VII, and says that he probably ‘foresaw and intended this consequence, because the constant scheme of his policy consisted in depressing the great, and exalting churchmen, lawyers, and men of new families, who were more dependant on him’ (Hume (1983): The History of England, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, III, xxvi, 77). Robertson, on the other hand, both in the History of Scotland and in his subsequent treatment of the subject in the History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V, does not seem to be prepared to concede it to Henry VII and Henry VIII. It was not through enlightened self-interest that Henry VIII accomplished the depression of the nobility, but through the unpredicted outcome of his blind rapaciousness and tyrannical aspirations. For a detailed account, see Daniele Francesconi (1999): ‘William Robertson on Historical Causation and Unintended Consequences’, Cromohs, vol. 4, 1 – 18. Echoing Hume's warning not to ‘assign causes which never existed’ (‘Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences’, in Essays, 113), Adam Ferguson also deplores the tendency to ascribe intention and design where none existed: ‘we ascribe to a previous design … what no human wisdom could foresee, and what, without the concurring humour and disposition of his age, no authority could enable an individual to execute’ (Adam Ferguson (1966): A Treatise on Civil Society, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 123).

²¹One might object that sympathy, far from enabling Hume to escape from parochialism, entails parochialism, for it presupposes a common ground between the historian and his object of study. Yet, in so far as this objection is valid, it applies to any historian since no historical method can hope to understand radically alien beings. Thus, as already shown, Hume maintains a minimal constancy of human nature that outlines the limits of both the principle of sympathy and historical understanding.

²² Treatise, 319 (my emphasis). In this sense, one of the specific features of sympathy, and thus of the historical accounts on which they are based, is that although it may potentially be predicated of every human being, it is done in a way that is always singular and determinate. Therefore, when George Sabine writes that Hume ‘neglect[s] the unique and individual aspect of historical events and persons’, he completely overlooks the operation of sympathy (G. H. Sabine (1906): ‘Hume's Contribution to the Historical Method’, The Philosophical Review, vol. 15, 38). According to Hume, the object of sympathy is an agent in his specific environment – see, for instance, Hume's description of the process a reader of history experiences: he ‘enters deeper into the concerns of the persons; represents to himself their actions, and characters, and friendships and enmities: He even goes so far as to form a notion of their features, and air, and person’ (Treatise, 98). This description no doubt fits the historian's experience while writing narratives. Even though I can hypothetically sympathize with everyone, to sympathize with someone, something must make me participate in his situation. Literally, I must take part in his life, and for this reason, I remain at the level of concrete particularities. Therefore, far from being too general and abstract, Humean history is the history of the individuals with whom the historian sympathizes.

²³For Hume, the moral approval of an action is ultimately directed towards a character or a quality of mind, since they are the only legitimate objects of moral valuation. But since a spectator is only acquainted with actions, he infers the agent's character from his actions.

²⁴It would be interesting to compare Hume's theory with Davidson's. Davidson argues that interpreting an event as an action involves rationalizing it, i.e. interpreting it in light of the agent's beliefs and desires. But, as I will argue in the third section, Davidson's principle of charity has a smaller scope than Hume's theory of interpretation.

²⁵Jones describes Hume's account of aesthetic understanding in similar terms. See Jones (1999): 260 ff.

²⁶J. Y. T. Greig (1931): David Hume, London: Jonathan Cape, 268.

²⁷By ‘rationality’, I mean that what people do makes sense for them. In this sense, I believe Hume's concept of rationality exhibits a wider scope than its contemporary versions for it includes emotions, attitudes, passions and sentiments.

²⁸ The History of England: V, lii, 240. Cf. also:

The world is still too young to fix many general truths in politics, which will remain true to the latest posterity. We have not as yet had experience of three thousand years; so that not only the art of reasoning is still defective in this science, as in all others, but we even want sufficient materials upon which we can reason.

(Of Civil Liberty, 51)

Hence, Hume is too aware of both his historically contingent condition and the youth of humanity to make such a trivial mistake.

²⁹William Robertson (1769): History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V, London, II.67.

³⁰The connection I suggest between Hume and the principle of charity was first inspired by the following passage of Hume's History of England:

Sir George Ratcliffe, the earl's intimate friend and confident, was accused of high treason, sent for from Ireland, and committed to close custody. As no charge ever appeared or was prosecuted against him, it is impossible to give a more charitable interpretation of this measure, than that the commons thereby intended to deprive Strafford, in his present distress, of the assistance of his best friend.

(The History of England: V, liv, 310–11; my emphasis)

³¹A similar remark can be found in the writings of Adam Smith à propos the appropriateness of certain manners for a nation:

In general the style of manners which takes place in any nation may commonly upon the whole be said to be that which is most suitable to its situation. Hardiness is the character most suitable to the circumstances of a savage; sensibility to those of one who lives in a very civilized society.

(The Theory of Moral Sentiments: V.2.13, 209)

³² A Dialogue, 334–5.

³³ A Dialogue, 330.

³⁴My interpretation deliberately leaves out an issue that still needs to be tackled. My argument seems to entail that Hume's historical method implicitly contains a twofold theory of historical explanation. For instance, Hume writes: ‘What were the reasons, which engaged the king to admit such strange articles of peace, it is vain to enquire: For there scarcely could be any. The causes of that event may admit of a more easy explication’ (History of England: V, liii, 267). Thus, I have highlighted two distinct models of explanation: the ‘covering law model’, which traces back the causes of actions through moral and causal reasoning, and the ‘covering reason model’, which recovers the reasons behind actions by the means of sympathising with the agent. The former could be understood as the official Humean method (since it formulates general laws just as natural sciences), whereas the latter would be the genuine historical explanation (for it reaches the agent in his particular historical situation). However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to coordinate these models within a theory of historical explanation.

³⁵Agents' reasons for acting are fundamentally aiming at some kind of good: ‘It appears, that there never was any quality recommended by any one … but on account of its being useful, or agreeable to a man himself, or to others’ (A Dialogue: 336). Thus, when we trace back the causes of ‘Greek loves’, we reach ‘qualities esteemed in all nations and all ages’ (A Dialogue: 334). For a detailed account, see D. W. Livingston (1984): Hume's Philosophy of Common Life, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 187ff.

³⁶I want to thank Simon Blackburn for suggesting this slogan.

³⁷This is due to the fact that Davidson has to accept that beliefs are true in order to understand their meaning – and we can only do this if we accept that what they say is largely true by our lights (cf. ‘Radical Interpretation’ in D. Davidson (1984): Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Clarendon Press).

³⁸For an extended analysis of this point, see S. Blackburn (2001): ‘Is Hume the Historian the Human Historian?’ (personal communication) and S. K. Wertz (1994): ‘Collingwood's Understanding of Hume’, Hume Studies, xx: 261–87.