Hume and the Cogito ergo Sum

Abstract

Descartes and Hume share at least one fundamental philosophical belief, and that is the proper mindset required in order to begin philosophizing in an orderly manner. Each holds that, once this mindset is achieved, the reader will readily accept the procedures and conclusions that follow. I propose to show that Descartes and Hume argue for the identical starting point for doing philosophy. However, despite this agreement between them, Hume rejects Descartes' teachings, even in regard to the Cogito ergo Sum. I attempt to show why Hume rejects Descartes' account of the Cogito.

Notes

All references to Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy and the Replies to Objections 11 are taken from René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, ed. Stanley Tweyman (Ann Arbor: Caravan Books, 2002). References to other of Descartes' works are taken from the Haldane and Ross two-volume edition of Descartes' writings, published by Cambridge University Press. References to David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature are to the L.A. Selby-Bigge edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). References to Hume's First Enquiry are taken from Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Second Edition, 1902). References to Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion are taken from the Second Edition, edited and with an Introduction by Stanley Tweyman (Ann Arbor: Caravan Books, 2000).

First Enquiry, 149–50. I will have more to say about this passage later in the paper when I discuss Hume's reaction to the Cogito ergo Sum.

Hume does make the point that Cartesian doubt, when more moderate, is reasonable, and “is a necessary preparative to the study of philosophy, by preserving a proper impartiality in our judgements, and weaning our mind from all those prejudices, which we may have imbibed from education or rash opinion. To begin with clear and self-evident principles, to advance by timorous and sure steps, to review frequently our conclusions, and examine accurately all their consequences; though by these means we shall make a slow and a short progress in our systems; are the only methods, by which we can ever hope to reach truth, and attain a proper stability and certainty in our determinations” (E. 150).

This is the approach that Hume develops most fully in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in the debate between Philo and Cleanthes in Parts 1–8 and Part 12. In Parts 1–8, Cleanthes is portrayed as a dogmatist, and Philo a pyrrhonian, who attacks Cleanthes' Argument from Design to the point where, at the end of Part 8, a suspense of judgement is deemed the only viable position on the matter of the intelligence of the designer of the world. In Part 12 of the Dialogues, Philo moves to the mitigated sceptical position on this topic by determining to what extent our natural principles and the experimental method can reveal about the nature of the cause(s) of the world. See my Scepticism and Belief in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (The Hague: Kluwer, 1986).

• We can schematize exactly what Descartes means by contrasting these statements:

  • The [denial] of the Cogito ergo Sum is Self-contradictory.

  • The [denial of the Cogito ergo Sum] is Self-contradictory.

In each sentence, the accent falls on the bracketed portion. It is clear from Descartes' argument that (a) is what he intends to convey, since this withholds the claim of self-contradictoriness from the Cogito ergo Sum. It is (b) that Descartes rejects, in that it ascribes the contradiction to the denial of the Cogito ergo Sum.