Moore On Edmund Burke

I think Edmund Burke is possibly the most profound interpreter of Hume even though, as far as I know he never mentions him by name - which, considering Hume's tremendous importance as a theoretician in politics and economics is extremely strange. Burke thoroughly understands the implications of ontologically replacing "certainty" and "necessity" by "probability." It gives him dread. In fact, Burke seems to see the real issue resides in the real life fact, that he as a politician as well as an aesthetic theoretician understood all too well in actual political practice, "certainty" and "necessity" as well as "truth" and "falsity" could not be found when dealing with real human beings and having to make decisions as to whether they are going to live or die or whether they must go on enduring living in an obviously unjust situation because the solution to those problems involve far too many 'either/or's' or are not even ascertainable as to what the consequences of action will be if one interferes with the way things are even if one deplores them.

So when he can prosecute the head of the East India Company on grounds already fully and clearly determined by other people so that all he has to do is clarify the situation and determine if the director did or did not follow the rules and laws he was suppose to, Burke is free to act since he has strictly determined boundaries of what is and is not acceptable. But when he has to deal with the French Revolution or the oppression of the Catholic Irish, he has to confront political realities he cannot ignore, deal with them with judgments determined by immediate ongoing realities and immediate impact rather than any idealistic motives he has hidden within his soul. So he then has to disregard the motives and causes of the Revolution and deal with its present-at-hand chaos and threat to the order of England. And he has to fear the power of the English landlords and Anglican clergy in Ireland in trying to ameliorate the vast injustices inflicted on the Catholic Irish. If he slips up, he is out of power and can do nothing at all.

Many historians have noted the supposed 'inconsistency' of his attitude toward the French Revolution. But they do not understand how a politician must operate. Some more perceptive thinkers, though, have noted the strange and inherent ambiguity in his arguments that can easily be used (and were and are used) for either Whig or Tory, that they are perfectly logical and correct - but are without obvious and inherent party affiliation. Burke simply states what is the correct thing to do, as far as he can see, considering all the actual circumstances he knows of that effect the present problem immediately at-hand and can actually achieve some small but effective improvement on the present (only) situation.

He does not fight for the full political equality of the Catholic Irish but just for a small change in an outrageous law in order to make it slightly more fair since that political action has a real chance of happening whereas the landlords and Anglican clergy are never going to give up their power directly in the slightest degree whatsoever. And considering the French Revolution, he acted upon it as an immediate threat to British security and disregarded everything else because any favorable considerations of the Revolution would have destroyed his immediate political purpose which was to raise an alarm as to a present-at-hand threat that had to be dealt with now in the face of a population largely in sympathy with that Revolution. But sympathy has no place in political action of the here-and-now.

Now, in ALL of my replies regarding Hume I have made a number of rash mistakes. But we are dealing with an extraordinarily literary philosopher that is being deliberately "suasive" (as one commentator calls him) and very adroit politician in handling his reading audience. He wants to scandalize them to get their attention but, on the other hand, he doesn't want to scare them to death or drive them to insanity. He is a "smooth talker" "that by indirection directions make." He says he prefers Racine to Shakespeare, but shows he has an intimate knowledge of Shakespeare and little or none of Racine. He says that God is necessary for the support of reality and of morality, but we both know that is obvious nonsense.

Actually, he is doing what Wittgenstein did before Wittgenstein, showing meaningless terms to be meaningless. If Hume says the word "identity" is meaningless, people might think Hume is silly but not dangerous. But he uses the word "soul" as synonymous with the words "self" -- which he strictly and explicitly destroys for the same reason and context he destroys "identity" (and he means ALL identity including that of "sense objects") - and "soul" which he leaves alone. So if you so desire, he believes in the existence of the "soul" - if you do not read very carefully (he actually and repeatedly says "based upon the above definitions" when he is talking about these things or 'positively' about "certainty" and "necessity" and the "enduring existence of objects even when you attention is turned away from them" - but when to actually dig back to find the "above definitions" you find they are all universally based upon the imagination).

I have now finished Part II "On the Passions" and started Part III on Morals." The first two books of Part II bored the hell out of me. It was like reading essays from gentlemen's journals of the time. Then I came to Book III, "On the Will." It is tortuous thinking and I will have to re-access it. Hume 'proves' there is no freedom of the will. But then he also 'proves' the necessity of God and that nothing he says should ever disturb someone's faith.

He talks about time. The past and the future are figments of the imagination. The present is the only real time. He says digging back into the past is very difficult because one does not want to (however, he also says viewing vast stretches of times as in the artefacts of the Greeks and the Romans gives one a sense of the "sublime" whereas viewing something that merely came from a great spatial distance like Japan is relatively a matter of indifference). He says the future is what excites our attention. As the basis of this, he says everything is valued in relation to its "nearness" to us - to me - the subject - whose existence he elsewhere said is meaningless - that things that come from far away to become near to us rise in value because of their nearness to us (me). Therefore the future is the tense of primary importance to us. It is the repository of all value, excitement, promise, hope, and . . .. dread.

The dread does not come from a confrontation with death as Heidegger puts it but from a constant confrontation with uncertainty (which more or less would be in accord with Heidegger's concept of "dread" or "anxiety" which he stole from Kierkegaard). Hume never mentions death. But the undefined uncertainty of the future, its "Either this will happen or that will happen or something altogether unknown will happen" is immensely important to him. And -- as he does so often but always with a re-adjustment, a revision, addition involved - re-affirms for the thousandth time that all our ideas are based on sense impressions. But this time he calls them "perceptions." Love is a "perception." Hate is a "perception." Thinking is a "perception.' He says this in such a way, combining a whole group of terms called perceptions in one casual sentence, the first ones quite usual, then the less usual ones, you can read over it and pass it by easily without realizing all the implications. Hume is a subtle one.

And now I have just entered Book III "On Morals." A TREATISE ON HUMAN NATURE is constructed like a Romantic symphony. A strongly interesting first movement. A soothing second movement with a rising sense of unease. And then a third movement that starts with a crescendo. We will see what happens.