David Hume 1711-1776
How we remember the dead tells us a lot about who we are as a society. Who we remember, tells us even more.
Today on my afternoon walk, I entered Old Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh. I wanted to find the grave of David Hume, the prominent Scottish philosopher.
I am a philosophy graduate but I have never felt the need to come here before, despite living in this city for ten years.
I remember the first time I heard of David Hume. Sometime around 1997, James Daly, the Marxist political philosopher, placed his name on a white board.
The board had two headings. On the left hand side, under the capitalised and underlined title of ‘philosophers,’ were names such as Socrates and Aristotle. On the right hand side, under the word ‘Sophists’, David Hume’s name was marked.
At the time, I remember thinking this was a simplistic introduction: a list of good guys and bad guys. James Daly was no idiot though, nor was he underestimating his students.
Sophists were interested in wisdom but they were never interested in wisdom for the sake of wisdom. The original sophists were professionals who would sell their services. They could teach politicians how to make the weaker argument appear stronger. They knew the tricks of the trade but they lacked integrity.
What David Hume engaged in was derivative. Philosophy was no longer about the biggest questions, it was slowly becoming more specialised, a more parochial activity, located in a professional setting. There was no longer any love involved.
There was something to James Daly’s approach. I had more questions than answers. I had an insatiable curiosity. I naturally rebelled against anything that would make my universe smaller. I therefore veered away from any of Hume’s writings and only read the bare minimum.
Later today, after my visit to his graveside, I did a quick google search of Hume quotes. These are some of the results:
A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
Custom is the great guide to human life.
Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.
To be happy, the passions must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy. A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, real poverty.
Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.
I was brought back to James Daly’s class. My gut reactions to these lines are still in line with who I was back then as a student.
I imagine I would never have got on with David Hume. HIs language is too temperate. His idea that custom is a guide to human life sticks in the throat. It feels like he is too satisfied with his friends and society. The idea that reason is the slave of the passions is so self-serving and blind to the actual horrors of the 1700s, there is no real understanding of justice in this configuration. That one should still be a man above and beyond being a philosopher, begs the question of what it means to be a man. And despite all this, he pretends to have a grasp of true knowledge.
Reflecting upon my visit today, I was struck by what a mess the cemetery was in. Graves and Tombs were collapsed, areas of the cemetery were full of litter. There was a general sense that this place was not looked after very well. There was little love there.
It would have looked very different in the late 1770s when Hume died. His tomb would have been an impressive sight, a monument to last through the ages.
To be fair, Hume’s resting place is in better condition than most others in the graveyard. The society he now keeps though, is poor.
Modern Edinburgh has mostly forgotten David Hume. Apart from the small number of philosophy students and professors, it is difficult to imagine who else might be touched by his life and work.
During his time, he arrogantly assumed his generation knew better than their predecessors but he was no Socrates or Aristotle. David Hume, more than Socrates and Aristotle, was of his time.
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