Structure and Feeling in Hume’s Accounts of the Indirect Passions

• In a literature review of Hume’s psychology of the passions, Elisabeth Radcliff calls for a consistent understanding of his accounts of the indirect passions, the structural and the introspective. Hume gives a structural account of the indirect passions as he locates them within a causal structure of perceptions. Since many readers find the causal relation of passion and (sort of intentional) object mistaken they, identify the passion with the entire structure why the object is constitutive of the passion for logical or conceptual reasons. Hume however regards the passions as simple impressions only contingently related to other perceptions, and defines them by how they feel. That is the introspective account. In this paper, I present a reading of Hume’s theory that makes use of the structural account and consistently unites it with the introspective. Unlike other commentators, I argue that Hume distinguishes between having feelings of pride and being proud. Combined with an understanding of causation as event causation in opposition to species causation, this distinction is enough to save him from criticism.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities (hsv//eng)

Keyword

David Hume

indirect passions

structure

feeling

pride

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)