Richetti, John (b. 1938)

Philosophical Writing: Locke, Berkeley, Hume

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England

Harvard University Press

1983

"Hume's account of mental happenings is geographical in the broadest sense, a description of human economy and ecology, not just a record of topography and a positioning of land masses but a marking of the tidal movements and trade routes of the mind as it negotiates for ease and stability."

As perhaps every single modern commentator observes of the Treatise, its psychologism is thus not experimental or even properly observational. Antony Flew puts the case for responding to these complaints. Hume's concern, he says is not strictly with logical analysis 'but with issues of psycho-social fact' that contribute to the construction of 'some sort of mental geography' of man. By its narrative arrangements, these sequences with their rather delicate control of tone and moral attitude, Hume's writing makes those psychosocial facts consistently relevant to a reimagining of man that seeks to demystify human nature and to make the truth about us readily accessible (within the density and complexity of the Treatise, there is a promise of liberating simplicity in its conclusions). Hume's account of mental happenings is geographical in the broadest sense, a description of human economy and ecology, not just a record of topography and a positioning of land masses but a marking of the tidal movements and trade routes of the mind as it negotiates for ease and stability.
(224)

Geography::Geography Geography::Topography Liquid::Tide Geography::Trade Routes

Reading

John Richetti, Philosophical Writing: Locke, Berkeley, Hume (Cambridge, MA; London, England: Harvard UP, 1983).

03/22/2011