Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 9-17-2010 12:00 AM Feeling, Impulse and Changeability: The Role of Emotion in Hume's Theory of the Passions Katharina A. Paxman University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Lorne Falkenstein The University of Western Ontario Joint Supervisor Dr. Willem Lemmens The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Philosophy A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Katharina A. Paxman 2010 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the History of Philosophy Commons, and the Philosophy of Mind Commons Recommended Citation Paxman, Katharina A., "Feeling, Impulse and Changeability: The Role of Emotion in Hume's Theory of the Passions" (2010). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 14. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/14 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FEELING, IMPULSE AND CHANGEABILITY: THE ROLE OF EMOTION IN HUME’S THEORY OF THE PASSIONS by Katharina Paxman Graduate Program in Philosophy A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada and The Faculty of Arts The University of Antwerp Antwerp, Belgium © Katharina Paxman 2010 i THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION Supervisor Examiners ______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. Lorne Falkenstein Dr. Louis Charland ______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. Willem Lemmens Dr. Karen Nielsen Supervisory Committee ______________________________ Dr. Donald Ainslie ______________________________ Dr. Louis Charland ______________________________ Dr. Nina Reid-Maroney ______________________________ Dr. Elisa Hurley The thesis by Katharina Anne Paxman entitled: Feeling, Impulse and Changeability: The Role of Emotion in Hume’s Theory of the Passions is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy ______________________ _______________________________ Date Chair of the Thesis Examination Board ii Abstract Hume’s “impressions of reflection” is a category made up of all our non-sensory feelings, including “the passions and other emotions resembling them.” These two terms for affective mental states, ‘passion’ and ‘emotion’, are both used frequently in Hume’s work, and often treated by the scholarship as synonymous. I argue that Hume’s use of both ‘passion’ and ‘emotion’ in his discussions of affectivity reflects a conceptual distinction implicit in his work between what I label ‘attending emotions’ and ‘fully established passions.’ The former are the transient, changeable, valenced feelings that flow between perceptions and constitute their felt nature and their impulse. The latter are the particular passions fully realized, with characteristic valence, and analyzed by Hume in terms of their particular belief structures and various relations between ideas and impressions understood to be constituent of the particular passions being characterized. The term ‘emotion’ for Hume generally denotes either the attending feeling and impulse, sometimes distinct from the passion (particularly as ‘passion’ is being used to include the associated beliefs, causes and objects), or as a synonym for a particular passion, typically when Hume is primarily referring to the felt nature of the passion. Generally speaking, ‘passion’ is a more cognitive category of affective mental state, while ‘emotion’ is more sensationalist. Part One takes an in-depth look at the textual evidence in the Treatise to develop this characterization of ‘emotion.’ Part Two offers an examination of ‘passion’ in Hume, through a look at the debate between sensationalist and cognitivist readings of Hume’s theory of the passions, and associated tensions often attributed to Hume. I will argue that when we grant Hume the conceptual emotion/passion distinction, he has the tools to accommodate both highly sensationalist and highly cognitivist understandings of affective mental states. I finish Part Two with the application of my distinction to two more key topics in Hume studies: his sympathy mechanism, and his theory of belief and motivation. I argue that interpretive puzzles in both benefit from the application of my emotion/passion distinction. Keywords David Hume, passion, emotion, history of theories of emotion, sensationalist theories of emotion, cognitivist theories of emotion, feeling iii Acknowledgments Though there have been many who have had positive influence in the completion of this dissertation, the author would like to acknowledge the particular support of Willem Lemmens, Lorne Falkenstein and Louis Charland, whose guidance, insight and interest in the project at various stages of its development were instrumental in its completion. iv Table of Contents CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION ........................................................................... ii Abstract..............................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents................................................................................................................ v Introduction......................................................................................................................... 1 Part One: The appearance of ‘emotion’ in Hume’s Treatise ............................................ 11 1.1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 11 1.2 The taxonomy of the Humean mind ..................................................................... 14 1.3 Emotion as a broader category of impressions of reflection....................... 23 1.4 Emotion as feeling ................................................................................................ 29 1.5 Valence: Emotion as valenced.............................................................................. 38 1.6 Valence: The Production of the Passions.............................................................. 45 1.7 Valence: Emotion and Motivation........................................................................ 52 1.8 Calm and violent emotions ................................................................................... 59 1.9 Emotion as ‘attending’ impressions and ideas...................................................... 74 1.10 Emotions as transient, fluid and mixing ............................................................... 87 1.11 Summary: What we know of ‘emotion’ thus far ................................................ 107 PART TWO: The use of a concept of emotion in Hume’s overall theory of the passions ...................................................................................................................... 120 2.1 Introduction: ‘Emotion’ and ‘passion’ in the literature on Hume....................... 120 2.2 The debate between sensationalist and cognitivist interpretations of Hume’s passions............................................................................................................... 133 2.3 Support for a sensationalist reading of Hume on passion................................... 143 2.4 Support for a cognitivist reading of Hume on passion ....................................... 157 v 2.5 Reconciling the sensationalist and cognitivist approaches with the introduction of an emotion/passion distinction ....................................................................... 171 2.6 Application of a concept of emotion in Hume to the sympathy puzzle.............. 180 2.7 Application of the emotion/passion distinction to Hume on belief and motivation ........................................................................................................... 197 2.8 Conclusion and suggestions for further study..................................................... 219 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 230 Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................ 237 vi vii Introduction Hume opens Book II of A Treatise of Human Nature1 by reminding the reader of his division of the contents of the mind into ideas and impressions. Impressions are then further divided into original impressions (impressions of sensation) and secondary impressions or impressions of reflection. Secondary impressions include, “the passions and other emotions resembling them.”2 These two terms for affective mental states, ‘passion’ and ‘emotion’, are both used with frequency in Hume’s work, though passion is clearly the dominant term. The scholarship on Hume frequently treats them as denoting the same type of mental state. To be more specific, passions are understood to be Hume’s technical term for affective, motivating mental events, while the