l^} THE STYLISTIC DEVELOPMENT OF DAVID HUME'S DISCOURSE ON EPISTEMOLOGY by LAVONNE ZINCK FARUKI, B.U.S., M.A., B.S. in H.E A THESIS IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS May, 1990 Copyright LaVonne Zinck Faruki 1990 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Jeffrey Smitten and Dr. Richard Crider for their invaluable assistance in the preparation of this thesis. I am especially indebted to Dr. Smitten for his guidance in critical theory- TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii CHAPTER 1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM AND EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 1 The Argument from External Evidence- . - - - 3 2. CRITICAL TREATMENT OF HUME'S DISCOURSE ON EPISTEMOLOGY 24 Hayden White, Kenneth Burke, and Tropological Theory 36 The Scholarship on Dialectical Irony and Dialogicity 41 3- ANALYSIS OF THE TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE 48 The Tropical Turn from Synecdoche to Metonymy in the Treatise ..... 48 Hume's Divided Consciousness 63 Incipients of Dialectical Irony in the Treatise 75 Irreducible Conflicts: The Privileging of Hume's Doctrine? 108 Conclusion to Chapter 2 ....- 117 4. ANALYSIS OF THE ENQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING . 120 Metonymy and Synecdoche in the Enquiry ... 122 Irony in the Enquiry -...- 133 The Nature of Sections I - VII: A Summary . 144 Irony as Structure and the Test of Empiricism 146 Conclusion to Chapter 4 201 111 5. CONCLUSION 204 ENDNOTES 209 BIBLIOGRAPHY 213 IV CHAPTER 1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM AND THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in publishing the Treatise of Human Nature, had proceeded more from the manner than the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual indis­ cretion, in going to the press too early. I, therefore, cast the first part of that work anew in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. ... David Hume in "My Own Life" Why did Hume "recast" the Treatise of Human Nature into the work that we now know as the Enquiry concerning Human Understandinq? What are scholars—both philosophical and literary—to make of his rather elliptical remark about the "manner" of the first work? It is generally agreed that what Hume meant by "manner" concerned components of his "style," but here the agreement ends. Some critics maintain that Hume rewrote the Treatise as a part of his quest for literary fame; others maintain that Hume assumed the new literary stance in response to the social or cultural milieu of the Age of Enlightenment; still other critics feel Hume rewrote the work to improve the clarity of his own ideas. Philo­ sophical commentators add critiques of the respective content of the two works, with the Enquiry generally receiving lower marks in philosophical acumen and contribution. None of these critics, as far as I can deter­ mine, has considered the revision as anything more than a surface job; even when the analysis plumbs the depths of Hume's intention as manifested by his discourse, it generally treats of local and isolated discursive elements. I would like to propose a study of Hume's discourse in these two epistemological works which would bridge the gaps between the local patches of densely studied discourse. To do this, a sustained probe of Hume's intention, which will only be found far beneath the surface of the stylistic features, must be conducted. Within these covert layers of discourse, the deep structure of the work can be explored, revealing the form of the author's thought as it was captured and quick-set in the form of the written artifact. I assert that such a study, which will necessarily involve a structuralist approach, will not only be a fruitful method of studying David Hume's discourse in particular, but will yield insights into the reason Hume rewrote the Treat!se in the way he did. The basis of my analysis, then, will be the tropological approach to discourse as elaborated by Hayden White and Kenneth Burke, especially the former's "archetypal plot of discursive formation." This approach will help support my contention that Hume did not merely revise in the interest of fame or public applause- On the contrary, my analysis will show that Hume, as an author and thinker, had much more complex goals in mind—to unite the boundaries of the various types of philosophy and to harmonize philosophy with the common life—when he recast the Treatise and that in order to conceive of and realize these goals, he underwent an intel­ lectual transformation which is reflected in the discourse of his second epistemological work. The result of this analysis, then, will demonstrate that the Enquiry is not merely a popularization of the Treatise, but a reconcep- tualization of it. The Argument from External Evidence In this thesis, two kinds of evidence concerning Hume"s intention in recasting the Treatise will be investigated: external evidence, which includes documents and letters known to be written by Hume himself; and internal evidence, which involves structural analysis of the primary works under study. The first kind of evidence is important to the question at hand since certain prominent critics have used the external sources as the basis of their analysis of Hume's intention. However, the same sources provide evidence for my contention that Hume's revisions are based on an intellectual reconceptualization of the work. Among the most important of Hume's critics who assert that Hume recast the Treatise in the interest of popular applause is L-A. Selby-Bigge- In his comparative analysis of the two works in the introduction to the Enquiries concerning Human Understandi nq and concerning the Pri nci pies of Morals (third edition), he notes that the Treatise is a more complex and abstruse work than its recast version and that in the revisions "... CHumel ignores much with which he had formerly vexed his own and his readers' souls, and like a man of the world takes the line of least resis­ tance. " (Nidditch x). Selby-Bigge also points out the "wholesale omission and insertion" that took place during the revisions and concludes that they can't be attributed to . - . philosophical discontent with the positions or arguments, or to a general desire to fill up a gap in the system, but must be ascribed rather to a general desire to make the Enquiry readable. Parts ii and iv are certainly the hardest in the Trea­ tise, and the least generally interesting to the habitues of coffee-houses, especially at a period when the greatest part of men have agreed to convert reading into an amusement; whereas a lively and sceptical discussion of miracles and providence could hardly fail to find readers, attract attention, and excite that 'murmur among the zealots' by which the author desired to be distinguished. (Nidditch xii) Furthermore, Selby-Bigge does not count himself among those who agree with Hume that the Enquiries should be considered as the definitive version of his "philosophical sentiments and principles" (in Hume's Advertisement to the posthumous edition of his Collected Essays C17771). Indeed, according to Selby-Bigge, some critics consider Hume's declaration about the Enquiri es as ". an interesting indication of the character of a man who had long ago given up philosophy, who always had a passion for applause, and little respect or generosity for his own failures" (Nidditch ix). He asserts that Book I of the Treatise is beyond doubt a work of first-rate philosophic importance, and in some ways the most important work of philosophy in the English language. It would be impossible to say the same of the Enquiries- . - - (Nidditch x) and that the first Enquirv is of a "lower philosophical standard" than the Treatise (Nidditch xiv)- Thus, to Selby- Bigge, the first Enquirv is simply a work in which Hume sacrificed philosophical quality to popular applause- Ernest Campbell Mossner, Hume's biographer, takes a similar stance regarding the new version of the Treatise- "Gone are the hesitations of the Treatise, the intricacies of detail, the tortured analysis—gone, too, inevitably are some fine passages which had shown aspects of modern philo­ sophy in the making. " (Life 175). Although Mossner rejects any notion that ascribes unworthy motives to Hume— including charges of notoriety seeking and mere striving after vulgar success (Philosophy 185), he nonetheless claims that Hume recast the content of the Treatise into the more popular and less learned essay format (Li fe 140) which was "better suited to public taste" (Li fe 134). Other critics take a similar position regarding the revisions. The American historian, John Herman Randall, declares that Hume's whole philosophical career reflects his "quest for literary fame and success" (qtd. in Shapiro 133). For T. H- Huxley, Hume was interested in "notoriety" (qtd- in Passmore 3). In his philosophical critique of Hume's intentions, John Passmore explains the revisions from a stylistic and rhetorical standpoint: Hume wished to remove digressions, thereby enhancing his al1-important "logic"; and to employ an "elegant and sprightly manner" which would "- - . make his doctrines intelligible to an audience domi­ nated by the ideal of 'elegance'" (16; see also 15). Other rhetorical approaches which emphasize reader appeal as the motive for revision include that of John Richetti, who points out that Hume's reworked version of the Treati se establishes a "more polite and insinuating" persona and that its new attitude "bluntCs3 the polemical edge" of the work (43-4); and that of John V. Price, who also says that Hume has toned down "some of the obstreperous passages" in the Treatise (46). When Selby-Bigge, Mossner, and the other critics intimate that Hume revised the Treati se with public approval in mind, they do so on the basis of documentary evidence in Hume's own words.