There is an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry (Plato Republic 607b)
Poets themselves, tho’ liars by profession, always endeavour to give an air of truth to their fictions; and where that is totally neglected, their performances, however ingenious, will never be able to afford much pleasure. David Hume Treatise 1.3.10.5
This inclination [to personify], ’tis true, is suppress’d by a little reflection, and only takes place in children, poets, and the antient philosophers...In poets, by their readiness to personify every thing: David Hume Treatise 1.4.3.11
At first glance it seem that in his Treatise, Hume sides with Plato against the poets: poets are "liars by profession." So, it should not surprise us that Hume compares poetry to madness. (Treatise 1.3.10.10) In context of the second of the quoted passages, Hume basically accuses poets of promoting superstition by projecting human features onto inert things. But a moment's reflections makes one realize the situation must be more complicated: for (a) in the quoted passage ancient philosophers are also superstitious, and (b) as I noted before sometimes Hume also links his own philosophizing to a form of incurable madness ("delirium"). So, there is little to distinguish poets from philosophers. In fact, Hume suggests that philosophy and poetry are both guided by 'taste and sentiment: "Thus all probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation. ’Tis not solely in poetry and music, we must follow our taste and sentiment, but likewise in philosophy." (Treatise 1.3.8.12)*
There might be a genuine tension in Hume's thought here. Rather than attempt to resolve it today, I focus on what Hume thinks can be learned from poets. For, even though poets are professional liars, they do sometimes convey the truth. In fact, sometimes they do so on topics where philosophers partake of the false:
the golden age, which poets have invented...But however philosophers may have been bewilder’d in those speculations, poets have been guided more infallibly, by a certain taste or common instinct, which in most kinds of reasoning goes farther than any of that art and philosophy, with which we have been yet acquainted. They easily perceiv’d, if every man had a tender regard for another, or if nature supplied abundantly all our wants and desires, that the jealousy of interest, which justice supposes, could no longer have place; nor would there be any occasion for those distinctions and limits of property and possession, which at present are in use among mankind. Encrease to a sufficient degree the benevolence of men, or the bounty of nature, and you render justice useless, by supplying its place with much nobler virtues, and more valuable blessings. The selfishness of men is animated by the few possessions we have, in proportion to our wants; and ’tis to restrain this selfishness, that men have been oblig’d to separate themselves from the community, and to distinguish betwixt their own goods and those of others. Treatise 3.2.2.15-16
In context Hume is criticizing Hobbes for his treatment of the state of nature. One might think that if Hobbes' "state of nature, therefore, is to be regarded as a mere fiction, not unlike that of the golden age," that the poets are being criticized for producing fictions. But it turns out that the golden age, while fictional, is not a mere fiction. For the poets have grasped the truths about what I call,"social-conceptual necessitation relations" that according to Hume, link human nature, scarcity, and property relations. If Humans were as generous as angels and/or living in abundance then the introduction of property and government would not need to occur (and, therefore, not occur even given enough time). That is, some fictions can even if they represent an utterly implausible world, convey inferential truths about our world (for more on Hume's account of fictions, see here).+
Now one might object that even if Hume's account of the origin of justice is important, it's an exception to Hume's treatment of the poets. But this objection misses the fact that Hume explicitly acknowledges that according to his 'science of man' in "most kinds of reasoning," we ought to expect that poets do in fact better than philosophers. In fact, elsewhere in the Treatise, Hume explains why he does not (explicitly) draw on the truths conveyed by poetry more frequently:
Of this we shall see many instances in the progress of this treatise. But tho’ resemblance be the relation, which most readily produces a mistake in ideas, yet the others of causation and contiguity may also concur in the same influence. We might produce the figures of poets and orators, as sufficient proofs of this, were it as usual, as it is reasonable, in metaphysical subjects to draw our arguments from that quarter. But lest metaphysicians shou’d esteem this below their dignity Treatise 1.2.5.21
So, Hume would rely more frequently on evidence from poetry if philosophers, under the influence of Plato, did not think they were elevated above the poets.
Now, one might that I am being rather opportunistic with 1.2.5.21. For, after all, in context Hume claims that what the poets would supply evidence of is instances of faulty reasoning (because of a variety of natural confoundings in the imagination). But, again, Hume is not recommending we read poetry for its representations of the world. Rather, we need to read poetry for what it reveals about us and its discerning the limits of mortal possibility. Given the near identity of poetry and philosophy, by substitution we get that Hume's (true) philosophy reveals who we are and what we could be. It is a historical irony that Hume's admirers have not shared his receptivity to poetry.**
*Of course, things are more complicated as Jeff Bell's meditation on Hume's Of The Standard of Taste suggests (see my response).
+For a recent attempt along more sophisticated lines in the philosophy of science, see Mauricio Suárez's piece.
**But See Jose A. Benardete.
Comments