Colin,
Good comments. Certainly, Hume's ethics and politics are
reprehensible in a number of ways. However, there is a
growing camp of Humeans who read him as a "naturalist" -
especially Annette Baier et al. One of hte basic premises
of this sort of naturalism is that "occult"
qualities/powers, etc., such as thsoe Locke gives to primary
qualities, are read as descriptive failures. Using teh
'atom' or the 'electron' as Theoretical entitiesis another
basic premise of this view. These naturalist/Humeans claim
that the theoretical entities, even one as common as the
"mind," are held in check by reflection. That is, they only
serve us insofar as they are reliable (much, as you say,
like the pragmatists claim). Additionally, we have to
consider the natural tendency we have to form sets of
assocaitions, and develop expectations about the behavior of
our own minds, our theoretical entities, etc. One has to
favor a kind of probabalistic kind of rationality, whcih is
in principle revisable, to go along with this account. Seen
in htis light, even the testimony of others must always be
weighed agaisnt our own beliefs before it can be accepted -
and it never can fully be accepted. But the basic point is
that we measure validity against both the evidence of our
senses, our own beliefs, expectations, "revival" sets of
associations, etc. All of these principles are the products
of descriptions of experience.
This does lead to a form os skepticism, but not a "TOAD"
form (Total Objective Assessment from a Detached
perspective). In may instances, the "explanations" we
receive are good enough for bluegrass; we learn fairly early
on not to rely on allof the evidence of our senses for that
matter, and often our sets of assocaitions, bekliefs,
expectations, etc. lead us to believe the wrong person,
evidence, etc. We can only say that in making a judgment
about anything we reflect on out won past, and so on, and we
ahve a natural tendency to form sets of assocaitions, soem
of which are held so strongly that we hold them as
"necessary".
The other side of this kind of naturalism is that it is not,
contra Kripke and contra many of Hume's contemporaries, a
formula for necessary individualism. when Hume speaks of
habit and custom, he often does so interchangeably - as
though the habits of thought we form are social in nature.
we perhaps do dablle in some kind of Rousseauian metaphysics
when we go this route, but it is also the route that Marx
takes in the Paris manuscripts.
It is arguable, however, that Marx was able to overcome the
metaphysics which appears to be inherent in any form of
"socialism" - simply because he left the grand philsophical
problems behind (rememebr the Theses on Feuerbach:
"Philosophers seek to understand the world; the point is to
change it." Well, capitalism as a system necessarily
operates across a social field; as th bourgois mode of
production increases its field, so the proletariat grows,
and vice versa. The way things are produced, valued,
conceptiualized, etc. are all "essentially" social; but we
can get at these social phenomena with empirical
descriptions. We can get at the logic, functioning, and
"nature" of capitalism without refernce to occult
metaphyscial entities.
Foucault, it seems to me, is clearly one who just leaves
philosophy alone in many ways. In the Preface to the
English edition of The Order of Things, he claims that his
work is a description of histrocial tranformations ( not an
explanation of such): "In this work, then, I left the
problem of causes to one side; I chose to conficne myself to
describing the transformations themselves, thinking that
this would be an indispensible step if, one day, a theory of
scientific change and epistemological causality was to be
constructed."(xiii)
Why are "postmodernists"
interested in de-linking Foucault from any sort of
empiricism? It makes him look 'constructive' - which he
himself claims to be.
Good comments. Certainly, Hume's ethics and politics are
reprehensible in a number of ways. However, there is a
growing camp of Humeans who read him as a "naturalist" -
especially Annette Baier et al. One of hte basic premises
of this sort of naturalism is that "occult"
qualities/powers, etc., such as thsoe Locke gives to primary
qualities, are read as descriptive failures. Using teh
'atom' or the 'electron' as Theoretical entitiesis another
basic premise of this view. These naturalist/Humeans claim
that the theoretical entities, even one as common as the
"mind," are held in check by reflection. That is, they only
serve us insofar as they are reliable (much, as you say,
like the pragmatists claim). Additionally, we have to
consider the natural tendency we have to form sets of
assocaitions, and develop expectations about the behavior of
our own minds, our theoretical entities, etc. One has to
favor a kind of probabalistic kind of rationality, whcih is
in principle revisable, to go along with this account. Seen
in htis light, even the testimony of others must always be
weighed agaisnt our own beliefs before it can be accepted -
and it never can fully be accepted. But the basic point is
that we measure validity against both the evidence of our
senses, our own beliefs, expectations, "revival" sets of
associations, etc. All of these principles are the products
of descriptions of experience.
This does lead to a form os skepticism, but not a "TOAD"
form (Total Objective Assessment from a Detached
perspective). In may instances, the "explanations" we
receive are good enough for bluegrass; we learn fairly early
on not to rely on allof the evidence of our senses for that
matter, and often our sets of assocaitions, bekliefs,
expectations, etc. lead us to believe the wrong person,
evidence, etc. We can only say that in making a judgment
about anything we reflect on out won past, and so on, and we
ahve a natural tendency to form sets of assocaitions, soem
of which are held so strongly that we hold them as
"necessary".
The other side of this kind of naturalism is that it is not,
contra Kripke and contra many of Hume's contemporaries, a
formula for necessary individualism. when Hume speaks of
habit and custom, he often does so interchangeably - as
though the habits of thought we form are social in nature.
we perhaps do dablle in some kind of Rousseauian metaphysics
when we go this route, but it is also the route that Marx
takes in the Paris manuscripts.
It is arguable, however, that Marx was able to overcome the
metaphysics which appears to be inherent in any form of
"socialism" - simply because he left the grand philsophical
problems behind (rememebr the Theses on Feuerbach:
"Philosophers seek to understand the world; the point is to
change it." Well, capitalism as a system necessarily
operates across a social field; as th bourgois mode of
production increases its field, so the proletariat grows,
and vice versa. The way things are produced, valued,
conceptiualized, etc. are all "essentially" social; but we
can get at these social phenomena with empirical
descriptions. We can get at the logic, functioning, and
"nature" of capitalism without refernce to occult
metaphyscial entities.
Foucault, it seems to me, is clearly one who just leaves
philosophy alone in many ways. In the Preface to the
English edition of The Order of Things, he claims that his
work is a description of histrocial tranformations ( not an
explanation of such): "In this work, then, I left the
problem of causes to one side; I chose to conficne myself to
describing the transformations themselves, thinking that
this would be an indispensible step if, one day, a theory of
scientific change and epistemological causality was to be
constructed."(xiii)
Why are "postmodernists"
interested in de-linking Foucault from any sort of
empiricism? It makes him look 'constructive' - which he
himself claims to be.