Hume And Newton

Hume's Newtonianism and Anti-Newtonianism

David Hume's philosophy, especially the positive project of his “science of man,” is often thought to be modeled on Newton's successes in natural philosophy. Hume's self-described “experimental method” (see the subtitle to Treatise) and the resemblance of his “rules of reasoning” (Treatise, 1.3.15)[1] with Newton's are said to be evidence for thisposition (Noxon 1973; De Pierris 2002). Hume encourages this view of his project by employing Newtonian metaphors: he talks of an “attraction” in the “mental world” on a par with that in the “natural world” (1.1.4.6). Hume infers the existence of “habits” as a kind of mental “force” (EHU 5.2.2) analogous to gravity; the discovery of the “the principles of association,” which in the Abstract he callshis most important achievement [see the section on Association in the entry on Hume in this Encyclopedia], are, then, analogous to the laws of motion. Hume certainly appears to want his readers to feel that he is modeling his project on the successes of natural philosophy, exemplified by Newton. In the “Introduction” to the Treatise and even more explicitly in the opening pages of EHU (1.15), Humesuggests that his “science of man” can parallel recent achievements in natural philosophy (with rather obvious nods to Newton's successes in planetary astronomy). And at the start of EPM, he echoes Newton's rejection of “hypotheses” (1.10). There is, thus, no doubt that Hume wants his readers to believe that Newton forms a kind of model.

Yet, in the totality of Hume's oeuvre the technicaldetails of Newton's philosophy are rarely discussed explicitly. In fact, some of the most sophisticated analyses of the implications of Newton's philosophy are attributed to Cleanthes, the spokesperson for the inductive argument from design in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Dialogues). While in recent years many commentators have come to doubt that Philo should be considered astraightforward spokesperson of Hume's views, few suggest that Hume endorses without qualification Cleanthes's Newtonian argument from design—the foundations of which are undermined throughout Hume's writings. But this raises further complications because Hume can be read as implying that criticism of the design argument can be generated on strictly Newtonian methodological grounds: the authority of“experience”—to which Hume and Newton both appeal—does not license an inference (supported by analogical reasoning) to a God-like designer of the universe. This would make Hume something of an internal critic of Newtonianism (Hurlbutt 1985). The same strategy—generate internal criticism to Newtonian natural philosophy—may be thought to operate in Hume's Empiricist attack on the putative meaningfulness ofinvisible or theoretical entities (e.g., forces, powers, and masses) that made him a favorite of Logical Positivists early in the 20th century [see the entry on Ayer in this Encyclopedia]. This Positivist interpretation seemed to go well with Hume's reputation for skepticism. Yet, as Positivism gave way to Naturalism as the dominant force in 20th century Anglophone philosophy, scholarship on Hume hasincreasingly emphasized the naturalistic elements in Hume, while reinterpreting, even downplaying, his skeptical tendencies (Kemp Smith, 1941; Stroud 1977, Garrett 1997). But if by naturalism one (also) means that one is willing to accept the authority of science [see the section on Naturalism and Holism in the entry on indispensability arguments in the philosophy of mathematics in thisEncyclopedia] then one runs into a problem: it is by no means clear that Hume accepts the independent intellectual authority of natural philosophers (including Newton) to have the final word in interpreting Newton's achievements.

Before, turning to discussion of Hume's relationship to Newton and Newtonianism, one ought to emphasize three problems that beset the scholarly literature on this topic....