ヒュームの自然主義解釈再考 (冨田恭彦教授 退職記念号)

Abstract

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Norman Kemp Smith has offered a comprehensive naturalistic interpretation of Hume's philosophy. Some commentators, such as Stroud and Mounce, not only followed the naturalistic line Kemp Smith had drawn, but also tried to remove empirical elements from Hume's system in order to keep it theoretically consistent. Stroud's and Mounce's attempts function as a philosophical critique of Kemp Smith and Hume himself. However, this seems to overlook Hume's philosophical objects and even to deprive him of unique philosophical value by confusing him with contemporary Scottish scholars such as Thomas Reid. This paper, therefore, aims to outline the interpretative sequence mentioned above, and to highlight a problem associated with the revisionalist naturalists (Stroud and Mounce) that their stance fails to take into account the original empirical traits of Hume's philosophy, and without which the philosophy could not possibly function. Their interpretation thereby fails to grasp Hume's purpose in seeking evidence for our perception and knowledge by way of our individual subjective introspections, or our having an 'impression'. This in itself does not adequately reply to the revisionalist naturalists' criticism. In order to absolve Hume from this criticism, this paper attempt to propose an alternative, and more convincing interpretation by focusing on, and extending the meaning of the concept, 'impression'. This concept not only plays pivotal and fundamental roles, but also has always been seen as a vulnerable point in Hume's philosophy because impression is exclusively subjective and cannot possibly explain many things such as 'intentionality' which our daily life certainly contains. To overcome this difficulty, I focus on 'calm passion' which, though undoubtedly an impression, could certainly have an intentional character in Hume's philosophy, and wish to suggest that Hume's 'impression' could cover non-subjectivist matters. This suggestion, along with the direct realistic way of perception which Hume attributes to 'the vulgar', could provide Hume's philosophy with a wider conceptual frame that is still dependent on 'impression' but could transcend subjectivism or phenomenalism.