Interlude of the Absolute Choice
An Essay on “Hume to Hegel,” Connecting Belonging Again (Part I) to The Absolute Choice
How does philosophy begin? For Socrates, it began in wonder, and though Hume would agree that “true philosophy” can be cultivated and developed in such, Hume disagrees that “true philosophy” is the only philosophy. More often than not, Hume believes that philosophy starts due to “a break” between what we thought and what we experience, a “break” in what we are familiar and what we encounter. Dr. Livingston describes this event well:
‘The act of philosophical reflection occurs when there is a break in what had been the seamless whole of custom brought on by an unexpected experience which is contrary to established belief. This could be almost anything: the experience of double images when pressure is put on the eye, which throws into question the belief that what we directly perceive are objects, not private images; or an encounter with the morality of an alien culture which is contrary to our own. But whatever it is, this experience of contrariety loosens the authority of custom as a guide to the domain of experience in which it occurs. The thinker, alienated from custom as a guide, is thrown back upon himself as the source of rules to guide judgment.’¹
Today, the main experience which starts “philosophical reflection” is an encounter with Pluralism which makes us realize that no “first principles” are absolutely grounded, that people are different (which makes us ask why and how we should relate to them, which isn’t self-evident), and all the other sociological changes described by Berger, Rieff, Hunter, and the like. Indeed, Belonging Again (Part I) argues why the sociological conditions have changed in such a way that makes increasingly more people become philosophical (see “The Legitimization Crisis of Our Lives” by O.G. Rose). As Peter Berger put it, ‘we are all condemned to be existentialists.’²
‘[T]he modern self is characterized by its open-endedness, its being-in-process […]’³ ‘[This] situation of modernity, experienced by some as a great liberation, is experienced by others (often the very same individuals) as a great burden.’⁴ This is us, as hopefully Belonging Again argues, which is to say that the sociological conditions needed to stop the spread of “the philosophical consciousness” are no more, and once “philosophical consciousness” spreads, it cannot be “un-spread” (to suggest Nabokov). To stress, Belonging Again can be seen as an elaborate defense of this claim, which is to say “we all must increasingly undergo the philosophical act which begins the (problematic) philosophical ascent”— but what I mean by this is expanded on in “Hegel to Hume (1).”
What is “philosophical consciousness,” exactly? It is what emerges after “the act of philosophical reflection,” and to say the world is increasingly falling under “a philosophical consciousness” is to say that the majority of people are now becoming philosophical and existential, which Berger notes is both a liberation and a blessing. This is to say the majority of people are being forced into “The Philosophical Ascent” (as we will describe), which is extremely problematic, for it means we must become A/B, whereas before only those who engaged in philosophy needed A/B (a minority). This is arguably the crisis of our time, from which all other crises flow.
Hume was profoundly aware of ‘the emergence of a new mass philosophical consciousness in political life,’ and indeed this developed through the Enlightenment and is now here to stay due to the internet.⁵ This “philosophical consciousness” deconstructed sociological “givens,” and so now the consciousness has expanded from politics into society as a whole (a political problem has become sociological and hence more defining of the average person). Almost comically, Hume thought of the English as ‘barbarous because their factions [were] of the speculative sort, and consequently their politics [were] informed by a corrupt philosophical consciousness […]’ — Hume would likely see this in all politics and society today, thinking of the world as “barbarous.”⁶ This point brings to mind The Brothers Karamazov and the old doctor who confessed to Father Zosima that ‘the more [he loved] mankind in general, the less [he loved] people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons.’⁷ This is a theme throughout the novel and elaborated on in “Outside Catastrophes and Inside The Real” by O.G. Rose, but this “sin and temptation” is a defining tendency of “the philosophical consciousness” and “speculative politics” which strongly concerned Hume. In making this mistake, ‘[w]it and learning are no longer at the service of making the sentiment of common life intelligible but of ideological self-display and competition; alienated from the poetic character of common life […] the artifacts of reflection turn into instruments of power.’⁸ All of this aligns Hume with Vico, who discussed ‘the barbarism of reflection […] of the intellect,’ and ‘reflective malice,’ ’ while Hume laments ‘the self-displaying barbarism of refinement’ (a connection Max Fisch discusses between not only Vico and Hume, ‘but between Vico and the entire Scottish Enlightenment’).⁹ ¹⁰ ¹¹ For these thinkers and many of the Counter Enlightenment in general, ‘through the barbarism of refinement’ which cuts us off from “common life” (or A/B), ‘civilized mankind comes to reenact something like the original ignorance of the precivilized state.’¹²
II
Entirely, Hume must be read together: his essays on politics, literature, ancient population sizes — there is a coherent and unifying line of thought running through all of it.
‘Much of Hume’s philosophy is an attempt to show that what we call rationality in science, morals, politics, and religion is the result of a long, gradual, and largely unreflective evolution of conventions, the end of which is the coordination and satisfaction of conflicting humans needs and desires.’¹³
We are not purely rational, but it is also not the case that what constitutes our “rationality” cannot change and improve with time. This brings Hegel’s Elements of Philosophy of Right to mind, which also overlays with Hume in that both highlight ‘liberty as a historically evolving practice.’¹⁴ ‘There is a doctrine of individualism in Hume, but it is a doctrine of the individual as structured by custom and the social,’ as is also the case in Hegel.¹⁵
A doctrine of liberty, rationality, and society as “evolving historically,” which correspondingly highlights tradition, nonrationality, and the like, is a doctrine that better “checks and balances” the spreading “philosophical consciousness” which concerned Hume. “An Evolving State” is practically the opposite of the “Philosophical Conscious State,” which might sound strange if we associate Hume’s thinking with Hegel, the latter of which is so often seen as “making everything philosophy.” But there is a difference between “good philosophy” which honors and assists what arises concretely through time, and “bad philosophy” which “practically replaces” what arises (due to its failure to be “grounded,” to be perfect, etc.). In this distinction, we can start to grasp why ‘Hume’s understanding of liberty is not presented through a speculative theory but through narratives of the evolution of the experience of liberty as shaped by the conventions of a common European life.’¹⁶ Hegel does the same in Phenomenology of Spirit: personal and historical narratives are interwoven into the philosophy as essential, and we also see Hegel as a profound student of history himself, just like Hume.
Liberty is the condition of the State, and for Hegel (as discussed in “Hegel’s Justification of Hegel”) the State’s role is to help us accept the Determinations we find ourselves faced with (limitations, finitude, law, culture, etc.) and hence “choose them into” Necessities. Without Determinations, freedom would be impossible, for there would be nothingness and chaos, and yet we naturally seem to desire an “Abstract Freedom” of which isn’t bound to Determination at all. “Abstract Freedom” doesn’t want to choose Determination “into” Necessity, and “naturally” we feel like we shouldn’t have to (think Freud), and “philosophical consciousness” is an extension of Abstract Freedom. “Philosophical consciousness” is a mode of finding the world “lacking” (“ground”) and thus “not qualified” to restrict us with its Determinations, nor worthy to be chosen into Necessity. And so we don’t, and the horrors which concerned Hume and Hegel spread.
To use language from “Compelling” by O.G. Rose, we “absorb” and then think; if we demonize “absorbing” as “irrational” (versus “nonrational”), we will set ourselves up for self-effacement and melancholia, from which no one wins. We must “absorb” Determinations or there will be nothing we can “choose into” Necessities, and we can view History and (developing) Tradition in Hegel and Hume as manifestations of “the wisdom” that Determinations are necessary. Through time, History can become a record of the successes of Determinations (Tradition), hence providing reason to accept them as Necessities, and hence providing reason to resist “philosophical consciousness” as an improper and incorrect response to the revelation of “Absolute Knowing.” We must philosophize for Hume and Hegel, but philosophizing to honor versus to replace is the difference between life and effacement.
Philosophy entails an art of living with difference, and there is philosophy which seeks to deny difference (as “groundless”), and philosophy which seeks to learn to live with it. ‘For Hume the true philosopher and the truly civilized man are the same,’ and this would suggest that being civilized is not possible without an acceptance of “Absolute Knowing” (and “groundlessness”).¹⁷ Funny enough, this would suggest that something historic and even bizarre from Hegel is needed for “being civilized,” a notion often associated with Conservatism. Indeed, when Conservatives discuss Tradition and History, they suggest like Hume that ‘the good is, as it were, present and backward-looking; it is what has been hammered out over time through a largely unreflective process of trial and error, lived through, enjoyed, and upon reflection approved.’¹⁸ “Unreflective” is not technically the same as “Absolute Knowing,” but practically they are similar (like “(thoughtless) common life” and “(re)turned to common life”), and this suggests the difference between Hume and Hegel is a realization, suggesting that Conservatives might be more bizarre than they think. In a world of harsh partisanship, the realization of this kind of irony might be exactly what we need, but hard to say.
Comically, one way that Hume tries to show that we don’t operate according to a system or rationality nearly as much as we think is by making ‘a special point of showing how apparently rationally ordered structure such as the British constitution are, in fact, fragile instruments containing the most jarring and discordant elements.’¹⁹ Take the American tax system, the legal system, the government — are these really “rationally organized?” I think many would answer negatively, and yet they still manage to function and work to some degree. Few of us know all of the law, and yet we still follow it; few of us have read the entire tax code, and yet we still pay taxes; few of us have read every theological argument for every religion, and yet many still follow a religion. There are easily no “complete and coherent systems,” and yet even the most uneducated of people still manage to live according to systems well enough. In this way, we can see why we easily put far too much stock in philosophy and philosophical reflection — and yet “the banality of evil” is still a threat. Hence the need to philosophize without falling into falsity, the need to philosophize without ever forgetting that ‘it is not philosophical reflection that is the source of civilization; it is civilization that is the source of philosophical reflection.’²⁰
So concerned about “bad philosophy,” Hume likely sees a danger in theorizing about the pragmaticism and phenomenology he more aligns with, because ‘[s]uch theories tend to mislead because abstract philosophical theories encourage the already dominate disposition of philosophy to fall into its corrupt form’ (and yet risk we must).²¹ And yet today, due to “the spread of philosophical consciousness” and collapse of societal “givens,” we have no choice. So it goes with theorizing about morality: ‘[n]ot only is there no supreme moral rule to guide action, but even if there were one, it could not be a source of moral conduct. Morals flow from the dispositions of one’s character as shaped by nature and custom.’²² Philosophers often discuss “the ground” of this or that; in Hume and Hegel, “the ground” is the dirt. The philosopher who fails to realize this will instigate revolutions which seek to make a world free of soil. Nothing will grow, and progress will be seen.
III
Hume tells us in “My Own Life” that in 1752 he ‘formed the plan of writing the History of English,’ suggesting how closely and diligently Hume studied history, taking it of the upmost seriously.²³ Should we believe his work in history and his work in philosophy had nothing to do with one another, that Hume kept them separate and compartmentalized in his mind? And yet his philosophy just happened to set limits on the kings, churches, and governments which Hume had seen extend their power over localities? Hume favors decentralization and small nations in his essays, and his philosophy accommodates that vision nicely. Is this by chance? According to how Hume is often taught, it’s easy to think so, and it certainly can’t be proven that Hume’s philosophy, political, and historical concerns all inform one another, simply because Hume never explicitly said such (that I know of, at least). And yet perhaps Hume was never so explicit because he was too literary? Hard to say.
Hume tells us that he ‘was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, freethinkers and religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man […],’ which suggests that Hume was well aware that his work did not win him any friends.²⁴ Perhaps he enjoyed it to some degree (‘I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious factions’), but Hume was also aware of the consequences that could befall him, having studied closely the history and fates of thinkers and intellectuals who opposed ruling power.²⁵ He defended freedom, and that perhaps made him a threat:
‘Nothing appears more surprising to those, who considering human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are government by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.’²⁶
Americans are used to hearing such notions and sentiments, but Hume is writing in Scotland, which in 1707 unified politically with Great Britain. Hume was not on the side of favoring this political growth, living between 1711 and 1776 (he died a little over a month after American independence), and wrote favorably of the colonies. He did not favor the way his nation was developing, but it’s always dangerous to speak against “progress.” Literature is also subtle, and Hume was a man who supported and favored literature. Hence, perhaps this is why we find such lines scattered throughout his works:
‘Let us cherish and improve our ancient government as much as possible, without encouraging a passion for such dangerous novelties.’²⁷
Hume wrote highly of friendship and spoke of friendship as the foundation of governance and society, making it clear that the larger a nation became, the more difficult it was for friendship to form. Taking his philosophy seriously (as more than just “empiricism”), we find (perhaps coincidentally) a defense of the conditions in which Hume thinks friendship is possible, and that is in “small states” and “common life.” “Of the Middle Station of Life” by Hume suggests that a unique profit of “the middle years” is a certain virtue, and ‘this virtue is friendship.’²⁸ Further suggesting Hume’s care about friendship, in “Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,” Hume recounts how for Aristotle a city with over ‘a hundred thousand’ would fail, for a city of such a size would ‘destroy the essence of friendship’ (as such would occur if the city was too small).²⁹
‘What! impossible that a city can contain a hundred thousand inhabitants! Had Aristotle never seen nor heard of a city so populous? This, I must own, passes my comprehension.’³⁰
I’m not sure what the population of “Great Britain” was after Scotland and England’s unity, but one (Straussian) can imagine that Hume is being suggestive. In Hume’s day, it was a widespread belief that ancient civilizations were large and very populated, which functioned to legitimate a growing State and empire, but Hume tells us that he is ‘inclined to skepticism, with regard to the great populousness ascribed to ancient times.’³¹ It’s a paradoxical move though, for this leads to people admiring the past as a standard for what the nation should be like today (‘[t]he humour of blaming the present, and admiring the past, is strongly rooted in human nature’), and yet that “past” never existed in the first place.³² Sounding like Leopold Kohr centuries later, Hume suggests that the real past suggests that “greatness is small,” for friendship requires personal community. Where the State is large, we must abstractly reason about our affairs more than live them, and ‘[w]hile we are reasoning concerning life, life is gone.’³³
Hume’s essay, “Of the Original Contract,” also suggests Hume’s skepticism of large States and governments (which, again, his philosophy might “just happen” to help keep in check), in that basically all of them must legitimize their authority in terms of some “philosophical justification” (‘[a]nd nothing is a clearer proof, that a theory of this kind is erroneous, than to find, that it leads to paradoxes, repugnant to the common sentiments of mankind, and to the practice and opinion of all nations and all ages. The doctrine, which founds all lawful government on an original contract, or consent of the people, is plainly of this kind […]’).³⁴ A small nation or community might legitimize itself more through direct relationship and communal interaction, but this is not possible for a large State, and thus they much look for “philosophical justification” like “contracts” which citizens agree to by virtue of not “moving out of the territory.” Hume writes:
‘Should it be said that, by living under the dominion of a prince which one might leave, every individual has given a tacit consent to his authority and promised him obedience, it may be answered that such an implied consent can only have place where a man imagines that the matter depends on his choice.’³⁵
This kind of reasoning strikes Hume as absurd and ad hoc for the purpose of legitimizing the power of State which only large States need. No small State needs this kind of abstract justification, and yet paradoxically it’s easier to leave a small State than a large one, and so this justification might actually be more valid precisely where it is less needed. ‘Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives from day to day, by the small wages which he acquires?’³⁶ No, and yet numerous small States which bordered one another would be of a higher likelihood of being similar, so perhaps then a person could realistically move to a different State? The irony only highlights further the absurdity of “philosophically grounding” a large State: as it grows, the more that “grounding” is needed, and yet the less likely that “grounding” could “practically” apply.
Perhaps the philosophy, politics, history, and other works of Hume are not meant to relate or inform one another, but I cannot help but see Hume’s philosophy arising with what he has studied in history, similar to how Hegel’s philosophy arises with his historic interpretations. For both, philosophy is not meant to be justified by “thought experiments” or “hypotheticals,” but history and lived experience. These are the best and greatest resource we have for thinking how humans are and should civilize themselves, but if it isn’t “philosophical speculation” which causes us to overlook them, it is visions and imaginings of the future — another temptation. For Hume, ‘[t]he present is not a disposable launching pad for future adventures in technological progress but a place to dwell, to understand, and to enjoy.’³⁷ We are to think and live “the now,” which again brings to mind Hegel’s famous framing of philosophical work:
‘[O]n the subject of issuing instructions on how the world ought to be: philosophy, at any rate, always comes too late to perform this function. As the thought of the world, it appears only at a time when actuality has gone through its formative process and attained its completed state […] the owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the onset of dusk.’³⁸
Philosophy for both Hume and Hegel is the business of today, which must contain history and the past, and furthermore the material of “now” is dirt and rocks and trees and flesh-and-blood people who smile at us and to whom we forget to send birthday cards. This material though is often ignored, because often ‘once [he or she has] laid hold of a favorite principle […] [the philosopher] extends the same principle over the whole creation, and reduces to it every phenomenon, though by the most violent and absurd reasoning.’³⁹9 In Hegel, this is the mistake of assuming as the conclusion ‘the first instance’ of what is experienced when ‘[e]ssence that issues from being seems to confront [being] as an opposite […] [as] unessential.’⁴⁰ If being is unessential, then we may “correct it” with our abstract conclusions and notions, which for Hume will lead us into failing to be human. ‘Be a philosopher; but, amidst all of your philosophy, be still a man’ — perhaps we can think of much of Hume’s entire project as encapsulated in this statement.⁴¹ This is the project of ‘reach[ing] the level of self-awareness in which philosophical reflection itself is seen as a problem,’ where it is realized that ‘there is a kind of philosophical reflection which subverts one’s humanity’ which must be avoided at all costs.⁴² ⁴³ ‘The good and the truth must first be real […] for otherwise the superstition internal to the philosophical act might be missed’ (as describe in “On Conspiracies and Pandora’s Rationality”) and “false philosophy” is where we fail to stay “real” and so fall into “the philosophical consciousness” which threatens humanity.⁴⁴ Our humanity can only be found where we keep the efforts to “keep being as being” and not ‘sublated being’ (which is essence’s own self), for this leads us into an effacing illusion (it is also problematic to act as if essence is possible without being at all).⁴⁵
IV
‘A view that pervades nearly all Hume’s philosophical writings is that both ancient and modern philosophers have been guilty of optimistic and exaggerated claims of the power of human reason,’ which seems notably absurd when we take seriously the question, “Can we know what rain itself feels like from only ‘the idea of rain?’ ”⁴⁶ Not at all, and no matter how hard reason tries, it is powerless to “bring to us” the “experience of rain” from the idea of it, and yet we seem to naturally experience reason as far more powerful than experience or the act of taking a walk outside, even thought our legs have more power to bring us “the experience of rain” then does our minds. What is it about reason that makes us experience it as omnipotent? There is something in reason itself that phenomenologically brings upon us this sense, and yet it is obvious that ‘[t]he most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.’⁴⁷ In the difficulty of remembering this simple and obvious truth is perhaps contained a hint regarding why reason is such a difficult opponent to master and tame.
Things are more vivid than ideas, and things constantly change while ideas have an ability to stay constant. While I watch a cat, I cannot keep it sitting in place or keep it from moving through time, but if I imagine an idea of a cat, I can imagine it sitting on a couch forever, unchanging. Ideas are not at the mercy of time as are entities, and we can see in Hegel and Hume efforts to make “ideas more like things,” though ultimately this equivalence is impossible, hence why ultimately ideas must “honor things” and defer to them. Again, as already noted in The Absolute Choice, Merold Westphal brilliant explains that ‘[Hegel’s] method [entails] watching the familiar repeatedly self-destruct and replace itself with a new mode of consciousness to which new objects correspond,’ and this is a movement Hegel sees not just in consciousness but History itself (suggesting perhaps a critical connection between Nature and Notion).⁴⁸ But ideas do not necessarily undergo this “self-destruction and replacement” like things do, and so ideas must be trained to “be like things” — and yet we seem to experience ideas as if they have the power and as if things need to conform to them versus the other way around, even though it is obvious that the experience of coldness is far more vivid and “powerful” than “the idea of coldness.” How strange rationality is, and how clear it is that what controls understanding sets the terms of what constitutes “understood” (we naturally conspire against ourselves).
To repeat Westphal again:
‘It is entirely typical of Hegel that while Descartes points out the changeability of the wax in our sensory experience of it, he focuses on the volatility of our attempts to think the salt. It is not the changing appearance of the salt from one moment to the next but its contradictory character at any given moment which drives consciousness beyond Perception.’⁴⁹
Or at least it should, but thought, rationality, and ideas are powerful, and if we don’t “drive them out into Perception,” it seems they won’t drive themselves out (and they have the ability to forever stay because of their ontological and noncontingent character). Without awareness and effort, ideas in their noncontingency and atemporality will naturally present themselves to us as “all powerful,” and so it will be natural to then fall into “exaggerate claims” and beliefs regarding the power of rationality, as we might be existentially and psychologically oriented to “fall into” given the instability and anxiety we must otherwise face. ‘Ethical Life is an inherently unstable harmony, limited both in scope and form,’ for example, but “ethical ideas” present themselves as stable and unlimited — why would we ever settle for the former when we could embrace the latter?⁵⁰ So it goes with everything: when all of life is unstable and unpredictable, while ideas are stable and present themselves as “more powerful,” it is only natural for us to make the mistake of “autonomous rationality” and “bad philosophy.” It’s rational.
‘Anti-Scottish prejudice was strong in London’ during Hume’s life, and to write critiquing power and the State (and recall that the State at a large scale requires philosophical justification) is to invite the intensification of that prejudice.⁵¹ Hume is said to have lived a quiet and happy later life, so perhaps I should not overstate this threat of prejudice; at the same time, I cannot imagine that Hume wrote oblivious of its existence. The life of the philosopher can be a dangerous life, notably when the philosopher opposes the methods and means of power, exactly as Hume did. Had Hume not been so readily misinterpreted into “mere empiricism” and/or “mere skepticism,” perhaps Hume would not be a name still with us today. Power is known to exhibit power.
To close, in associating “barbarism” with violence and the uncivilized, Hume is suggesting that intellectuals today could be the new “barbarians” (especially those serving power, as discussed by Julien Benda), which might sound absurd until we consider that “modern, total warfare” would not be possible without mass totalization, which is only possible if there is first philosophical totalization. Dr. Livingston with this point does not mean to trace out ‘an adequate moral account of [modern wars],’ only suggest that there is a correlation between “philosophical consciousness” and world warfare.⁵² Yes, of course, WWI and WWII required the Industrial Revolution, interconnectivity, certain inventions — philosophy cannot be held totally responsible. Still, the point is that when modern war needed philosophy to justify and expand it, as with the modern State, “bad philosophy” was ready and ultimately unstoppable, as Dr. Livingston writes:
‘World War I began as the usual limited European war to be won quickly and settled quickly. It was greeted with almost sporting enthusiasm on both sides. But after the first year a stalemate was reached, and causalities had risen beyond what anyone could have imagined. Rather than reach a negotiated settlement, it was thought that there had to be an ultimate meaning to such loses. America entered the war. Social progressives now spiritualized war into a holy crusade to restructure all of Europe, to abolish autocracy, and to establish universal democracy. The war was transformed by the language of totality. It was now the war to make the world safe for democracy and the war to end all wars. The concept of the final war, the philosophically reflexive war, is perhaps the ultimate in the barbarism of refinement.’⁵³
Whether we agree with Dr. Livingston (or the Dialectic of Enlightenment by Adorno or Horkheimer), the point is that we cannot be quick to assume philosophy isn’t a problem philosophy must take seriously. “False philosophy,” which isn’t dialectical and must be A/A, ultimately totalizes, and in this way it seems at least weak to stop totalitarian tendencies. On A/A-thinking, as elaborated on in Belonging Again:
‘Indeed, it’s logical outcomes would be a global state or some approximation of a global state. Its politics would necessarily be an ideological style of politics in constant conflict with the remaining fragments of traditional societies and with the ideologies of other modern states pursuing their own universalizing projects.’⁵⁴
Are we to believe that if we fail to take Hume and Hegel seriously, our capacity for avoiding “total war” is less? In fact, we might be fated to “total war?” Does this mean avoiding the “Nash Equilibria” and “suboptimal results” of our current day is perhaps a matter of directly or indirectly “returning to Hume and Hegel” (and the Counter Enlightenment as a whole)? Well, at the very least, new thinking that stresses dialectics and new ontologies might have more “weight” if they can hook themselves up with a tradition and history that we have overlooked and missed — and I do believe that possibility alone would add enough value to make the effort of “returning Hegel and Hume” worthwhile. But readers must decide.
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Notes
¹Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 23.
²Berger, Peter. A Far Glory. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1992: 90.
³Berger, Peter. A Far Glory. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1992: 114.
⁴Berger, Peter. A Far Glory. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1992: 91–92.
⁵Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 258.
⁶Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 259.
⁷Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. North Print Press, New York. 2002: 57.
⁸Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 264.
⁹Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 386.
¹⁰Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 264.
¹¹Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 386.
¹²Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 221.
¹³Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 58.
¹⁴Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 175.
¹⁵Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 174.
¹⁶Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 178.
¹⁷Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 191.
¹⁸Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 191.
¹⁹Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 193.
²⁰Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 196.
²¹Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 176.
²²Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 176.
²³Hume, David. “My Own Life.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: xxxvi.
²⁴Hume, David. “My Own Life.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: xxxvi.
²⁵Hume, David. “My Own Life.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: xli.
²⁶Hume, David. “Of the First Principles of Government.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 32.
²⁷Hume, David. “Of the First Principles of Government.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 36.
²⁸Hume, David. “Of the Middle Station of Life.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 547.
²⁹Hume, David. “Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 447.
³⁰Hume, David. “Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 447.
³¹Hume, David. “Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 426.
³²Hume, David. “Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 464.
³³Hume, David. “The Skeptic.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 180.
³⁴Hume, David. “Of the Original Contract.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 486.
³⁵Hume, David. “Of the Original Contract.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 475.
³⁶Hume, David. “Of the Original Contract.” Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 475.
³⁷Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 6.
³⁸Hegel, G.W.F. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Translated by H.B. Nisbet. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008: 23.
³⁹Hume, David. “The Skeptic.” Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary. Edited by Eugene F. Miller. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987: 159.
⁴⁰Hegel. G.W.F. Science of Logic. Translated by A.V. Miller. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1990: 394.
⁴¹Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, Company, 1993: 3–4.
⁴²Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 19.
⁴³Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 31.
⁴⁴Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 29.
⁴⁵Hegel. G.W.F. Science of Logic. Translated by A.V. Miller. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1990: 394.
⁴⁶Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, Company, 1993: xiii.
⁴⁷Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, Company, 1993: 10.
⁴⁸Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 17.
⁴⁹Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 97.
⁵⁰Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 141.
⁵¹Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 268.
⁵²Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 300.
⁵³Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 299.
⁵⁴Livingston, Donald. Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998: 384.
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