Hume on Passions (Part Two)

On Book II of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Part I, "Pride and Humility," sections 3 and 4. Pride, according to Hume, has both a cause (whatever you're proud of) and an object (the self). Hume describes this structure as both "natural" (as opposed to being a social construction) and "original" (based on an innate psychological capacity). Pride involves both impressions (e.g. you perceive that you find pleasure in whatever you're proud of), and ideas (e.g. you understand the relation of the thing we're proud of to yourself). For both of these types of mental entities, pride or any other emotion will also involve associated ideas and impressions; pride in something will make us think of other things, and feeling pride about a particular thing gives rise to related feelings, e.g. pride in those other things. We switched which edition of the text we were reading since part one. Read along with us, starting on PDF p. 201. To get parts 3-5, subscribe at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices