Mossner: Hume the Human

The Life of David Hume by Ernest Campbell Mossner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great book on Hume the human. But, because Mossner has so little, relatively, on specific philosophical stances and ideas of Hume, that's the primary reason it doesn't get a fifth star. 

NOTE: This is an extended version of my Goodreads view, with some additional comparison's to the Harris "intellectual biography," whose review, also extended, I posted a week ago.

And now, a few thoughts on Mossner.

First, on style, he comes off at times as more British than American!

Second, he perhaps goes too much into Hume’s family history.

Third, he does disagree with James Harris and his 2015 on some elements, notably re the Treatise.

First, per Hume’s writing to Hutcheson re his reaction to the Treatise? Let us quote, via Mossner: “And tho I am much more ambitious of being esteem’d a Friend to Virtue, than a Writer of Taste; yet I must always carry the latter in my Eye, otherwise I must ever despair of being serviceable to Virtue.”

Well, later, Hume, by the time of his essays, had decided that for reasons of money and other things, his bread was better buttered on the side of a writer of taste, and that his rejection of the Treatise was in fact "the manner not the matter."

Specific to this, at the end of the 1730s and beyond, is the issue of "young Hume" vs "old Hume," whether there was a separation, and whether or not "old Hume" rejected "young Hume" of the Treatise. Mossner, contra both Harris and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in what I think reflects a larger shift in interpretation, says there WAS a split. Call me an old fuddy-duddy of Hume studies or whatever, but I think he's right and Hume's own words confirm that.

Mossner misses a follow-up here, and I think it may be deliberate. (In general, contra Harris' claim that Mossner had too much affection for Hume, despite the drier style of the "intellectual biography," if anything, Harris appears blinded by his own over-affection at times.) If indeed the rejection of the Treatise was the matter not the manner, what does that say about Hume's later "spinning" of the issue?

Mossner, re Hume and the Edinburgh professorship, again differs strongly with Harris. He notes that Hume really wanted it, up to the end, that his comments after not getting it amount to sour grapes, and he should have known better.

Mossner also deals better with at least one particular aspect of Hume the historian, vis-à-vis his delay in publishing the essay “On the Protestant Succession,” than does Harris He goes into more detail about the ’45 and how it entwined itself with Scottish friends. He notes that Kames, for example, went radio silence at this time.

Mossner has a lot on the personal side on his time in France as both Lord Hertford’s personal secretary then as official embassy secretary. Lots on his relationship with Mme de Boufflers. Doesn’t indicate whether it was consecrated or not. But, in this area, and from here through to Hume's deathbed, he is humanized.

Also, has lots from letters to or about Hume, even if we have few of Hume’s own.

Re Beattie, he does not discuss Hume’s racism at all, let alone his revision of his footnote in “Of National Characteristics” in apparent direct response to Beattie. Claims Beattie wrote his book with emotion-laden appeal precisely to try to get under Hume’s skin. Shades of “Treatise” level passions! Overall, I think he gives Beattie too thin of treatment here.

On Hume’s dying, has more on his insistence that the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion would be published, somehow or another, especially after Adam Smith seemed tentative. (Eventually, the Plan B was what had to be carried out, as Hume’s namesake nephew was the publisher.) And, befitting a biography of Hume the human, he describes Hume’s dying days, and Hume’s equanimity, in full detail.

But, because Mossner doesn't discuss racism (or the boatload of other stereotypes of alleged national and ethnic natures in Of National Characteristics), he doesn't discuss whether or not Hume's equanimity would extend to any non-White he met in person.

Yes, Mossner wrote in 1954. And his 1980 revised, pre-desktop publishing programs, is nothing more than appendixed notes at the end of the original. Nonetheless, racism was front and center in America by then and an appendixed note could have been slipped in.

Boswell comes off a ghoul, not only visiting the dying Hume to suss him out, but the dead Hume’s funeral. (Other writings claim that Hume soften Boswell, but Boswell couldn't soften Johnson.)

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