The Liberal Imagination and the Problem of Abstract Speculative Principles in Politics

Hume initiated a critique of modern ideology that came to prominence after the French Revolution in the writings of Edmund Burke, Hegel, and Tocqueville. Hume’s critique grows out of his concern about modern rationalism’s actively sovereign imagination. Social contract theory and its attendant doctrines are political equivalents of philosophic doctrines such as primary and secondary qualities or personal identity. Just as Hume had criticized those philosophic doctrines in part to prepare the way for a philosophy of common life, Hume’s criticisms of social contract and other political principles lead him to defend the commercial republic as the arrangements most suited to our “mixed kind of life.” There is a crucial difference between Hume’s intervention into philosophy and his treatment of political theories. Philosophical conundrums such as those viewed in the previous chapters are revealing, though they do not engage deep human emotions. Merely philosophic errors are “ridiculous” (T 272); arguments over abstruse topics are more likely to induce sleep than riots. Theoretical intrusions into politics implicate strong passions, established institutions, and the basis for political community. Political systemizers seek to remold institutions and customs inconsistent with their principles. If they are opposed by another system, passion can run especially high and civil conflict can ensue.