We grant that the Treatise may not be a entirely consistent work and that its precise aim may still be quite unclear. But this does not erase the fact that Hume has suffered historically from being appropriated, perverted and misrepresented by subsequent generations. Hume has had only few serious readers or quasi-genuine readers such as Kant, T. H. Green, Brentano, Meinong, Husserl and Whitehead.
The problem with Hume is that he does not seem to be able to make up his mind if he is engaging in a radical philosophy in the style of Descartes or in a rational and experimental psychology.
The philosophy of Hume is radically incompatible with subsequent naturalism, so-called empiricism or logical positivism.
The philosophy of Hume is not compatible with the kind of relativism or skepticism exemplified by Sextus Empiricus (whom Hume most certainly read). On the contrary Hume values highly evidence and rigorous proof. Consider this beautifully embarrassing passage from part II of section II (Book I):
But here we may observe, that nothing can be more absurd, than this custom of calling a difficulty what pretends to be a demonstration, and endeavouring by that means to elude its force and evidence. It is not in demonstrations as in probabilities, that difficulties can take place, and one argument counter-ballance another, and diminish its authority. A demonstration, if just, admits of no opposite difficulty; and if not just, it is a mere sophism, and consequently can never be a difficulty. It is either irresistible, or has no manner of force. To talk therefore of objections and replies, and ballancing of arguments in such a question as this, is to confess, either that human reason is nothing but a play of words, or that the person himself, who talks so, has not a Capacity equal to such subjects. Demonstrations may be difficult to be comprehended, because of abstractedness of the subject; but can never have such difficulties as will weaken their authority, when once they are comprehended.
Here Hume is no Pyrrhonist. However it also seems at the end of Book I in the part where he touches upon his personal psychological problems (or rather, on the practical aspect of philosophy) and literary ambitions that Hume is confessing Pyrrhonism or rather a kind of Carneadian scepticism closer to the later Academia (such as was not uncommon at his time): cf. the motifs of living according to nature, being guided by veridical appearance, etc. (Husserl also agrees with this in the chapters dedicated to Hume in the Krisis). We have already dealt with a refutation of such a stance. And indeed appealing to plausibility or probabilities is fallacious for it leaves open the question of the degree of plausibility of inferences and judgments about plausibility. Hence long enough chains of probabilistic reasoning with only probable rules will be all improbable. Hume's take on the classical argument against scepticism in part I of section IV might be construed as the definite statement of how Hume juggled these contradictions: the arguments of the Treatise are meant Pyrrhonically like the arguments in Sextus's Outlines, as temporary means to dethrone reason, ultimately both the attacker and the attacked becoming by degrees weaker. According to this reading Hume is just an updated empiricist flavoured version of Sextus - with the important difference that Hume, as we saw above, has no liking for amphibolisms. However part II, which appeals to 'nature' as a surrogate for reason to determine the existence of bodies, marks perhaps the lowest point in the Treatise (while again echoing Carneades and Sextus). Hume's effort to make his scepticism consistent can only come at the expense of naturalist dogmatism which renders his whole enterprise self-defeating.
Hume was forced to admit that there is a process of abstraction applied even to the most elementary, simple, indecomposable impressions like colored points. Hume uses in various passages the expression under a certain light.
Suppose that in the extended object, or composition of coloured points, from which we first received the idea of extension, the points were of a purple colour; it follows, that in every repetition of that idea we would not only place the points in the same order with respect to each other, but also bestow on them that precise colour, with which alone we are acquainted. But afterwards having experience of the other colours of violet, green, red, white, black, and of all the different compositions of these, and finding a resemblance in the disposition of coloured points, of which they are composed, we omit the peculiarities of colour, as far as possible, and found an abstract idea merely on that disposition of points, or manner of appearance, in which they agree. Nay even when the resemblance is carryed beyond the objects of one sense, and the impressions of touch are found to be Similar to those of sight in the disposition of their parts; this does not hinder the abstract idea from representing both, upon account of their resemblance. All abstract ideas are really nothing but particular ones, considered in a certain light; but being annexed to general terms, they are able to represent a vast variety, and to comprehend objects, which, as they are alike in some particulars, are in others vastly wide of each other. (part III, section II)
Finally, Hume has given us one of the most beautiful expressions of subjective idealism in the famous passage (end of section II):
We may observe, that it is universally allowed by philosophers, and is besides pretty obvious of itself, that nothing is ever really present with the mind but its perceptions or impressions and ideas, and that external objects become known to us only by those perceptions they occasion. To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive. Now since nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions, and since all ideas are derived from something antecedently present to the mind; it follows, that it is impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an idea of any thing specifically different from ideas and impressions. Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible: Let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appeared in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination, nor have we any idea but what is there produced.
Hume's treatment of the self seems to be a distorted version of the abhidhamma theory of anatta: The Possibility of Oriental Influence in Hume's Philosophy. This is interesting because it has been argued for Buddhist affinities both to Pyrrhonism and Hume.
See also Gaston Berger's Hume et Husserl.
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