May 23, 1956
“As for the specific content of an idea, it is variable and belongs to the realm of pure fancy —and on this point, we encounter Hume’s principal break with classical metaphysics. The constancy of human nature resides solely in relations between ideas, and not in the internal character of any particular type of idea. Indeed, the only constant elements are these relations, and they are what defines human nature. In doing so, Hume laid, in an extraordinarily profound manner, the foundations for a theory of relations that continues to govern the development of modern logic. . . . In other words, the question Hume posed was this: How does the mind become a human nature, that is, how does a mere collection of impressions and ideas evolve into an organized system? The answer was: It does so insofar as certain principles—specifically, the principles of human nature—operate within the mind, establishing connections and relations between ideas, connections and relations that are independent of the ideas themselves. In short, relations require a foundation, yet they cannot be grounded in their own terms. They demand the operation of other principles and, in this way, constitute a nature.”
Introduction
From the “Anthologie sonore de la pensée française” [Audio Anthology of French Thought] introduction to Gilles Deleuze, “Artifice and Society in Hume’s Work”, broadcast with the title “Human Nature According to Hume”, by the French R.T.F. program “Connaissance de l’homme” (Knowledge of Humans), 23 May 1956:
“Gilles Deleuze develops a very ‘Deleuzian’ meditation on alterity, explaining how humans must move not only towards those people they resemble, but also towards those people with no resemblance at all.” Of course, Deleuze’s first book, Empiricism and Subjectivity. An Essay on Hume’s Theory of Human Nature (Paris: PUF, 1953; trans. Constantin V. Boundas, New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), was already published, a monograph based on his 1947 thesis for the DES (diplôme d’études supérieures) under the direction of Jean Hyppolite and Georges Canguilhem. In a later essay written for François Châtelet’s edited collection, Histoire de la philosophie, vol. IV, Lumières [The Enlightenment] (Paris: Hachette, 1972), Deleuze spoke of Hume’s “peculiar place in the history of philosophy. His empiricism is, so to speak, a kind of universe of science fiction: as in science fiction, the world seems fictional, strange, foreign, experienced by other creatures; but we get the feeling that this world is our own, and we are the creatures. At the same time, science or theory undergoes a conversion: theory becomes inquiry” (Desert Islands and Other Texts, 162). This broadcast text also addresses Hume’s peculiar place in the history of philosophy.
Access to the French recording is available through this link.
English
See attached pdf translation below.
French
See attached French transcript below.