Lovecraft as anti-Hume

To my mind, the most radically anti-Humean philosopher is Husserl, since Husserl’s own self-styled empirical approach to the real is radically anti-bundle. An intentional object is not a sum of adumbrations for Husserl; the essence of the object cannot be given sensuously.

The most radically anti-Humean writer, in turn, must be H.P. Lovecraft. Consider the following two well-known passages.

Lovecraft: “If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing… but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful.”

Hume: “When we think of a golden mountain, we only join two consistent ideas, gold, and mountain, with which we were formerly acquainted.”

The radical incompatibility of these two attitudes is easily seen once we force each author to attempt to do the work of the other.

Imagine, for instance, Hume’s account of the Cthulhu idol:

“When we think of Cthulhu, we only join three consistent ideas, octopus, dragon, and human, with which we were formerly acquainted.”

This ruins the effect, of course. But a Lovecraftian version of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding would be equally absurd:

“If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yields a picture of a golden mountain, I would not be entirely unfaithful to the spirit of the thing… but the general outline of the whole is what makes it most shockingly frightful.”

Hume’s “bundle” theory has now been a standard part of the debunker’s toolkit for more than 250 years. But I do not agree that the primary function of the intellect is to debunk. At best, the beating up of gullible people is a subsidiary mopping-up operation that is generally launched too quickly and enthusiastically even when justified.