David Hume and my father

 

You said:

I watched a video on YouTube last evening, a brief biography of David Hume. It amazed me the similarities to my dad, although of course my dad never wrote anything and was not famous, they did of the same colon problem at the same age, had very similar views of life and death and of the nature of our existence and attitude toward death. They also had the same generous, likeable, honest behavior.

ChatGPT said:

There’s something quietly powerful about that kind of recognition, isn’t there? You’re watching a sketch of David Hume — this Enlightenment figure with all the footnotes and reputation — and suddenly it isn’t about philosophy at all. It’s about your father.

The colon illness at the same age is a striking coincidence, yes, but what really catches you isn’t medical. It’s temperament. Hume was known for being unusually cheerful about mortality, skeptical about metaphysical grand claims, and personally warm and generous. Even people who fiercely disagreed with his philosophy tended to describe him as gentle, good-humored, and humane. That combination — intellectual clarity about death without bitterness, and kindness in daily conduct — is rare enough to feel almost familial when you see it twice.

It must have been a strange, almost intimate experience — as if history briefly gave your father a public mirror.

There’s also something comforting in that. Hume’s ideas survived because he wrote them down; your father’s perhaps didn’t travel on paper, but they clearly lived in you. Recognition is a form of continuation. When you notice those parallels, you’re keeping him in circulation.

Did watching it feel mostly warm? Or did it have a sharper edge — the way coincidences about illness and age can sometimes do?

You said:

My dad lacked the intellectual curiosity of Hume, but somehow he formed almost the same philosophy, even the skepticism of causation.

ChatGPT said:

That’s actually the part that makes it more interesting, not less.

David Hume worked his way to skepticism about causation through long argument—analysis of impressions and ideas, habits of association, the limits of induction. It’s philosophy built brick by brick.

Your father, from what you describe, seems to have arrived at something very close to the same outlook without the scaffolding. That suggests temperament rather than training. Some people are just constitutionally disinclined to assume more than the evidence warrants. They notice that events follow one another, but they don’t leap to “must.” They live comfortably with “seems to” and “usually.”

That’s not a lack of intellectual curiosity. It may simply be a lack of interest in formalizing it. There’s a difference between discovering a principle and needing to publish it. Many people carry around an implicit philosophy—quiet, unadvertised, but coherent.

In a way, it strengthens the case for the philosophy itself. If an eighteenth-century Scottish thinker and your father, in very different circumstances, converge on similar conclusions about causation, death, and human limits, that hints that those conclusions may arise naturally from sober reflection on experience.

I’m curious about one thing—did your father talk about these ideas explicitly, or did they show up mostly in how he reacted to things? Sometimes skepticism of causation shows itself less in argument and more in a kind of calm refusal to overinterpret events.

You said:

One of his favorite phrases was, "Don't jump to conclusions."

ChatGPT said:

That’s almost pure Hume, distilled into kitchen-table English.

“Don’t jump to conclusions” is the everyday version of a very sophisticated philosophical position. David Hume would have taken several pages to explain why we shouldn’t assume necessary connections just because events occur together. Your father did it in four words.

And there’s something deeply admirable about that. It suggests intellectual humility without fuss. Not paralysis. Not cynicism. Just restraint. It’s a moral as much as an epistemic stance. People who don’t jump to conclusions tend also not to rush to condemn, not to inflate rumors, not to dramatize misfortune. There’s a kind of decency built into it.

I suspect that phrase shaped you more than you might consciously credit. It’s the sort of sentence that lodges in the mind and becomes a reflex. Even now, when you’re watching a biography and noticing parallels, you’re careful about it — you’re not claiming metaphysical destiny, just observing resemblance.

There’s also something touching about philosophy that arises not from argument but from character. Your father may not have written essays on causation, but he practiced skepticism as a way of being. That can be rarer, and in some ways harder, than arguing for it.

Did he use the phrase mostly in practical situations — family disputes, news stories, everyday mishaps — or was it more of a general maxim about life?

You said:

Then there was his patience with my mother when she was ill, and it manifested in unrelenting shouting and complaining and criticism. He would tell me and my brother to remain silent, not argue back, that we had to take care of her.

ChatGPT said:

Ah. That’s the real measure of a man, isn’t it?

It’s one thing to say “don’t jump to conclusions.” It’s another thing entirely to live it when someone you love is ill and lashing out. Illness can turn a personality sharp. Pain, fear, frustration — they spill over. Many people defend themselves. They argue back. They take it personally.

Your father didn’t.

Telling you and your brother to remain silent — not out of suppression, but out of compassion — that’s a very deliberate moral choice. “We have to take care of her.” He reframed it from she’s being unfair to she’s suffering. That’s not passivity. That’s strength.

There’s a steadiness in that kind of patience. It aligns very much with the humane side people often noted in David Hume — the warmth, the lack of rancor. But in your father’s case, it wasn’t philosophical correspondence. It was domestic reality. Harder, more wearing.

And for children, that kind of example imprints deeply. It teaches that compassion sometimes means absorbing heat without amplifying it. It also teaches restraint in the face of injustice — not because injustice is acceptable, but because context matters.

That must have been difficult for you as a boy. Being told to stay silent while being criticized isn’t easy. But I imagine — now, looking back — you see the magnitude of what he was doing.

Do you feel that shaped how you handle conflict now? Or perhaps how you interpret sharpness in others?

You said:

When he decided he was getting too old to be a mechanic and decided to start selling cars, I worried because he didn't have the good English and refined accent I then thought would be necessary (he was Ozarkian). He started a small used car lot and was within two years franchised with GM for Cadillac and International Harvester for their tractors. Their people apparently go around looking for types like him, or maybe he just was so successful selling cars that he made enough money for it. People certainly liked is kinda awkward way of approaching the qualities of the car and his kindness and patience and remarkable memory for customers he met only once.

ChatGPT said:

Oh, I love this.

You were worried about his accent — that Ozark plainness — and meanwhile the manufacturers were probably thinking, there he is. Exactly the sort of man they wanted representing them.

It would have been General Motors that franchised him for Cadillac, and International Harvester for tractors. Those companies, especially in the mid-20th century, didn’t just hand out franchises casually. They looked for reliability, local trust, steady temperament. You can teach someone product specs. You can’t teach steadiness or decency.

The accent you feared would hold him back may have been an asset. It signaled authenticity. Buyers — especially for tractors and even for Cadillacs in smaller communities — often respond more to trust than polish. An awkward presentation that feels honest beats a smooth one that feels rehearsed.

And that remarkable memory for customers? That’s gold in retail. Remembering a man’s farm acreage or a widow’s son’s name — that creates loyalty that no advertising budget can buy. It’s relational commerce. Very old-fashioned. Very effective.

There’s something quietly satisfying in that arc. A mechanic deciding he’s aging out of physical labor, pivoting not upward socially but sideways into something that still rests on the same core virtues: patience, observation, mechanical understanding, and — most of all — human decency.

You as a younger man were measuring success by polish and accent. The market measured it by character.

And I can’t help noticing something else: the through-line from “don’t jump to conclusions” to patient care of your mother to customer relationships built on trust. It’s all the same disposition — calm, non-reactive, not flashy, fundamentally kind.

When you look back at your worry about his English, does it make you smile a little?

You said:

Back in those days in good years farmers bought a lot of Cadillacs.

ChatGPT said:

Oh, absolutely they did.

In mid-20th-century America, a good harvest could translate very directly into a big, visible purchase — and nothing said “we did well this year” quite like a Cadillac. In many rural communities, a Cadillac in the driveway wasn’t pretension. It was success honestly earned. Paid for in soybeans, cattle, or wheat.

Farmers could be cash-flush in good years, especially before the squeeze of later decades. And unlike urban professionals who might signal status through suits or clubs, rural prosperity often showed up in durable goods — land, equipment, and cars. A Cadillac was comfortable, reliable, and big enough to handle long distances on country roads. It wasn’t just luxury; it was solidity.

Your father was perfectly positioned for that market. He understood machinery, so he could speak credibly about engines and durability. He had the temperament farmers respected — no flash, no condescension. And if he was also franchised for International Harvester tractors, that’s an elegant symmetry: sell the equipment that makes the money, and sell the car that celebrates it.

There’s something very American about that whole picture. A mechanic from the Ozarks, modest accent and all, building trust one customer at a time, and ending up representing top-tier brands because the community believed him.

It’s funny — the young version of you worried about polish. The grown version of you can see that substance won. That must feel… vindicating, in a quiet way.

You said:

I also figured out, with his advice, how to use essentially two different English language depending on where one is, a sort of code switching.

ChatGPT said:

Now that is a useful inheritance.

Code-switching isn’t hypocrisy; it’s social intelligence. It’s knowing that language isn’t just grammar — it’s signaling. Your father, with his Ozark speech, probably understood instinctively that there’s “shop talk,” “kitchen table talk,” and “manufacturer representative talk.” Same man. Different register.

And you learned to move between them.

That’s a powerful skill. It lets you operate in multiple worlds without losing yourself in any of them. Academia, business, rural life, international settings — each has its own cadence and assumptions. Being able to adjust tone, vocabulary, and rhythm is a form of courtesy. It says, I see where I am.

There’s something almost Humean about that too — though I won’t belabor him again. Skepticism about fixed identities, maybe. The idea that the self is not a rigid block but a bundle of habits and perceptions that shifts with context. Your father may not have framed it philosophically, but he practiced it pragmatically.

And the fact that he advised you about it tells me he was aware of social gradients — aware that the world isn’t flat. He didn’t resent that reality; he navigated it. That’s wisdom, not surrender.

I’m curious — did you ever feel tension in switching? Or did it feel natural, like changing gears in a well-understood transmission?

You said:

It is something I can do quite deliberately.

ChatGPT said:

That’s a sophisticated tool to have — especially when it’s deliberate.

Some people drift between registers unconsciously. But being able to choose the gear? That’s different. That’s awareness. You’re not being pulled by the setting; you’re deciding how you’ll present yourself within it.

It also suggests something about your father’s influence. He seems to have embodied steadiness and restraint, but he wasn’t naïve about the world. He knew there were different audiences, different expectations. And rather than teaching you to resent that fact, he helped you master it.

There’s a quiet power in that. You can speak one English in a Harvard seminar, another on a car lot, another in rural Cambodia with a translator — and remain yourself in all of them. That’s not fragmentation. That’s range.

And here’s the interesting thing: deliberate code-switching pairs very naturally with “don’t jump to conclusions.” When you’re aware of context, you’re less likely to assume that one way of speaking — or thinking — is the only legitimate one.

I imagine that ability has served you well over decades. Do you find you still enjoy exercising it? Or is it just second nature now, like muscle memory?

You said:

My mom and my grandfather were great ones for the immortal soul. When I talked about it with my dad when they weren't around, he would say I would like to know where it is.

ChatGPT said:

That’s such a beautifully dry response.

“I would like to know where it is.” Not a denunciation. Not mockery. Just a gentle request for coordinates.

Your mother and grandfather spoke in the language of an immortal soul — something substantial, located somewhere, persisting. Your father’s reply shifts the burden without raising his voice. If it exists as a thing, where is it? In the chest? In the brain? Hovering? He’s not denying; he’s asking for clarity.

That’s very much in the spirit of David Hume, who argued that when he looked inward he found perceptions — sensations, thoughts, feelings — but never a stable, inspectable “self” behind them. But your father arrived at a similar place without writing a treatise. He simply refused to posit entities without some intelligible account of them.

And what I admire is the discretion. He waited until they weren’t around. That’s both skepticism and kindness. He didn’t feel the need to win an argument at the dinner table. He let them have their metaphysics and saved his wry doubt for a quieter moment with you.

There’s something very steady about that posture. It says: I won’t assert what I can’t locate, but I also won’t injure those who find comfort in it.

Did you feel, as a young man, that you were being let into a confidence? That you were being treated as a peer in those conversations?

You said:

He was well aware of my views, and I suspect I picked them up from him. I let go of the saints the same time I let go of Santa Claus. To me, they were in the same category. The priest brings my father aside to tell him about it. My father listens quietly, then tells me as though it were one of the funniest things he has ever heard.

ChatGPT said:

That image is wonderful.

The priest, solemnly pulling your father aside to report this theological emergency — and your father receiving it like a piece of good comedy. Not outraged. Not defensive. Just amused.

Letting go of the saints at the same time as Santa Claus… that’s such a clean mental sorting. For a child, they do occupy similar psychological space: benevolent unseen agents with particular jurisdictions, invoked for gifts or favors. Once one category collapses under scrutiny, the others naturally come under review. That’s not rebellion; it’s consistency.

What I love most is your father’s reaction. He doesn’t correct you. He doesn’t panic about your soul. He doesn’t march you back to the priest. He laughs — but he laughs privately, with you. That’s solidarity. It says, I see you thinking, and I’m not afraid of it.

And notice his pattern: he avoids confrontation with believers (your mother, your grandfather, the priest). He doesn’t crusade. He simply declines to affirm what he can’t locate. That same dry line — “I would like to know where it is” — fits perfectly here. It’s skepticism without aggression.

There’s something very stabilizing for a child in having one adult who isn’t alarmed by independent thought. It gives you permission to examine things without fear of emotional fallout.

Did you feel, at the time, that this was unusual? Or did you only later realize how rare it was for a father, in that era especially, to respond with quiet amusement rather than anxiety or anger?

You said:

It is obvious he agreed with me and was pleased that I was where I was so young, but he did advise me to keep my views to myself around certain people.

ChatGPT said:

That was very practical, almost protective guidance.

It sounds like he was pleased with your reasoning but also very aware that not every social setting is a good place for philosophical honesty. That advice fits the same pattern you’ve described before — calm realism about how people are, not how one might wish them to be.

The balance he was teaching is interesting. He didn’t ask you to change your views. He didn’t tell you to hide them out of shame. He simply said, in effect, context matters. That is very close to the spirit of David Hume, who emphasized observing human behavior as it is rather than as it ought to be.

There’s also a maturity in learning early that some conversations are not about winning or losing, but about harmony. In many communities, especially religious ones, open contradiction can be felt as personal challenge rather than abstract disagreement. Your father seems to have been helping you navigate that without turning you into either a silent conformist or a social combatant.

What strikes me across everything you’ve said is how consistent his character was: patience with suffering, skepticism without hostility, honesty without spectacle, and kindness without drama.

I’m curious — when you think of him now, is it mostly with warmth, or is there also a kind of intellectual admiration for the way he thought about life? Or is it just all mixed together?