Will, Habit, Passion

Two of Hume's most influential theses are--'Causality consists in a constant conjunction' and 'Reason is the slave of Passion'. Rarely recognized is how further analyses of the two demonstrates how the former undermines the latter. For, the more precise formulation of 'constant conjunction' is the 'habit of constantly conjoining', and, as Deleuze argues, a 'habit' is itself a constant conjunction. In other words, Hume's own thesis prescribes how Reason, i. e. analysis, can expose a habit as breakable. Furthermore, since 'Passion' is habitual response to some stimulus, on that prescription, Reason can effect detachment from Passion, and, so, is not its slave. For Schopenhauer, such an appreciation of the power of Reason informs his Quietism, leaving unexplored the principle that has been developed here--Will, which not only can initiate motion in the absence of some stimulus, but is that psychological component which, more precisely, gets 'enslaved', i. e. when it becomes the conditioned response to some stimulus in the original formation of a habit.