Who said they were hiding in the woods?

Question

In my undergraduate days, I remember reading someone occupying roughly a mental and historical space as David Hume (originally my thought was between Hume and Kuhn), and have a vaguely recalled passage that I would like to source. Though on first asking this question I thought it may even be Hume or Kuhn, I am fairly convinced after more searching that the topic and metaphor came from the Hume end of the spectrum (if not he himself);

[They are hiding in their woods without seeking the truth of knowledge]

I wish I knew if he advocated science or something that might flag the general school of thought, but what sticks out is the "hiding in the woods" part (as some kind of metaphor), and that this was perhaps the introductory salvo (probably written within the first few pages of the reading). I am hoping to find the author and where the passage is from as it was in something I recall enjoy reading (though I believe the reading itself was in some Modern Philosophy reader).

• I believe this was a primary source, not likely a secondary source
• I believe it was Empiricist (I think that was why Hume sticks, but it may have been a similar philosopher or school or a response); calling out those espousing non-objective metaphysics from their "[hiding places to shine light on their claims]", or something like that.
• The more I look for it the more I recall some anti-clergy tone going in the text, as it related to their mysticism covering up or obscuring the search for truth.

Does "hiding in the woods" ring a bell for you?

Answer 1

I've definitely never heard this phrase before, nor do I remember having read it anywhere, but empiricism isn't really my area so it's possible that I'm just missing something.

However, I did some research, and I turned up the following quotation (emphasis not original):

. . . It is, of course, a big 'if. By denying the antecedent Reid hope to turn the tables on his countryman. It was Hume who was hiding in the woods, ready to spring upon the unwary intellectual traveller with his 'profound' reasoning. It was Hume, not the traditional metaphysicians of old, who delighted in the strange and obscure beguile ments of the human mind. And what could constitute a greater beguilement of innocent minds than to uncritically accept unfounded hypotheses as if such a procedure were merely the usual and ordinary practice of philosophy? This is precisely what followers of Descartes had done. Following his master, Hume uncritically decides that all our mental notions are 'either ideas of sensation, or ideas of reflection' and that this beginning is the proper philosophical procedure.

That comes from an article entitled "Hume, Reid and Skepticism", written by Floyd Centore. The full cite, as best I can tell, is as follows:

Centore, F. Floyd. "Hume, Reid and Skepticism", Philosophical Studies (Ireland), Vol. 28, National University of Ireland: 1981, pp 212–220.

Only a snippet view is available from Google Books, so you'll probably have to be pretty lucky or have access to the right resources to get your hands on an actual copy and read the whole thing in context.

From what little I can find online, I'd say that the author is relatively obscure, at least as far as these things go. At some point, at least, he was Professor of Philosophy at University of St. Jerome's College (which was renamed in 1998 to St. Jerome's University) in Waterloo, Ontario. But I suppose it's possible that you could have gotten your hands on this in a philosophy course? Or perhaps I'm completely off-base here.

Answer 2

While I'm not sure about this, here is one other guess.

This phrase may very well be part of a criticism of the apparent political apathy of Henry David Thoreau, who wrote a treatise on civil disobedience and then indeed retreated from public life into "the woods" (house at Walden pond) to "seek truth" (compose his masterpiece Walden.)

I have been unable to find anything else on this at all.

Answer 3

Thanks to both answers and the prods and clarifications offered I wwas able to dredge up some resources on where this quote, if the paraphrase above can be called that, came from.

It was hiding in plain sight, it was David Hume who said it. A good run down of the work can be found in this breakdown of his work An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: "we need to root the enemy out of their hiding places" (as the author's summary put it). This helped me to find the actual passage, where the "secret word" as it were, was "retreat" (as opposed to hiding places, and I am unsure where woods came from):

But is this sufficient reason, why philosophers should desist from such researches, and leave superstition still in possession of her retreat? Is it not proper to draw an opposite conclusion, and perceive the necessity of carrying the war into the most secret recesses of the enemy? (Hume, Section I.7)

The above passage exhorts the will to "cultivate true metaphysics with some care, in order to destroy the false and adulterate."