HumeThis is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of the entire career of one of Britain's greatest men of letters. It sets in biographical and historical context all of Hume's works, from A Treatise of Human Nature to The History of England, bringing to light the major influences on the course of Hume's intellectual development, and paying careful attention to the differences between the wide variety of literary genres with which Hume experimented. The major events in Hume's life are fully described, but the main focus is on Hume's intentions as a philosophical analyst of human nature, politics, commerce, English history, and religion. Careful attention is paid to Hume's intellectual relations with his contemporaries. The goal is to reveal Hume as a man intensely concerned with the realization of an ideal of open-minded, objective, rigorous, dispassionate dialogue about all the principal questions faced by his age. |
Contents
Hume as Man of Letters | 14 |
Summary of the Narrative | 24 |
Pursuits of Philosophy and General | 35 |
Hutcheson and the Scottish Scene of Thought | 65 |
Anatomist of Human Nature | 78 |
Essayist | 143 |
The Achievement of Independence | 198 |
Two Years at Ninewells | 248 |
Friendship | 289 |
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Common terms and phrases
according to Hume Adam Smith ancient argument Bayle belief Bolingbroke Britain British Cambridge cause concerning Natural Religion concerning the Principles constitution David Hume David Hume 1777 Dialogues concerning Natural Edinburgh edition eighteenth century English Enquiry concerning Essays and Treatises Four Dissertations France Greig Henry VII Henry VII 1762 historian History of England House of Tudor Human Nature Hume claimed Hume wrote Hume’s Hutcheson idea interest Invasion of Julius James Julius Caesar Kames kind Letters of David liberty London Malebranche Mandeville Millar mind modern Montesquieu Moral and Political moral philosophy nation parliament party passions Philosophical Essays Political 1741 Political Discourses 1752 Principles of Morals published question Rapin reader reason religious Rousseau scepticism Scotland Scottish Enlightenment sense sentiments Shaftesbury Smith society Strahan Stuart theory things thought trade transl Treatise of Human University Press virtue Voltaire volume Walpole Whig Whig history William writing