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In this article I show how David Hume's works provide the ingredients for a conception of religiosity understood as a feeling of wonder concerning nature or existence, accompanied by a playful attitude regarding the imaginative shapes that can be given to this emotion. Hume serves as an inspiration rather than an object of study: I respect the spirit and values of his work, while going beyond his own explicit points. My reading accounts for Hume's aversion to traditional religions ('superstition'), and for his acknowledgement of the universal attraction of the idea of invisible intelligent power and his own fascination with it. I argue first that superstition is a natural reaction to existential uncertainty. Second, I argue that uncertainty fuels activity, creativity and morality, and thus may be left untended. Though it always involves a measure of pain, too, human happiness is found in challenge and activity. Traditional monotheist religions respond to this need by generating experiences of wonder, thus, however, stimulating passive devotion and dogmatism. Opposing this, the suggestion of Hume's works is to respect the mystery of nature rather than shrouding it in unfounded convictions. The fictional character Philo illustrates how the longing for an answer by is itself can already be a profoundly religious feeling. Hume's descriptions of ancient polytheism and Philo show how this can be accompanied by a playful, imaginative interaction with the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many literary works, the characters transform into a "new man". For example, Tom Joads in Grapes of Wrath is transformed from a selfish character who prioritizes his own survival under the social background of the Great Depression. After traveling with his family to California. Young Joads gradually become sober towards the suffering of lower class Americans, turning into a righteous man who fights for social justice. Nevertheless, I disagree with the concept "new man", because despite the ceaseless stream of time and transformative experiences we undergo, our personal essence is constant through time. Meaning that we do not form a complete new self through the transformation of time and experience. To understand this we will be examining the concepts of personal identity defined by memory and consciousness throughout the period of human life. Locke believes that experiences form a human being, and that the concept of individual consciousness will demonstrate the inherent continuity and persistence of the self that are presented through a comprehensive understanding of nature's capacity for transformation over the span of time. Therefore factors such as individual perceptions and impressions in shaping one's sense of self, along with the influence of moral development and virtue on individual identity do not alter the core of identity. Indeed, Descartes, who views the human consciousness as the only object that holds true in the universe, agrees that we are not able to perceive the objective truth. The view point we will argue is in contrast to that of Hume and his bundle theory of identity; we will, therefore, first give an exposition on Hume's critique of a stable personal identity, which it separated into qualitatively identify, and numerical identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Hume alluded to the politics of slaveholding throughout his career and was among the first to observe that the republican tradition has an awkward relationship with slavery. This article places Hume's critique of Roman slavery in conversation with recent debates over "neo-Roman" liberty, paying special attention to Hume's complaint that some republican advocates for political liberty have also apologized for personal slavery. Most of Hume's direct comments on slaveholding appear in the 1752 essay, "Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations," where Hume criticized Roman slavery for its negative effects on population growth. But more was at stake than ancient demography. Even abolitionists who abhorred Hume's racism still drew upon his argument against ancient slavery—which they read as a commentary on the modern colonies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What, if anything, changes between Hume's moral theory as presented in the Treatise of Human Nature and then in the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals? This question has received increased attention, especially focused on Hume's presentation of sympathy and humanity, and the connection of those principles to Hume's account of moral sentiments. While there is a strong consensus that Hume is making important stylistic changes to the presentation of his views, scholars are divided on the question of whether there are also substantive changes to the views. This paper sides with those who hold that there are substantive changes, offering new evidence for that position. I argue that Hume revised his Treatise account of sympathy to better accommodate cases of affective difference and incapacity. After presenting these cases, I show that Hume's Treatise account of the sympathy mechanism and its role in the production of moral sentiments is more seriously threatened by the problem of affective difference and incapacity than the corresponding account in the second Enquiry. This gives us persuasive evidence in support of the interpretations that hold that there are substantive changes in the second Enquiry, while also helping to explain Hume's motivation for such changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A premise of the Leibnizian cosmological argument from contingency says that no contingent fact can explain why there are any contingent facts at all. David Hume and Paul Edwards famously denied this premise, arguing that if every fact has an explanation in terms of further facts ad infinitum, then they all do. This is known as the Hume–Edwards Principle (HEP). In this paper, I examine the cosmological argument from contingency within a framework of metaphysical explanation or ground and defend a ground-theoretic version of HEP which says, roughly, that the plurality of contingent facts is grounded in its members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early Baroque, characterized by the skeptical spirit of the 16th century, reaches its peak in the following century with Descartes' hyperbolic doubt. The purpose of this paper is to analyze two of Hume's works, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding in order to place the philosopher in the tradition of Baroque thought. First of all, we will show that David Hume pushed skepticism far beyond its ancient or Cartesian limits, attacking even our way of formulating sentences, which is a subjective one, the result of some psychological factors that cannot be the basis of science. Secondly, we will demonstrate that Hume's skepticism belongs to the late Baroque and is, by its radical character, a form of metaphysical denial of any universal certainties. In conclusion, Hume's skeptical spirit, manifested in relation to the authority constructed by the post-Westphalian ideology, overcame the past, which was at the time denied, and represents, from a philosophical point of view, the origin of the revolutionary spirit of the second half of the 18th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Isabel Limongi's book on David Hume, highlighting two main qualities of the work. The first is the author's ability to situate Hume's political thought within its tradition and historical context, through contrasts with other authors and with political and geographical history. The second quality is Limongi's concern to analyze the impact of Hume's thought in the present, seeking to apply it to contemporary issues. The book is also seen as part of a broader critical project that proposes an alternative to the prevailing Kantian and Hegelianism in Brazilian political philosophy. The author uses a strategy of distributing the chapters of the book according to the different themes and controversies addressed by Hume, instead of following a chronological order, which facilitates a synthetic understanding of the work. The analysis includes Hume's relationship with natural law, the English constitutional debate, republicanism, and the thought of Machiavelli. The text discusses the relationship between the political thoughts of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Hume. The author argues that, although there are differences between them, they are also complementary in their approach to power and political authority. She highlights the importance of law in Machiavelli's work and the centrality of power relations in the analyses of Hobbes and Hume. Furthermore, she explores the idea that society is a cumulative process and emphasizes the importance of imagination in social evolution. The author also discusses the relationship between power and political authority and the importance of patterns in the constitution of social relations. Overall, the text praises the author's work for its depth and contrasting approach to political thinkers. [Extracted from the article]

James Burnett, Lord Monboddo's (1714–1799) contribution to Scottish Enlightenment thinking on race is regularly held to be twofold. As a Lord of Session, he supposedly defended slavery on Aristotelian grounds, infamously voting against Joseph Knight's freedom in Knight v. Wedderburn (1778). In his philosophical writings, Monboddo is known for his arguments in favour of the humanity of orangutangs, which scholars have claimed informed both his own views on slavery and also wider apologetics for the trade. At the same time, Monboddo is frequently cited as providing a fulsome defence of the achievements of black Africans against Hume's footnote in 'Of Natural Characters' (added in 1753). The full significance of Monboddo's counterexample to Hume's claims, the civilization of black ancient Egypt, has not been adequately understood. In this article I undertake a deep dive into Monboddo's views on race, slavery, and the black origins of civilization present in his largely ignored six-volume Antient Metaphysics (1779–1799). The arguments that emerge show that Monboddo was not quite the apologist for enslaving black Africans as he is sometimes presented as being, but also that his thought was far from the enlightened Scottish mainstream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The views on race expressed by Hume in a footnote appended to his essay 'Of National Characters' seem so egregiously misguided that the suspicion has developed among some commentators that his fundamental philosophical outlook may be inextricably intertwined with a host of deeply pejorative racist assumptions that serve to encourage a pervasive pattern of exploitative and oppressive actions directed against people of colour. This paper, in contrast, argues that predominant thrust of Hume's account of human nature is towards emphasizing the psychological similarities manifest by all healthy human beings, irrespective of biological sex or alleged racial affiliations: from Hume's perspective, white Europeans and people of colour are separated by much less than they have in common. It is, moreover, Hume's acknowledgement of the characteristics that all human beings have in common that motivates his forceful criticisms of the practice of chattel slavery. Basing his judgement on his appreciation of our shared humanity, Hume condemns slavery as a practice that cannot be reconciled with any legitimate set of moral sentiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the worship of ancient wisdom affects economic progress in historical China, where the learned class embraced classical wisdom for millennia but encountered the shock of Western industrial influence in the mid-nineteenth century. Using the number of sage temples to measure the strength of classical worship in 269 prefectures, I find that classical worship discouraged intellectuals from appreciating modern learning and thus inhibited industrialization between 1858 and 1927. By contrast, industrialization grew faster in regions less constrained by classicism. This finding implies the importance of cultural entrepreneurship, or the lack thereof, in shaping modern economic growth. "The humor of blaming the present, and admiring the past, is strongly rooted in human nature, and has an influence even on persons endued with the profoundest judgment and most extensive learning." —David Hume (1754, p. 464). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Hume's historical thought was shaped before he even began writing the History of Great Britain in 1752. This article shows how Hume developed his historical thought in an attempt to combine two historical structures: the natural-jurisprudential conjectural history of the Treatise of Human Nature and the early eighteenthcentury historical narratives of modern Europe that featured in his Essays. The Treatise's conjectural history used the developmental categories "rude" and "civilised" to explain the origins of justice, government and the moral sentiment. The narratives of modern Europe, in contrast, revolved around the historical categories "ancient" and "modern." Hume's historical thought was shaped by the attempt to merge those two structures into a single, coherent structure. The critical question concerned the relation between the ancient and the modern: was modern Europe merely a "revival" of classical antiquity? Or did it have new, "post-ancient" dimensions? The article shows how Hume gradually distanced classical antiquity from modern Europe, thereby creating space for exclusively modern concepts such as "civilised monarchies" and the narrative of modern civilisation that structured his History of England (1754-1762). The paper concludes by suggesting that this structure defined Enlightenment philosophical history, not just Hume's version of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that sympathy is the radical heart of Byron's poetry. For sympathy, possible via the imagination for David Hume and Adam Smith, allows Byron to be someone else as far as that is possible, withal Smith's caveats. This article posits that Byron's potential doubles are not poor caricatures that see the Romantic poet throwing his voice. Instead, Byron creates performances that explore and exploit the limits of sympathy. Such limits co-exist with potential. And for Byron, sympathy is not an unmitigated good. Through sympathy, we might ignore our professed values or extend our sympathy to those for whom we should not feel. Byron's sympathy opens him up to becoming other people to some degree, to living other lives, and inhabiting other selves. Byron shows us that sympathy, like selfhood, is slippery. This article argues that Byron makes us rethink sympathy and its value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The argument from design used to prove the existence of God is one of the arguments to which David Hume has devoted the most attention. On the one hand, this analogical reasoning is based on observational evidence. For that reason, it could be considered a particularly attractive type of argument for an empiricist philosopher. In fact, Hume uses this a posteriori argument in several of his works. On the other hand, Hume's position on this type of reasoning is not entirely clear. The philosopher defends this argument on several occasions and criticizes it on others. This paper aims to investigate Hume's analysis of the argument from design. In particular, we will highlight the peculiarities of the philosopher's remarks in the Dialogues on natural religion. We will analyze the significance of Hume's position in the Dialogues regarding the so-called "Philon's conversion". We will show that "Philo's conversion" at the end of the work could represent the positive scope that Hume attributes to this type of arguments in his theoretical philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines David Hume's mitigated skepticism as enacted through an ethos that refashions moral philosophy's public identity by appealing to the virtues of England's transforming scientific community in the eighteenth century. More specifically, this article shows how Hume's Enquiry, amid competing efforts to escape rationalistic dogmatism and an emerging bourgeois readership, refashions moral philosophy through an antithetical scheme that subverted the Enlightenment's obsession with certitude. In doing so, Hume invites readers to understand the purpose of moral philosophy as the pursuit of doubt over truth, an idea designed to humble the scientific profession at the peak of the epistemological revolution. Moreover, I propose two conceptual takeaways that extend beyond my close reading of Hume's work. First, I explain how Hume's philosophical persona draws upon his interpretation of Renaissance humanism, an orientation that focalizes rhetorical ethos by contrasting Aristotelian argumentation with Ciceronian eloquence. Second, I provide historical commentary on Pyrrhonism's decline during the Enlightenment and the broader political implications of arousing suspicion toward knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its long period of dominance, the details of associationism as developed by the British Empiricists in the 18th and 19th centuries are often ignored or forgotten today. Perhaps as a result, modern understandings of Empiricist associationism are often oversimplified. In fact, there is no single core view that can be viewed as definitional, or even weaker, as characteristic, of the tradition. The actual views of associationists in this tradition are much more diverse than any such view would allow, even on fundamental aspects of the concept of association. This paper presents some of the most striking theoretical diversity and most significant discussions within the Empiricist associationist tradition. Recognizing this diversity, Empiricist associationism is best viewed as a project with shared questions and methods rather than a shared substantive theory of mind. This discussion can inform our understanding of the historical tradition, and also inform our current use of association and associationism. The concept of association is more flexible than it is often treated, and even its basic nature and function remain up for debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introductory essay, we take issue with David Hume's distinction between "fiction" and "belief" by arguing that the relationship between these categories depends as much on existing structures of authority and power as it does on individual judgment or feeling. We then describe the objectives of the two-part ECF special issue "Refusing 18th-Century Fictions": to provide critical analyses of how particular eighteenth-century fictions attained the status of material realities that continue to condition lived worlds in the twenty-first century, and to prompt ongoing and future efforts to imagine and materialize realities beyond racial capitalism and settler colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bernard Mandeville's theory of morality – 'private vices, public benefits' – provides a frame for comparing Adam Smith and David Hume on utility. Mandeville held that vice, not virtue, is useful for society. For him, the private and public good do not align. What is bad for individuals is often beneficial for society and vice versa. To counter Mandeville's rhetoric and show the attractiveness of virtue, Hume places the principle of utility at the center of his An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). This placement directs the reader's attention away from the lack of alignment between private and public advantage and enables Hume to 'dress' moral virtue in utility and pleasure. Smith, by contrast, places the principle of propriety at the center of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). This is because he is closer in spirit to Mandeville than is Hume in acknowledging a gap between the private and public good. By directing the reader's attention to this gap in Part IV, Smith tries to show, contra Hume, that the principle of propriety, not utility, better explains and defends praiseworthy action and choice in an imperfect world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do we have social norms—of fairness, cooperation, trust, property, or gender? Modern-day Humeans, as I call them, believe these norms are best accounted for in cultural evolutionary terms, as adaptive solutions to recurrent problems of social interaction. In this paper, I discuss a challenge to this "Humean Program." Social norms involve widespread behaviors, but also distinctive psychological attitudes and dispositions. According to the challenge, Humean accounts of norms leave their psychological side unexplained. They explain, say, why we share equally, but not why we disapprove of those who don't. I defend the Humean Program against this challenge. In particular, I suggest an idea for how to extend the Program to account for the psychological side of norms. Socially adaptive behaviors aren't just likely to emerge in a group; They are also likely to be widely taught within it. The transmission of these behaviors through instruction explains why they are associated with distinctive normative attitudes and dispositions. These attitudes play a pedagogical role in helping transmit these behaviors to children and newcomers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper explores the debate between Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Carnap starting from their meeting in Davos in 1929, epitomizing two contradictory views on the essence of philosophy, which lie at the heart of the split between Continental and Analytic philosophy. This seemingly inconsequential intellectual disputation ultimately served as a significant turning point in history, with influence extending far beyond the philosophical world into the way people think in many areas of life, including changes in fields such as literature, education, and finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that the phenomenon of morality and, consequently, our ability to distinguish between vice and virtue can be explained by sympathy has been challenged as a highly controversial hypothesis, since sympathy appears to be easily influenced by proximity and selective, and would therefore seem incompatible with the possibility of taking an impartial, objective point of view. We intend to show that even a sentimentalist moral perspective such as the 'Humean' one, which places empathy (or 'sympathy', as Hume calls it) at the core of morality, is capable of accounting for and justifying moral responsibility to future generations. Moreover, if we consider things from a Humean perspective, it is immoral not only to harm future generations, but also not to care at all about the extinction of the human species. For in the former case, we perform actions that cause misery, pain and suffering, whilst in the latter, we are not at all concerned about the welfare (i.e., happiness) of possible people who may, in the near future, come into the world and have a life worth or very much worth living. That is, in both cases, we show no ability to empathize with the possible people who will or may be born tomorrow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "Hume, Justice, and Modern Political Thought," written by Maria Isabel Limongi and published by Editora Alameda in 2023. The book presents a new perspective on the philosopher David Hume, highlighting his understanding of the concept of justice as a historical, social, and political process. The author analyzes Hume's work in relation to other philosophers and commentators, such as Rawls, and highlights five key moments that reveal the importance of Hume's thinking in the formation of modern political thought. The book also discusses the relationship between the social, the political, and the legal, and how Hume introduces the concept of civil society as a starting point for politics. [Extracted from the article]

In this article, I define solidarity as the willingness to share with people we do not know personally but whom we consider to be equal to ourselves on the basis of some common feature allowing for identification. In the spirit of David Hume, I explain how identification can be developed through a learning process that leads us to ever more encompassing forms of sympathy. Then I show how solidarity, thus defined, is implemented in the institutions of the welfare state. Finally, I present arguments for not making solidarity too much dependent on responsible behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Hume's skeptical solution to the problem of induction was grounded in his belief that we learn by means of custom. We consider here how a form of reinforcement learning like custom may allow an agent to learn how to learn in other ways as well. Specifically, an agent may learn by simple reinforcement to adopt new forms of learning that work better than simple reinforcement in the context of specific tasks. We will consider how such a bootstrapping process may lead to a system that includes trial-and-error forms of learning like win-stay/lose-shift, probe and adjust, and simple reinforcement itself together with higher-rationality inferential tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mary Shepherd assigns reason a central role in her philosophical system, and so to understand that system we must understand her conception of reason. Does she, like Hume, take reason to be a mere matter of factual process that operates over independently contentful representations? Does she, like Descartes, take it to be a process that is intended to track the rational relations among such representations? Or does she, like Kant, take reason to be a structural feature of representations without which they would not have content at all? I argue that Shepherd's understanding of reason is broadly Kantian. Reason is a causal process whereby non-representational sensible qualities are combined in order to form representations of objects as loci of causal powers. These representations represent their objects as the external, continuously and independently existing, causes of the sensible qualities from which they have been constructed, and also as having causal powers to combine with other objects to have other effects. These representations are not only the result of a process of reasoning, but are also constituted by the rational relations into which reason puts them. Reason is both the causal process that forms such representations, and the structure of those representations themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between two ethical theories regarding freedom of the will, which are founded on two distinct interpretations of this concept. One perspective is based on the idea that our will is indifferent and that in order to be free, it should exclude any type of determination. The other ethical conception is based on the belief that our volition is spontaneous and that only violence and coercion should be excluded in order to preserve its liberty. However, according to the second theory, freedom is compatible with other types of determinations, such as those influenced by our nature, motives and passions or by our character. I will argue that the first theory was supported in different versions by prominent rationalist thinkers such as Descartes and Malebranche. This conception has gradually changed until it was rejected by other rationalists such as Spinoza and Leibniz, who will assume different versions of the second theory. Nevertheless, I will argue that a more coherent account of freedom as spontaneity was defended by David Hume. Consequently, I will attempt to reveal the subtle and gradual transformation that accompanied the transition from the first interpretation to the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Filosofija, Sociologija is the property of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Charitable interpreters of David Hume set aside his sprinkles of piety. Better to read him as lying than as clumsily inconsistent. We argue that the attribution of lies can pay dividends in historical scholarship no matter how strongly the theorist condemns lying. Accordingly, we show that our approach works even with one of the strongest condemners of lying: Immanuel Kant. We argue that Kant lied in his scholarly work and even in the first Critique. And we defend the claim that this lie attribution, strange as it may sound, amounts to a kind of scholarly charity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interconnections between Hume's thought as a philosopher, a historian and an economist, illustrated with respect to his thought on history, development and happiness. It is argued that differences in the interpretation of Hume have an epistemological origin, reflecting either a closed-system approach or some kind of open-system approach. These differences are explored in relation to Hume's own epistemology, historiography, theory of economic development and theory of happiness. Patterns are identified in Hume's thought which support a particular, open-system, interpretation of his contributions in each area in terms of interdependent processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the differences between David Hume and Thomas Aquinas' conceptions of practical reason. Hume considers practical reason to be only an auxiliary reason, while Aquinas argues that reason plays a prescriptive role in moral action. The article explores the difference between efficient causality and spiritual causality in the realization of moral action. It also raises the problem of instrumentalizing practical reason. The author concludes that Aquinas' philosophy values different causalities in moral action, unlike Hume's philosophy, which reduces causality to efficient cause. [Extracted from the article]

What awakened Kant from his dogmatic slumber? On the traditional narrative, he was awakened by Hume's challenge to our cognition of causal connections. A more recent narrative claims that he was awakened by Hume's challenge to our cognition of non‐logical connections more generally. In this paper, I argue that a key part of Kant's awakening was far wider‐reaching: he came to realize that all dogmas must be abandoned. An oft‐overlooked technical notion, dogmas are non‐logical principles cognizable to unaided human reason. I detail how Kant repudiated dogmas by the mid‐1760's in engaging with his German predecessor, Christian Crusius. This repudiation lays the foundation for his critical project. For once liberated of dogmas, reason must look beyond itself for the principles that would enable rational cognitionof non‐logical connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Dewey's philosophy, as Richard Rorty observed, is historicist to the core. From the 1910s onwards, Dewey emphasised the need for a 'reconstruction' in philosophy, which could extract what was most valuable from the Western philosophical tradition and employ it in the attempt to grapple with the most pressing contemporary problems. In his autobiographical reflections, Dewey acknowledged that his early enthusiasm for Hegel's philosophy had left a 'permanent deposit in his thinking', a claim that has recently received considerable scholarly attention. Yet Dewey's intellectual development is marked by an increasing disenchantment with fundamental aspects of Hegelian philosophy, which he considered to be infected with a 'reactionary spirit'. In his mature writings, this essay argues, Dewey turned to a pre-Hegelian (and pre-Kantian) philosopher, David Hume, in order to establish the most important philosophical principles that he initially associated with Hegel on non-metaphysical, non-theological foundations. Hume, on Dewey's reading, was both sceptical and revolutionary; but his call for the transfer of the experimental method to moral subjects had not been heeded. Dewey's philosophical project both explained why, historically, a 'reactionary spirit' had returned to infect post-Humean philosophy, and why the revolution in philosophy for which Hume called was now more urgent than ever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes two episodes of Foucault's reading(s) of Hume's philosophy. In both cases Hume is important to Foucault's overall argument and aims. In particular, in both Foucault takes a fairly conventional philosophical description of Hume--as a 'skeptic' and 'empiricist'--for granted and shows that these disguise a worldhistorical significance. In section 1, the paper explores Hume's role in Foucault's (1966) The Order of Things. The paper argues Hume stands in for the hidden role of similarity in the human sciences of the so-called 'classical period.' The paper examines Hume's account of relations which do not fully support Foucault's claims about Hume. It is proposed that Foucault's reading is motivated by the role Hume plays in Husserl's philosophy. In section 2, Foucault's treatment of Hume on March 28, 1979, during the eleventh lecture of the series known as Birth of Biopolitics, is analyzed. There Foucault ascribes to Hume's account of the subject the key building blocks that allowed for the development of Benthamite radicalism and homo economicus. The paper situates Foucault's later analysis of Hume in Foucault's larger account of the development of the so-called radical (Benthamite) strain of liberalism that, on Foucault's telling, runs through Chicago economics. While Foucault's account of Hume is anachronistic, this anachronism illuminates the building blocks of modern liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on David Hume has highlighted the significance of opinion in his political philosophy. In Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary and The History of England, Hume emphasizes the significance of established customs and opinion as guides for appropriate governance, supported by an underlying claim that enthusiasm cannot subsist for a long time. This study revisits these two views with a focus on Hume's unfinished manuscript "Historical Essay on Chivalry and Modern Honour" and his descriptions of puritan enthusiasm as contagion and various conspiracies in the History. The study demonstrates that Hume fully appreciated three points. First, some extraordinary customs have persisted longer than the dominant interpretation of Hume may suggest. Second, such customs cannot be justified by either their longevity or spontaneity. Third, it is difficult, if not impossible, for those living in extraordinary circumstances to evaluate them appropriately. Examining these three points primarily through the lens of political epistemology, Hume argues that both extraordinary and salutary institutions can arise from the operations and principles of the same human nature and persist for a long time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michelle Schwarze's book, "Recognizing Resentment: Sympathy, Injustice, and Liberal Political Thought," explores the role of resentment in theories of justice and its impact on good governance. Schwarze argues that resentment, when properly evaluated, can be a constructive force in addressing and correcting injustices. She examines the works of key thinkers in the liberal tradition, such as Joseph Butler, David Hume, and Adam Smith, to demonstrate how emotions like resentment can inform political claims and movements. The book appeals to a broad audience, including Austrian economists, and connects historical texts to contemporary debates on populism and economic liberalism. [Extracted from the article]

This paper argues that Robert Whytt's concepts of 'particular' and 'general sympathy' in animate bodies are homologous with a less-discussed concept of sympathy in David Hume. There are at least three different concepts of sympathy in Hume's Treatise of human nature. Hume is rather critical of alleged sympathies between different bodies, but he elaborates a much-discussed theory of sympathy explaining the interpersonal exchange of sentiments. He invokes a third concept to designate the phenomenon of mutual responsiveness between, and coordination for a common end among, the parts of the mind while suggesting that the mind's unity and identity is of the same kind as the unity of organized living bodies. Without deploying this concept explicitly, he speaks a remarkably identical language while discussing social coordination and convention. This third concept is congruent with the physiological sympathies that Whytt finds in animate bodies. According to the unfolding picture, Whytt and Hume provide conceptually highly integrated accounts of living bodies, minds, and societies inspired by an idea of vital matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catalina González Quintero's book, "Academic Skepticism in Hume and Kant," examines the role of skepticism in the philosophical critiques of metaphysics by Hume and Kant. The book challenges existing scholarship and argues that Academic skepticism is central to both philosophers' works. It discusses different interpretations of Hume's skepticism, including moderate and complete skepticism, and explores the influence of Academic skepticism on Hume's philosophy. The author suggests that Hume's skepticism and naturalism can be reconciled through the concept of the pithanon, and also highlights the influence of Pyrrhonian skepticism on Hume's theories. This text contributes significantly to the understanding of Hume's skepticism and its connection to earlier skeptical traditions. [Extracted from the article]

Tatsuya Sakamoto's book, "David Hume and Adam Smith: A Japanese Perspective," provides a Japanese viewpoint on the works of Hume and Smith. The book is divided into two parts, with the first part focusing on Hume's methodology in economics and comparing his theories to those of other philosophers. The second part explores the reception of Smith's ideas in Japan, particularly the influence of Fukuzawa Yukichi and other Japanese thinkers. While the book lacks structure, it offers valuable insights into the intersection of Scottish and Japanese thought. The text also discusses the perspectives of List, Marx, Weber, and Uchida on Smith's works and their impact on Japanese economic thought. It suggests future research directions, including deeper exploration of contextual intelligence in philosophical economics and comparative studies of Japanese and Chinese receptions of Hume and Smith. The book aims to understand the present by rereading Hume and Smith and realizing their visions for a world of shared knowledge, industry, and humanity. [Extracted from the article]

This paper argues that despite of the efforts of political economists like David Hume or Adam Smith, the moral evaluation of self-interested motives or acts was, in some places, controversial throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the paper primarily focuses on Hungarian instances of the above-mentioned phenomenon, it also intends to place them in an international context. The ideas enumerated and partly elaborated here are taken from both works of philosophy and literature, and are intended to highlight the political concerns triggered by the sinister image of the unconstrained self-interestedness of individuals. As we shall see, a certain part of the literary and scientific public, both in Hungary and elsewhere held that political communities could not be maintained on purely Smithian grounds, and hence the utility function of classical political economists should be updated with a new variable, called “sense of community” by them [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2020, 'The David Hume Tower' in Edinburgh was renamed '40 George Square' because Edinburgh University had concluded that the philosopher, historian and essayist, David Hume, was guilty of holding racist views. There were also public allegations of his support for slavery. The supposed evidence comes from a letter he wrote to Lord Hertford in March 1766; an assumed loan to a slave plantation investor; a letter he received in June 1766 from the Marquis d'Ennery and a footnote added to his essay Of National Characters in 1753. In this essay we review the events in Edinburgh prior to the renaming of the tower and re-examine some of the documentary evidence used to support current attacks on Hume's moral character. Each of the charges of supporting slavery and being a racist is examined, both in the context of Hume's writings as a whole and in relation to modern definitions of racism. Our conclusion is that Hume is innocent of both accusations, and that he has been unjustly vilified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article is divided into three parts. The first part consists of analyzing the concept of justice within the thought of David Hume in his works A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. The second part applies a similar process to the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract and Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men. The third part establishes that the notions of justice, both in the case of the Scottish philosopher and the Genevan philosopher, have different contexts and meanings but, in reality, share similarities regarding the foundation of property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In organizational consulting, the individual is part of the collective whole which fits David Hume's description of a naturally self-interested person in an artificial world. The description of the emotional reaction a person has to experience ties directly to the artificial virtues of property as resources and the rules, or formal procedures and policies governing resources in an organization. Further, language regarding 'allegiance' and political change are meaningful in organizational change. The philosophical move towards considering the disinterested spectator allows for individuals to review policies, procedures, and processes in organizational change initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three Abrahamic religions have an ambivalent relationship to war and peace. On the one hand, God is viewed as a merciful peacemaker. On the other hand, peoples embracing Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have often been involved in holy wars and religious persecutions. While David Hume argued that polytheism is inherently more tolerant than monotheism, here it will be argued that it is not monotheism as such which generates endless conflicts, but the specific idea of God propagated by the Old Testament. To make his point, the author addresses the issue of the ambivalence of Christianity. Yahweh asks the Israelites to exterminate non-believers and members of other ethnic groups, including women and children, while Jesus Christ exhorts his followers to avoid confrontation by loving their enemies. However, while the two aforementioned persons of the Christian godhead are apparently different, they are merged in the Trinitarian conception of divinity. The article, therefore, presents four main strategies adopted within Christianity to deal with the alleged moral discrepancy between the first and the second person of the Trinity. Finally, the author narrows the focus on the idea of the Unknown God and the related tradition of negative (or apophatic) theology, arguing that this form of monotheism is more productive of religious tolerance. A series of examples illustrate the presence of this idea in Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, as well as within early, mediaeval and modern Christian doctrines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phrase "Enlightenment rhetoric" typically denotes discourses bent on rejecting classical oratorical styles in favor of purportedly scientific ones. Likewise, scholars often associate Enlightenment rhetorical styles with the scientific epistemologies that emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This article reconsiders Enlightenment rhetoric by analyzing David Hume's 1742 essay "Of Eloquence." More specifically, the article argues that the Scottish Enlightenment context necessitated a rhetoric that compensated for the discursive limitations of new scientific worldviews. In so doing, the article argues that Hume verbalizes the transcendent dimension of classical eloquence in ways commensurate with the emphasis on perspicuity emerging in English culture, a rhetorical maneuver that the author calls discursive transcendence. Hume's "Of Eloquence" thus serves as a case study demonstrating how an Enlightenment writer advanced a rhetoric that both rejects and pulls from prior rhetorical traditions, constituting a new understanding of Enlightenment rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Projection does not reliably serve cognition; it all too often contributes to failures of knowledge. Our projecting not only imaginatively misrepresents the world by attributing a feature of ourself to it. In doing so it can misrepresent us as lacking that feature. It is an act of the imagination which re-locates unwanted attributes into a motivated misrepresentation which distorts our grasp of reality and of ourselves. The imaginative act itself is not consciously intended so that we take the resulting picture at face value, despite the distortion. Without a strong reason to question this misperception the projection remains undetected and the misrepresentation affects our relations to others. Projection serving motivated self-deception thus evades correction. Realistic self-knowledge becomes possible through psychoanalysis when the patient's projections are received by the analyst as communications impinging on her capacity for sympathy. I show how the psychology of sympathy we find in Hume and Smith provides a philosophical frame of reference for understanding this interaction between sympathy and projection. I bring sympathy together with contemporary Kleinian psychoanalytic theory to explain how psychoanalytic interpretation engages with this interaction to reduce the effects of projection and enable a self-knowledge grounded in the subject's own experience of herself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While both Mendelssohn and Rousseau were deeply spiritual thinkers whose writings continually reflect a profound belief in a benevolent God, they both still used religious skepticism in order to undermine the logic of religious intolerance. In doing so, these religious thinkers reflect a critical assumption they share with the far less religiously inclined David Hume, namely, that skepticism is a critical tool for the promotion of tolerance. This paper analyses the skeptical and tolerant similarities in Mendelssohn's and Rousseau's religious thought. It explores Mendelssohn's reception of Rousseau, before focusing on Rousseau's arguments for religious tolerance and showing both how they reflect a skeptical undercurrent and how Mendelssohn uses many similar skeptical arguments for the same purpose. Finally, this analysis will lead to concluding thoughts on the dialectic between skepticism, faith and tolerance in the Enlightenment, and more generally, for skeptical believers ever since. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British Empire found itself in uncharted territory during the global competition over military and commercial hegemony in the eighteenth century. Many thinkers questioned the wisdom of empire by comparing Britain's overseas expansion with the fate of ancient Rome and the government's controversial colonial policy. David Hume distinguished himself from these critical voices by adopting a detached philosophical approach. His detachment nonetheless ended in scepticism. This article reconstructs Hume's doubts about empire in order to illuminate the way philosophy interacts with practical political questions. Working at the intersection between political philosophy and epistemology, Hume demonstrates how scepticism shapes his remark on the perennial republican dilemma concerning the trade-off between empire and liberty. His philosophical approach shifts the focus of the debates from attempting to reconcile the two to diagnosing the crux of political instability in modern empires. I argue that Hume defended philosophy's use by highlighting the epistemological aspect of the problem. For him, ideational factors, such as extreme and false beliefs, could provoke public frenzy. This meant that popular politics posed a substantial challenge to modern imperial rule. Governing the passions for empire should therefore be made a matter of a national priority. By pinpointing in this way the role of the citizenry, Hume clarified how epistemic questions remained central to modern politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her book Experience Embodied, Anik Waldow challenges and reimagines the traditional interpretative approach to the concept of experience in the early modern period. Traditionally, commentators have emphasized early moderns' views on the first-person perspective and eschewed the relevance of our embodiment to their epistemological outlooks. My focus here is on Waldow's chapter on Hume, wherein she analyzes Hume's account of our capacity for reflective moral judgment, arguing that he understands it as natural despite the countless ways in which our embodied social experiences impinge on it. After detailing Waldow's contributions, I clarify, corroborate, and criticize them. Since I contend that Waldow is broadly successful in her interpretative efforts, I suggest that she undermines the traditional interpretative approach to experience in the early modern period, but not in the sense that she moves us away from the epistemological towards other lenses. Rather, Waldow should be understood as showing that, at least in the case of Hume's metaethics, the epistemological is embodied, is social, and is both cognitive and sentimental. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines John Stuart Mill's 'psychological theory' of the mind, as he set it out in his Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy. After outlining Mill's theory and the problem he finds with it, the paper discusses four different interpretations that have been suggested, before proposing a new alternative reading. The matter is of intrinsic interest to anyone who sees value in trying to get to the bottom of tricky texts about puzzling questions by great philosophers, but I argue also that the investigation may help us with another vexed interpretative issue relating to an even more famous philosopher, David Hume, and that it may hold lessons for the philosophy of mind today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]