New Essays on David Hume
“New Essays on David Hume” presents a collection of contributions from eminent scholars who cover a wide range of Humean topics: philosophy, politics, religion an d history. In winter 1967 the ltalian philosopher Mario Dal Pra edited an international special issue of the “Rivista di storia della filosofia” entirely devoted to Hume. After forty years, this new collection provides a new assessment. The volume is divided into four sections. The first opens with the question of naturalism and closes with scepticism. Moral philosophy is at the heart of the second section, which also deals with the relation between Hume and Hutcheson. The third spans from the History of England and how it was appropriated by de Maistre and Constant, to the American reception of Hume’s work and its connection with American deism. The last section is devoted to the presentation of recent Humeana: the new scholarly edition of the Treatise and two edited volumes on Hume and on his European reception. Critical trends and fashions in Hume scholarship keep changing, and their complexity and richness should be valued. Contemporary scholarship shows a keener taste for specialization than it used to at the beginning of the last century. It has proved itself capable of treading new ground, enlarging our view and multiplying our impressions without renouncing depth and accuracy. This volume is a good reflection of the vividness and diversity of today’s scholarship.
INDEX
- Emilio Mazza and Emanuele Ronchetti, Foreword
- Of the understanding
- John P. Wright, Kemp Smith and the two kinds of naturalism in Hume’s Philosophy
- Marina Frasca-Spada, Simple perceptions in Hume’s Treatise
- Catherine Kemp, Contrariety in Hume
- P.J.E. Kail, Leibniz’s dog and humean reason
- Dale Jacquette, Hume on the infinite divisibility of extension and exact geometrical values
- Emilio Mazza, In and out of the well: flux and reflux of scepticism and nature
- Of morals and criticism
- James Moore, The eclectic stoic, the mitigated skeptic
- Luigi Turco, Hutcheson and Hume in a recent polemic
- Charles Pigden, Hume, motivation and “the moral problem”
- James A. Harris, Hume ‘s four essays on happiness and their place in the move from morals to politics
- Roger L. Emerson, Hume and art: reflections on a man who could not hear, sing or look
- Flavio Baroncelli, Rawls and Hume: a fable
- Of history, politics, and religion
- Annette C. Baier, Hume’s excellent hypocrites
- Mark G. Spencer, Hume ‘s reception in eighteenth-century Philadelphia
- M.A. Stewart, Hume in the service of American deism
- Ian Simpson Ross, The intellectual friendship of David Hume and Adam Smith
- Emanuele Ronchetti, Appropriating Hume: Joseph de Maistre, Benjamin Constant and the “History of England”
- Martin Bell, The natural history of religion
- Hume novelties
- David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton, A preview of the Clarendon Edition of a Treatise of human nature
- Peter Jones, Outside the charmed circle: impressions of Hume
- Alix Cohen, The making of a philosophical classic: the reception of David Hume in Europe
Index of names