Hume's Sceptical Enlightenment

ISBN-13: 9780748699803 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 296 str.

Ryu Susato

Opis

A systematic reinterpretation of Hume's social and political thought as an Enlightenment thinker The Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711-76) has often been regarded as a key Enlightenment thinker. However, his image has been long contested between those who consider him a conservative and those who see him as a key liberal thinker.
Hume's Sceptical Enlightenment offers a new interpretation for such diverse images and demonstrates the uniqueness of Hume as an Enlightenment thinker, illustrating how his 'spirit of scepticism' often leads him into seemingly paradoxical positions. This book will be of interest to Hume scholars, intellectual historians of 17th- to 19th-century Europe and those interested in the Enlightenment more widely.

Spis treści

Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations and conventions; 1. Introduction; 2. ‘The empire of the imagination’: The association of ideas in Hume’s social philosophy; 3. ‘What is Established?’: Hume’s Social Philosophy of Opinion 4. ‘Refinement’ and ‘Vicious Luxury’: Hume’s Nuanced Defence of Luxury; 5. Taming ‘the tyranny of priests’: Hume’s advocacy of religious establishments; 6. ‘To refine the democracy’: Hume’s perfect commonwealth as a development of his political science; 7. Human society ‘in perpetual flux’: Hume’s pendulum theory of civilisation; 8.‘The Prince of Sceptics’ and ‘The Prince of Historians’: Hume’s Influence and Image in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.