The six original essays in this volume, all by distinguised scholars, capture the heart of American Philosophy. Jonathan Edwards is the greatest philosopher-theologian of colonial America. Prior to Emerson, no other thinker remotely approaches Edwards in intellectual endowment, range of interests, or the depth and subletly with which he treated a variety of philosophical topics. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau together represent the high point of American transcendentalism. Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey are the Big Three of American pragmatism....

The philosopher David Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on April 26, 1711. Known for his re-thinking of causation, morality, and religion, Hume has left a lasting mark on history. James Madison, the "father" of the U.S. Constitution, drew heavily on Hume's writing, especially his "Idea of Perfect Commonwealth," which combated the belief at the time that a large country could not sustain a republican form of government. Hume's writing also influenced Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The A to Z of Hume's Philosophy is the only Hume dictionary in existence....