The Life of David Hume

The Life of David Hume
Author: Ernest Campbell Mossner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 768
Release: 2001
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780199243365

Mossner's Life of David Hume remains the standard biography of this great thinker and writer. First published in 1954, and updated in 1980, this excellent life story is now reissued in paperback, in response to an overwhelming interest in Hume's brilliant ideas. Containing more than a simple biography, this exemplary work is also a study of intellectual reaction in the eighteenth century. In this new edition are a detailed bibliography, index, and textual supplements, making it the perfect text for scholars and advanced students of Hume, epistemology, and the history of philosophy. It is also ideal for historians and literary scholars working on the eighteenth century, and for anyone with an interest in philosophy.

My Own Life

My Own Life
Author: David Hume
Publisher: Cosimo Classics
Total Pages: 21
Release: 2015-06-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1616409614

In a final, short summary of his life and works, David Hume wrote My Own Life as he suffered from gastrointestinal issues that ultimately killed him. Despite his bleak prognosis, Hume remains lighthearted and inspirational throughout. He discusses his life growing up, his family relationships, and his desire to constantly improve his works and his reputation as an author. He confesses, "I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have... never suffered a moment's abatement of my spirits; insomuch that were I to name the period of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be tempted to point to this later period." This short biography ends with a series of letters from Hume's close friend and fellow author Adam Smith to their publisher William Strahan, recounting Hume's death and giving a stirring eulogy in honor of their friend.

David Hume

David Hume
Author: Mark G. Spencer
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2015-06-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0271068418

This volume provides a new and nuanced appreciation of David Hume as a historian. Gone for good are the days when one can offhandedly assert, as R. G. Collingwood once did, that Hume “deserted philosophical studies in favour of historical” ones. History and philosophy are commensurate in Hume’s thought and works from the beginning to the end. Only by recognizing this can we begin to make sense of Hume’s canon as a whole and see clearly his many contributions to fields we now recognize as the distinct disciplines of history, philosophy, political science, economics, literature, religious studies, and much else besides. Casting their individual beams of light on various nooks and crannies of Hume’s historical thought and writing, the book’s contributors illuminate the whole in a way that would not be possible from the perspective of a single-authored study. Aside from the editor, the contributors are David Allan, M. A. Box, Timothy M. Costelloe, Roger L. Emerson, Jennifer Herdt, Philip Hicks, Douglas Long, Claudia M. Schmidt, Michael Silverthorne, Jeffrey M. Suderman, Mark R. M. Towsey, and F. L. van Holthoon.

Hume

Hume
Author: James A. Harris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 637
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0521837251

This is the first intellectual biography of the British philosopher and historian David Hume.

The Essential David Hume

The Essential David Hume
Author: David Hume
Publisher: Signet Book
Total Pages: 392
Release: 1969
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

David Hume (1711-76) is the most important philosopher ever to have written in English. Although best known for his contributions to epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion, Hume also made substantial and influential contributions to psychology and the philosophy of mind, ethics, the philosophy of science, political and economic theory, political and social history, and, to a lesser extent, aesthetic and literary theory. Of all of Hume's writings, the philosophically most profound is undoubtedly his first, "A Treatise on Human Nature." "Hume on Morality" introduces and assesses: Hume's life and the background of the "Treatise"; the ideas and text in the "Treatise"; and Hume's continuing importance to philosophy.

David Hume

David Hume
Author: Nicholas T. Phillipson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2014-05-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0300184867

A giant of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, David Hume was one of the most important philosophers ever to write in English. He was also a brilliant historian. In this book--a new and revised edition of his 1989 classic--Nicholas Phillipson shows how Hume freed history from religion and politics. As a philosopher, Hume sought a way of seeing the world and pursuing happiness independently of a belief in God. His groundbreaking approach applied the same outlook to Britain's history, showing how the past was shaped solely through human choices and actions. In this analysis of Hume's life and works, from his university days in Edinburgh to the rapturous reception of his "History of England," Nicholas Phillipson reveals the gradual process by which one of the greatest Western philosophers turned himself into one of the greatest historians of Britain. In doing so, he shows us how revolutionary Hume was, and why his ideas still matter today.

The Great Guide

The Great Guide
Author: Julian Baggini
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2021-05-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691211205

Invaluable wisdom on living a good life from one of the Enlightenment's greatest philosophers David Hume (1711–1776) is perhaps best known for his ideas about cause and effect and his criticisms of religion, but he is rarely thought of as a philosopher with practical wisdom to offer. Yet Hume's philosophy is grounded in an honest assessment of nature—human nature in particular. The Great Guide is an engaging and eye-opening account of how Hume's thought should serve as the basis for a complete approach to life. In this enthralling book, Julian Baggini masterfully interweaves biography with intellectual history and philosophy to give us a complete vision of Hume's guide to life. He follows Hume on his life's journey, literally walking in the great philosopher's footsteps as Baggini takes readers to the places that inspired Hume the most, from his family estate near the Scottish border to Paris, where, as an older man, he was warmly embraced by French society. Baggini shows how Hume put his philosophy into practice in a life that blended reason and passion, study and leisure, and relaxation and enjoyment. The Great Guide includes 145 Humean maxims for living well, on topics ranging from the meaning of success and the value of travel to friendship, facing death, identity, and the importance of leisure. This book shows how life is far richer with Hume as your guide.

David Hume on God

David Hume on God
Author: David Purdie
Publisher: Luath Press Ltd
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-04-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1912387751

A central problem for the non-specialist reader over the works of Hume today is that his mellifluous 18th century prose appears strange to our eyes and ears... What follows, therefore, is what the present editors did about it. The central purpose is to open to Hume's original target audience his writings on religious affairs; a subject which was of central importance to him – and which remains of perennial interest to humankind. David Hume's writings on history, politics and philosophy have shaped thought to this day. His bold scepticism ranged from common notions of the 'self ' to criticism of standard theistic proofs. He insisted on grounding understandings of popular religious beliefs in human psychology rather than divine revelation, and he aimed to disentangle philosophy from religion in order to allow the former to pursue its own ends. In this book, Professors David W Purdie and Peter S Fosl decipher some of Hume's most challenging texts for the modern reader, while preserving the sharp intellect and undaunted nerve for which Hume is famous. Hume's spirit is brought alive for contemporary times and his writing is made accessible for its intended audience: the general public.

David Hume’s Humanity

David Hume’s Humanity
Author: S. Yenor
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2016-04-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137539593

Scott Yenor argues that David Hume's reputation as a skeptic is greatly exaggerated and that Hume's skepticism is a moment leading Hume to defend common life philosophy and the humane commercial republic. Gentle, humane virtues reflect the proper reaction to the complex mixture of human faculties that define the human condition.