Essays On The Principles Of Morality And Natural Religion 2 Ed

Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion. 2. Ed

Hume: A Guide for the Perplexed

Continuum's Guides for the Perplexed are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to fathom, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material. David Hume is arguably one of the most important philosophers ever to have written in English. His monumental contributions to epistemology and metaphysics, represented in his two landmark works, A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, were hugely influential on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet he is also notorious as a puzzling and difficult thinker and students of his work and thought regularly face very particular intellectual challenges. Hume: A Guide for the Perplexed is a clear and thorough account of Hume's philosophy, his major works and ideas, providing an ideal guide to the important and complex thought of this key philosopher. The book covers the whole range of Hume's work, offering examination of the key areas of his thought, including the origin and association of ideas, space and time, causal (inductive) reasoning, necessary connexions, free will, personal identity, and skepticism. Geared towards the specific requirements of students who need to reach a sound understanding of Hume's thought, the book provides a cogent and reliable survey of his work and ideas. This is the ideal companion to the study of this most influential and challenging of philosophers.

Hume's Philosophy in Historical Perspective

David Hume was a highly original thinker. Nevertheless, he was a writer of his time and place in the history of philosophy. In this book, M. A. Stewart puts Hume's writing in context, particularly that of his native Scotland, but also that of British and European philosophy more generally. Through meticulous research Stewart brings to life the circumstances by means of which we can get a deeper understanding of Hume's writings on the nature and reach of human reason, the foundation of morals, and, especially, on the philosophy of religion. Stewart pays particular attention to Hume's intellectual development, beginning with his education at the College of Edinburgh, the writing of his Treatise of Human Nature, and his subsequent philosophical responses to criticisms of that book. He argues that Hume's scepticism set him at odds with the Christian Stoicism of Scottish contemporaries including that of Francis Hutcheson - and shows that this conflict played a major role in his failure to obtain the Edinburgh Moral Philosophy Chair in 1745. Stewart's detailed study of the physical character of Hume's surviving manuscripts in Chapters 8 and 9 provides the best available dating of his early 'Essay on Modern Chivalry', his 'Early Fragment on Evil' and the periods of composition of his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Other chapters compare Hume's theory of abstraction with that of Locke and Berkeley, provide the 17th and 18th century philosophical context of the central argument of his essay 'Of miracles', and consider the 18th and 19th century reception of his writings in England and Ireland.