Hume's Sceptical Enlightenment / Ryu Susato.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Susato, Ryu.

Series:

Edinburgh studies in Scottish philosophy

Edinburgh's studies in Scottish philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hume, David, 1711-1776.

Hume, David.

Physical Description:

xi, 348 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, [2015].

Summary:

The Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711 to 1776) 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 seventeenth- to nineteenth-century Europe and those interested in the Enlightenment more widely. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

2 'The Empire of the Imagination': The Association of Ideas in Hume's Social Philosophy 27

3 'What is Established'?: Hume's Social Philosophy of Opinion 58

4 'Refinement' and 'Vicious Luxury': Hume's Nuanced Defence of Luxury 92

5 Taming 'the Tyranny of Priests': Hume's Advocacy of Religious Establishments 131

6 How to Refine the Democracy': Hume's Perfect Commonwealth as a Development of his Political Science 177

7 Human Society 'in Perpetual Flux': Hume's Pendulum Theory of Civilisation 214

8 The Prince of Sceptics' and 'the Prince of Historians': Hume's Influence and Image in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain 242.

ISBN:

9780748699803

0748699805

OCLC:

907206202