Hume
An Intellectual Biography

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

James A. Harris (Author)

9780521837255, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 October 2015

633 pages
23.5 x 16.3 x 4.1 cm, 1.02 kg

'This is an excellent book. James Harris has explored not only David Hume's well-known interlocutors but also a wide range of lesser-known influences. In addition to being carefully and thoroughly researched, it is also written in a clear and engaging style, making it a pleasure to read. … Harris's book is a long-awaited addition to the literature that will not disappoint.' Donald C. Ainslie, Global Discourse

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of the entire career of one of Britain's greatest men of letters. It sets in biographical and historical context all of Hume's works, from A Treatise of Human Nature to The History of England, bringing to light the major influences on the course of Hume's intellectual development, and paying careful attention to the differences between the wide variety of literary genres with which Hume experimented. The major events in Hume's life are fully described, but the main focus is on Hume's intentions as a philosophical analyst of human nature, politics, commerce, English history, and religion. Careful attention is paid to Hume's intellectual relations with his contemporaries. The goal is to reveal Hume as a man intensely concerned with the realization of an ideal of open-minded, objective, rigorous, dispassionate dialogue about all the principal questions faced by his age.

Introduction
1. Pursuits of philosophy and general learning
2. Anatomist of human nature
3. Essayist
4. Achievement of independence
5. Two years at Ninewells
6. The start of a history of Great Britain
7. The completion of a history of Great Britain
8. Paris, London, Edinburgh
Afterword: death and character.

Subject Areas: History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP]