Space and the Self in Hume's Treatise

A rich and original examination of Hume's discussion of the idea of space.

Marina Frasca-Spada (Author)

9780521891622, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 April 2002

236 pages
23.1 x 15.5 x 1.6 cm, 0.39 kg

'Frasca-Spada has written an ambitious and engaging work. It deserves careful attention from historians of philosophy, historians of science, intellectual historians, and students of eighteenth-century letters.' British Journal for the History of Philosophy

Hume's discussion of the idea of space in his Treatise on Human Nature is fundamental to an understanding of his treatment of such central issues as the existence of external objects, the unity of the self, the relation between certainty and belief, and abstract ideas. Marina Frasca-Spada's rich and original study examines this difficult part of Hume's philosophical writings and connects it to eighteenth-century works in natural philosophy, mathematics and literature. Focusing on Hume's discussions of the infinite divisibility of extension, the origin of the idea of space, geometry, and the notion of a vacuum, she shows that the central questions of Hume's 'science of human nature' - what does the 'science of human nature' reveal about the mind and its operations? what is experience? - underlie all of these discussions. Her analysis points the way to a reassessment of the central current interpretative problems in Hume studies.

Part I. The Two Parts of Hume's System of Space: the Centrality of the Self: 1. Reality and the coloured points
2. A bundle of (organised) perceptions
3. Intermezzo: the minds of an author and his readers
Part II. Hume's Objections Answer 'D': Clues to the Operations of the Mind: 3. Truth, passion and the a priori
4. Talking about a vacuum
Conclusion. Space and the self.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]