The Philosophical Progress of Hume's Essays

Reveals the significance of Hume's Essays for philosophical questions about human life and its individual and social progress.

Margaret Watkins (Author)

9781108476270, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 January 2019

274 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.9 cm, 0.53 kg

For those open to the possibility that philosophical thought can improve life, David Hume's Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary have something to say. In the first comprehensive study of the Essays, Margaret Watkins engages closely with these neglected texts and shows how they provide important insights into Hume's perspective on the breadth and depth of human life, arguing that the Essays reveal his continued commitment to philosophy as a discipline that can promote both social and individual progress. Addressing topics such as politics, war, slavery, the priesthood, the development of industry, aesthetics, emotional disorders, egoism, friendship, sexuality, gender relations, and the nature of philosophy itself, the volume examines Hume's purposes and aims against the backdrop of the eighteenth century society in which he lived. It will be of interest to scholars of modern thought in philosophy, politics, history, and economics.

Introduction
1. Governing
2. Domineering
3. Working
4. Composing
5. Self-loving
6. Loving
7. Thinking
Conclusion.

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