The Philosophical Progress of Hume's Essays

Bibliographic Data

ID23761908
AuthorsMargaret Watkins (0000-0002-6749-6982, Saint Vincent College, corresponding author)
Year2019
Publication date2019-02-28
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenuePhilosophical Progress of Hume's Essays (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/9781108653244
OpenAlexW2905048680
Open LibraryOL34734349M
ISBN9781108653244
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited148

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.

Aesthetics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ethical egoism · Friendship · Perspective (graphical) · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Historical Philosophy and Science · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought · david Hume (1711-1776) · scottish