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The articles in this special issue of the yearbook Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy all concern, in one way or another, Hume’s epistemology and metaphysics.

There are discussions of our knowledge of causal powers, the extent to which conceivability is a guide to modality, and testimony; there are also discussions of our ideas of space and time, the role in Hume’s thought of the psychological mechanism of ‘completing the union’, the role of impressions, and Hume’s argument against the claim that our perceptions are ‘locally conjoined’ with any entity (namely, a soul).

In this paper I consider the context and significance of the first instalment of Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature , Books One and Two, on the understanding and on the passions, published in 1739 without Book Three. I argue that Books One and Two taken together should be read as addressing the question of the relation between reason and passion, and place Hume's discussion in the context of a large early modern philosophical literature on the topic. Hume's goal is to show that the passions do not require government by reason, and to illustrate various ways in which the passions of social beings regulate themselves. The underlying theme of the first Treatise is thus a new theory of sociability: sympathetic sociability.

Childhood and youth: loss of faith and a passion for literature -- "At a distance from relations": writing his treatise in France -- Hume after the treatise -- Hume as librarian and historian -- Hume's life as a man in the public eye -- Hume's final years in Edinburgh -- Death and character.

In pretending therefore to explain the principles of human nature, we in effect propose a compleat system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new, and the only one upon which they can stand with any security.

… … Henceforth, the Author desires, that Henceforth, the Author desires, that the following Pieces [EHU, DOP, EPM, the following Pieces [EHU, DOP, EPM, NHR] may alone be regarded as NHR] may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments containing his philosophical sentiments and principles. and principles.’’.

In October 1775, David Hume wrote to his printer William Strahan, requesting that an ‘Advertisement’ should be attached to remaining copies of the second volume of his Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. This volume contained his two Enquiries, the Dissertation on the Passions, and The Natural History of Religion, and the Advertisement states that these works should ‘alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles’ (E 2). In the covering letter, Hume comments that this ‘is a compleat Answer to Dr Reid and to that bigotted silly Fellow, Beattie.’ (HL ii. 301). My aim here is to try to throw light on what Hume might have meant by this comment, and to assess to what extent it might have been justified.

In Hume’s Of Miracles the person movecl by faith is put in a dilemma between faith and reason . Can one resolve this dilemma as a compleat Humean? The answer is yes. Within the Humean context different approaches can be developed ta overcome Hume’s dilemma. One uses Hume’s theory of utility to defend the belief in the afterlife. The other requires Hume to place faith on a par with beauty and therefore among the passions to which reason must be a slave. Historically there was at least one compleat Humean who was also moved by faith --- Johann Georg Hamann [1730- 1788].