Online research in philosophy

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.

David and Mary Norton present the definitive scholarly edition of Hume's Treatise, one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. The first volume contains the critical text of David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature (1739/40), followed by the short Abstract (1740) in which Hume set out the key arguments of the larger work; the volume concludes with A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh (1745), Hume's later defense of the Treatise.

This Guide provides students with the scholarly and interpretive tools they need to understand Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature and its influence on modern philosophy. A student guide to Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature. Focuses on recent developments in Hume scholarship. Covers topics such as the formulation, reception and scope of the Treatise, imagination and memory, the passions, moral sentiments, and the role of sympathy. All the chapters are newly written by Hume scholars. Each chapter guides the reader through a portion of the Treatise, explaining the central arguments and key contemporary interpretations of those arguments.

The main aim of this paper is to explore why it is so important for Hume to defi ne ‘cause’ as he does. This will shed light on the signifi cance of the natural/philosophical relation (hereafter NPR) distinction in the Treatise. Hume's use of the NPR distinction allows him to dismiss on general grounds conceptions of causation at odds with his own. In particular, it allows him to avoid having to engage in detailed re-interpretation of potentially confl icting theories formulated by natural philosophers. Moreover, it provides an instance of the normative nature of Hume's “science of man.” The paper argues that the NPR distinction - in conjunction with the so-called copy principle - is meant to undercut appeals to the authority of theories not founded on Hume's “principles.” In order to illustrate its claims about Hume, this essay explores some aspects of Newton's natural philosophy. Finally, this paper resolves a long-standing interpretive problem: how to reconcile Hume's two “defi nitions” of causation in the Treatise.

This paper concerns Hume?s treatment of the distinction of reason in the Treatise, I.i.7. Many scholars have claimed that there is a tension between his account of the distinction of reason and his commitment to his so-called separability principle. I explain why Hume?s account of the distinction of reason is fully consistent with the principle, and show how other discussions, both critical of and sympathetic to Hume, fail to appreciate the radicalness of his position. I evaluate Hume?s bold position and compare it to earlier positions (Aquinas) and current positions (Donald Davidson).

David Hume (1711-76) is one of the greatest figures in the history of British philosophy. Of all of Hume's writings, the philosophically most profound is undoubtedly his first, A Treatise on Human Nature. Hume on Morality introduces and assesses: Hume's life and the background of the Treatise ; the ideas and text in the Treatise ; and Hume's continuing importance to philosophy. James Baillie provides us with a map to Books 2 and 3 of the Treatise, focusing on Hume's theory of the passions and morality. This book sets out its principal ideas and arguments of the Treatise in a clear and readable way and is ideal for anyone coming to Hume's work for the first time.

This article explains and defends the existence of value constancy, understood on the model of color constancy. Color constancy involves a phenomenal distinction between the transient color appearances of objects and the unchanging colors that those objects appear to have. The existence of value constancy allows advocates of response-dependent accounts of value to reject the question “What is the uniquely appropriate attitude to have toward this evaluative property?” as containing a false uniqueness assumption. Rejecting this assumption allows response-dependent accounts of value to deflect or answer a host of popular objections.