Hume's 'A Treatise of Human Nature': An Introduction (Cambridge Introductions to Key Philosophical Texts)
Cambridge University Press, 11/26/2009
EAN 9780521833769, ISBN10: 0521833760
Hardcover, 336 pages, 22.6 x 15 x 2 cm
Language: English
David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) presents the most important account of skepticism in the history of modern philosophy. In this lucid and thorough introduction to the work, John P. Wright examines the development of Hume's ideas in the Treatise, their relation to eighteenth-century theories of the imagination and passions, and the reception they received when Hume published the Treatise. He explains Hume's arguments concerning the inability of reason to establish the basic beliefs which underlie science and morals, as well as his arguments showing why we are nevertheless psychologically compelled to accept such beliefs. The book will be a valuable guide for those seeking to understand the nature of modern skepticism and its connection with the founding of the human sciences during the Enlightenment.
Preface
1. The author and the book
2. First principles
3. Causation
4. Skepticism
5. Determinism
6. Passions, sympathy, and others' minds
7. Motivation
reason and the calm passions
8. Moral sense, reason, and moral skepticism
9. The foundations of morals
Bibliography and further reading
Index.