Roger L. Emerson's Essays on David Hume, Medical Men and the Scottish Enlightenment
Roger L. Emerson's Essays on David Hume, Medical
Men and the Scottish Enlightenment (Ashgate, 2009), 316 pp, embraces
many of the topics which Hume included under "industry, knowledge and
humanity"--from the European Enlightenment and the Scots relation to it,
to Scottish social history and its relation to religion, science and
medicine. Overarching themes of what it meant to be enlightened in the
eighteenth century are considered alongside more specific studies of
notable figures of the period, such as Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of
Argyll and David Hume, and the training and number of Scottish medical
students. Together, the volume provides an opportunity to step back and
reconsider the Scottish Enlightenment in its broader context and to
consider what new directions this field of study might take. (From
Ashgate)
Roger L. Emerson is Professor Emeritus of History at the
University of Western Ontario.
Donald L.M. Baxter's Hume's Difficulty:
Time and Identity in the Treatise is now
available in paperback
Donald L.M. Baxter's Hume's Difficulty:
Time and Identity in the Treatise (Routledge, 2009), 140 pp,
focuses on Hume’s treatment of the concept of numerical identity, which
is central to Hume's famous discussions of the external world and
personal identity. Hume raises a long unappreciated, and still
unresolved, difficulty with the concept of identity: how to represent
something as "a medium betwixt unity and number." Superficial
resemblance to Frege’s famous puzzle has kept the difficulty in the
shadows. Hume’s way of addressing it makes sense only in the context of
his unorthodox theory of time. Baxter shows the defensibility of that
theory against past dismissive interpretations, especially of Hume’s
stance on infinite divisibility. Later the author shows how the
difficulty underlies Hume’s later worries about his theory of personal
identity, in a new reading motivated by Hume’s important appeals to
consciousness. Baxter casts Hume throughout as an acute metaphysician,
and reconciles this side of Hume with his overarching Pyrrhonian
skepticism.
Donald L.M. Baxter is Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Connecticut.
Rachel Cohon publishes Hume's Morality:
Feeling and Fabrication
Rachel Cohon's Hume's Morality: Feeling and Fabrication
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 288 pp, offers an
original interpretation of the moral philosophy of David Hume, focusing
on two areas. Firstly, his metaethics. Cohon reinterprets Hume's claim
that moral distinctions are not derived from reason and explains why he
makes it. She finds that Hume did not actually hold three "Humean"
claims: 1) that beliefs alone cannot move us to act, 2) that evaluative
propositions cannot be validly inferred from purely factual
propositions, or 3) that moral judgments lack truth value. According to
Hume, human beings discern moral virtues and vices by means of feeling
or emotion in a way rather like sensing; but this also gives the moral
judge a truth-apt idea of a virtue or vice as a felt property. Secondly,
Cohon examines the artificial virtues. Hume says that although many
virtues are refinements of natural human tendencies, others (such as
honesty) are constructed by social convention to make cooperation
possible; and some of these generate paradoxes. She argues that Hume
sees these traits as prosthetic virtues that compensate for deficiencies
in human nature. However, their true status clashes with our
common-sense conception of a virtue, and so has been concealed, giving
rise to the paradoxes. (From Oxford University Press Online)
Rachel Cohon is Associate
Professor of Philosophy at the University at Albany, State University of
New York.
Annette Baier publishes
Death and Character: Further Reflections on Hume
Kenneth Merrill publishes
Historical Dictionary of Hume's Philosophy
The Historical
Dictionary of Hume's Philosophy
by Kenneth R. Merrill (Lanham, Maryland: The
Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2008), xxii + 351 pages, is the only Hume
dictionary in existence. The book provides a substantial account of
David Hume's life and the times in which he lived, and it provides an
overview of his philosophical doctrines. This is done through a
chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over a hundred
cross-referenced dictionary entries covering key terms, as well as brief
discussions of Hume's major works and of some of his most important
predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. (From the Scarecrow Press
online catalog)
Colloquium on Hume and Spinoza to honor Professor Herman De Dijn
Click on link for details.
Elizabeth Radcliffe publishes A Companion to
Hume
A
Companion to Hume, edited by Elizabeth Radcliffe
(Blackwell Publishing, 2008) 592 pp. is part of the Blackwell Companions
to Philosophy
series. It contains 29 essays by leading Hume scholars organized into six
parts, with an introduction and a discussion of Hume's historical context.
Blackwell is offering a discount to Hume Society members. For details go to
http://www.humesociety.org/members/membersonly/blackwell-offer.html
Hume Society Members featured in
New
Essays on David Hume
New Essays on
David Hume,
ed. Emilio Mazza and Emanuele Ronchetti (Milan:
FrancoAngeli), 480 pp. Î27.00,
is
a collection of contributions from eminent scholars. The volume is divided
into four sections. The first opens with the question of naturalism and
closes with scepticism. Moral philosophy is at the heart of the second
section, which also deals with the relation between Hume and Hutcheson. The
third spans from the
History of
England
and how it was
appropriated by de Maistre and Constant, to the American reception of Hume’s
work and its connection with American deism. The last section is devoted to
the presentation of recent Humeana: the new scholarly edition of the
Treatise
and two edited
volumes on Hume and on his European reception.
Contributors: Annette C. Baier, Flavio Baroncelli, Martin Bell, Alix Cohen,
Roger L. Emerson, David Fate Norton, Marina Frasca-Spada, James A. Harris,
Dale .Jacquette, Peter Jones, Peter J. E. Kail, Catherine Kemp, Emilio Mazza,
James Moore, Mary J. Norton, Charles Pigden, Emanuele Ronchetti, Ian Simpson
Ross, Mark G. Spencer, M. A. Stewart, Luigi Turco, and John P. Wright.
[8.15.07]
Saul Traiger publishes
The Blackwell Guide to Hume's
Treatise
The Blackwell Guide to Hume's
Treatise,
edited by Saul Traiger (Blackwell Publishing Limited,
2005) joins the ranks of Blackwell's Guides to
Great Works. The
Guide,
intended to provide students with the scholarly
resources needed to mine the Treatise
for philosophical insights, contains fifteen original essays by leading Hume
scholars. It is dividied into four parts. Part I: Formulation, Reception,
and Scope of the Treatise, Part II: the Understanding, Part III: the
Passions, Part IV: Morals.
Contributors: Lilli Alanen, Donald L.M. Baxter, Janet Broughton, Rachel
Cohon, Don Garrett, Lorne Falkenstein, Mikael Karlsson, Jane McIntyre,
William Edward Morris, Tony Pitson, Wade Robison, Abraham Sesshu Roth,
Corliss Swain, Jackie Taylor, and John Wright
Saul Traiger is a former President as well as Executive Secretary-Treasurer
of the Hume Society and is currently serving as a member of the Executive
Committee. [8.13.07]
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