Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Textbook Ebook The Political Thought of David Hume The Origins of Liberalism and The Modern Political Imagination 1St Edition Zubia All Chapter PDF
Textbook Ebook The Political Thought of David Hume The Origins of Liberalism and The Modern Political Imagination 1St Edition Zubia All Chapter PDF
that there is any such thing as honestum, or moral worth, distinct from pleasure.
By honestum, then, I mean that which can justly be esteemed on its own account,
independently of any utility, and of any reward or profit that may accrue.
—Cicero, De officiis
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
Conclusion 265
Notes 269
Bibliography 327
Index 351
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ix
x Acknowledgments
I have used the following abbreviations for frequently cited primary texts.
Each of Hume’s essays to which I have referred has been drawn from the
modern volume edited by Eugene F. Miller, Essays, Moral, Political, and
Literary, and abbreviated as shown below. I have included the date of the
essay’s first appearance alongside the abbreviation. I have modified only
excerpts from Hume’s letters. I have done so by regularizing capitalization
to enhance readability.
W O R K S O F D AV ID HUME
xiii
xiv Abbreviations
EHU
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by
Tom Beauchamp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Citations are by section and paragraph number.
EPM
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Edited by
Tom L. Beauchamp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Citations are by section and paragraph number.
HIST
The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the
Revolution in 1688. 6 vols. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1983.
Citations are by volume and page number.
L
The Letters of David Hume. 2 vols. Edited by J. Y. T. Greig.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Citations are by
volume and page number.
LG
A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh, 1745.
NHR “Natural History of Religion.” In Principal Writings on
Religion, edited by J. C. A. Gaskin. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998. Citations are by section, paragraph,
and page number.
NL
New Letters of David Hume. Edited by Raymond Klibansky
and Ernest C. Mossner. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2011.
T
A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by David Fate Norton
and Mary J. Norton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Citations are by book, part, section, and paragraph number.
PA R T O N E
David Hume (1711–76) was the leading man of letters in the late eighteenth
century. And he remains influential. In a 2009 survey, academic philosophers
selected Hume as the nonliving philosopher with whom they most identi-
fied. In his day, however, Hume was reputed less as a philosopher—that is, as
the writer of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), for which he is best
known today—than as an historian and a best-selling essayist.
In his time, Hume was famous not only for his wit but also for his ro-
tundity. He was a gourmand. When describing his “elegant supper” at “Mr.
Hume’s,” at which he enjoyed “three sorts of ice-creams,” James Boswell
(1740–95), in a letter to his friend, asked, “What think you of the north-
ern Epicurus’s style?” Hume, aware of his reputation, allegedly informed a
friend at whose house he was going to dine, “Ye ken I’m no epicure, only a
glutton.”1 Edward Gibbon (1737–94), the renowned English historian,
begged to differ, referring to Hume as “that fattest of Epicurus’s hogs.”2
Although Hume, at the conclusion of his writing career, devoted
himself to cooking and hosting dinner parties in Edinburgh, he had not
earned his reputation as an epicure solely on account of his refined palate
and enjoyment of claret. It was not only at his dining room table that
Hume could be classified as a hog in Epicurus’s pen, but also in his study.
1
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
ingetrede.… Volgt hen en offert uw dubbeltje voor ’t
zien van een natuurgedrocht, het grootste monster der
wereld!
—Hee Rink! jai hep d’r Joë ’tmet an brai sloage hee?
s’n harses meroakele d’r van malkoar! Nou motte wai
de kerel nog ’n arrempie uitdroaie hee?
[Inhoud]
V.
Hij gierde: