Book Description
This article covers Hume, David (1711-1776): Scottish philosopher who developed a philosophy of "mitigated skepticism," which remains a viable alternative to the systems of rationalism, empiricism, and idealism.

The article is excerpted fromGale Encyclopedia of Psychology. This single-volume, accessible resource covers the entire spectrum of psychology, including: notable people, theories and terms; landmark case studies and experiments; applications of psychology in advertising, medicine and sports; and career information. More than 650 articles -- 65% of those are entirely new or updated since the last edition. Each article ranges from 25 to 1,500 words, covering the topics researchers want to know about, including:
Abnormal psychology
Bipolar disorder
Dyslexia
Sigmund Freud
Insomnia
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)
Unconscious motivation
And hundreds more

In addition to more that 175 photographs, charts and graphs, students will also find a new glossary of over 350 terms, an updated organizations list and an updated and expanded index.

Published/Released: October 2000 ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
This great event happened on the 5th of July, in the last year of the eleventh century. The Christian princes and nobles, after choosing Godfrey of Bouillon King of Jerusalem, began to settle themselves in their new conquests; while some of them returned to Europe, in order to enjoy at home that glory which their valour had acquired them in this popular and meritorious enterprise. Among these was Robert, Duke of Normandy, who, as he had relinquished the greatest dominions of any prince that attended the crusade, had all along distinguished himself by the most intrepid courage, as well as by that affable disposition and unbounded generosity which gain the hearts of soldiers, and qualify a prince to shine in a military life. ... Read more

Book Description
Hume thought the entire world is constituted of the perceptionsfrom our sense-experience. He had profound doubts about our ability toknow anything with certainty; Hume was skeptical of science andvigorously attacked proofs of the existence of God. He thought reasonis a slave to our passions yet was optimistic about human nature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A great alternative to Strathern
If you are looking for a thoughtful and honest summary of the more important aspects of Aquinas' contribution to the history of philosophy, this is the best audio book I have yet found.Unlike the glib and grossly naive attempts at dealing with Aquinas such as Strathern's cheesy "Aquinas in 90 Minutes", this is actually written by a scholar devoted to understanding Aquinas.The treatment of his "five proofs for the existence of God" is precise and accurate. In fact, if you listen closely to them it will save you from thinking that the flaccid objections of people like Bertrand Russel had anything to do with what Aquinas was communicating in these proofs. Of course, if you are looking for Aquinas' theology, it is not here addressed.But then again, the title of the series is not "Giants of Theology."Overall, this is the best bang for your buck in Aquinas on audio.

what better way is there to learn and drive
The way I look at these tapes as the best way of reading philosophy while you are driving. Please keep your eyes on the road while you are driving. These series are great. I believe they are not intended to be comprehensive and they could not be in two hours but they give you %60 biography %40 philosophy. Some of them even have accent as they though they were immigrants from original contries to US, Kant speakes with German/English accent. It is fun, entertaining, illuminating. Much better than talk shows. Please this is not a substitute for a real book so judge accordingly.

Great introduction to Hume
This brief introduction to Hume is exceptional.I went from this tape to Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" and "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals".I don't think it would have been such an easy transition without learning how Hume fits into Western philosophical history and what problems concerned him.It startled me to discover that Hume's major point is that inductive thinking (thinking about "matters of fact" ) is irrational:forming general laws about the world has its basis in custom and experience and not by the sort of reasoning used in math and logic ("relations of ideas" in Hume's lexicon).

Hume's political, historical, and ethical ideas are also interesting and I was surprised to learn how much Hume's ideas on the separation of powers in government had influenced James Madison.

Pretty bad summary of Augustine.
The material is mostly biographical. It is also boring. Remember the kid in the school play who tries to do an accent and can't? The person doing the voice of Augustine is like that. Heston, as usual, is stiff as aspanker's paddle.

I note the other review is about Kant not Augustine.

Great Audio Cassettes
This is a very good overview of Kant's thought that can be listened to while driving. Does not cover epistomology well. ... Read more

Amazon.com
David Hume's mother reportedly lamented, "Our Davie is a fine good-natured critter, but uncommon weak-minded." Perhaps she would have been comforted to know that today her son is widely considered to be the most important philosopher ever to have written in the English language. The Companion's 11 essays take the reader from Hume's precocious Treatise of Human Nature--published in 1739, when he was only 28--to the posthumously published Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and cover not only the subjects central to Hume's philosophy but also his views on politics, economics, literary and aesthetic theory, and even history. As David Wootton's essay observes, the British Library catalog identifies Hume as "the historian"--"to the puzzlement," Wootton quips, "of generations of philosophers." Also included are Hume's two short autobiographies, written in his own inimitable style: he describes the unexcited reaction to his Treatise by saying that "it fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots."

The contributors to the Companion are among the most respected contemporary Hume scholars; their essays are uniformly clear and accessible. Robert J. Fogelin's article on Hume's skepticism, Knud Haakonssen's article on Hume's political theory, and J.C.A. Gaskin's article on Hume's philosophy of religion are particularly worthwhile, as is the substantial bibliography. Although the Companion is not aimed at the specialist, neither is it for the philosophical novice--still, anyone interested in Hume's life and work would benefit from perusing it. --Glenn Branch Book Description
David Hume is, arguably, the most important philosopher ever to have written in English.Although best known for his contributions to epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion, Hume also made substantial and influential contributions to psychology and the philosophy of mind, ethics, the philosophy of science, political and economic theory, political and social history, and to a lesser extent, aesthetic and literary theory.All facets of Hume's output are discussed in this volume, the first genuinely comprehensive overview of his work.The picture that emerges is of a thinker, who, though critical to the point of skepticism, was nonetheless able to build on that skepticism a profoundly important, and still viable, constructive philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Amazon's Review...Funny Error
Amazon's review has a funny error.They say Hume's mother said he was "weak-minded."What she said was that he was "wake-minded," which, at the time, meant very bright.I suppose it doesn't affect anyone's desire to read a book such as this, but they couldn't have gotten mother more wrong.

Good introduction to Hume
David Hume is a famous if somewhat controversial thinker.His skeptical approach to Philosophical issues created important questions on many vital issues in philosophy, especially concerning religion, metaphysics and epistemology.Hume was also a great historian, political writer, acute psychologist and budding economist, as the later essays in this volume show.As with the other Cambridge Companions, this offers a valuable guide to the thought of Hume with clarity and rigor by leading experts in the field.It is a must read for any student, undergraduate, graduate or lay, of Hume's philosophy or the philosophy of the early modern period.

Excellent Compendium
The goal of this collection of essays is to provide background and commentary of important aspects of the work of David Hume. The intent of this book is to provide guidance and context for individuals reading Hume.This book easily exceeds those goals.The authors are all well known experts on Hume and this book covers the whole spectrum of Hume's output from his seminal philosophical works through his essays and historical works.While this is an apparently diverse set of topics, important themes connect the essays.Several essays stress the 'positive' or constructive aspects of Hume's epistemology and theory of mind, an aspect of his thought that recurs strongly in his writings on moral, political, economic, and historical topics.Several essays stress Hume's uniform emphasis on a 'scientific' methodology in approaching many subjects.Overall, this volume gives a strong sense of the underlying unity of Hume's work.All of these essays are at least good.There are particularly good essays by Norton on Hume's work on morals, Hakonsson's on Hume's political theory, Fogelin on Hume's skepticism, Gaskin on Hume's criticism of religion,and an enlightening essay on Hume's work as a historian.The other essays are useful. The high quality of these essays makes this book valuable for a broad audience.It can be read profitably by individuals just exploring Hume and I suspect it would be equally useful for more experienced scholars and teachers.

A Small Correction
I have not read this book, though I know it belongs to a series whose productions are excellent and represent the latest scholarship.Having perused the list of scholars who are contributors, I expect the same will be true of this volume.

I only wish to comment on the advertising blurb.I believe that it was Hume's aunt (or great-aunt) who is credited with this quote and what she actually said was that little Davie was "uncommon wake-minded" (meaning unusually bright and curious) not "weak-minded".It is also quite clear that she did not approve of this trait in the young Hume.Many others will no doubt agree with her about this, but certainly no one will think that he was in any way weak-minded.

A General Introduction to Hume's Philosophy
The complex and often radical ideas formulated by Scotland's "Man of the Millenuim" are explained clearly and plainly in this companion without neglecting the more difficult issues that will concern students of philsophy. This book is particularly helpful in its discussion of Hume's scepticism and his views on morality and politics. It also provides a concise overview of Hume's empirical psychology. ... Read more

Book Description
David Johnson seeks to overthrow one of the widely accepted tenets of Anglo-American philosophy--that of the success of the Humean case against the rational credibility of reports of miracles. In a manner unattempted in any other single work, he meticulously examines all the main variants of Humean reasoning on the topic of miracles: Hume's own argument and its reconstructions by John Stuart Mill, J. L. Mackie, Antony Flew, Jordan Howard Sobel, and others.

Hume's view, set forth in his essay "Of Miracles," has been widely thought to be correct. Johnson reviews Hume's thesis with clarity and elegance and considers the arguments of some of the most prominent defenders of Hume's case against miracles. According to Johnson, the Humean argument on this topic is entirely without merit, its purported cogency being simply a philosophical myth. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Hume's Miracle of Rhetoric
Johnson's bottom line is that insofar as Hume's argument against miracles is persuasive, it's a triumph of rhetoric over reason. What's surprising, in Johnson's view, is just how wide the triumph has been. Nonetheless, Johnson argues convincingly, when Hume and his followers argue that no testimony could ever establish a miracle, they invariably end up begging one question or another. For example, Flew argues that in interpreting the "detritus of the past" -- including reports of miracles -- the "critical historian" must always give priority to the stock of natural laws we take ourselves to have established. The upshot is supposed to be that in any contest between science and history, history is bound to lose. But as Johhson points out, the experimental reports underlying our beliefs about the laws of nature are themselves part of this "detritus of the past." That means our belief in laws of nature depends on our belief that certain historical events have actually occurred -- a belief based on testimony.

Johnson himself accepts that various biblical miracles actually occurred, but one need not be a believer to take his point. And his point is that if we are allowed to take all our knowledge into account (that's the bit about holism), it would be very strange if a purely philosophical argument could show that NO testimony could possibly make it reasonable to believe in a miracle.

When you think about it, this is a rather modest conclusion. It's similar to the conclusion that John Earman arrives at in _Hume's Abject Failure_, though Earman's issues and arguments are more technical. Indeed, one is inclined to apply Hume's own slogan and say that a those who accept the Humean view ought to be conscious of a continuing miracle in their own persons, persuading them to accept something contrary to philosophical good sense, if not to custom and experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great book (but lousy printing)
Given the price of this book - some 40% overpriced for a book of this type and lenghth - you'd think that at least the print job should be done properly.After all, this is the Oxford U Press.Well, in my copy, the ink quantity fluctuates, so that some paragraphs are dark while others light.This is a little annoying when the random contrasts have nothing to do with emphasis!Also, the back breaks so easily, that this book is effectively a pulp print.Then why the high price, pray tell me ?

Anyway, these are trivial matters.The book itself is very good.I consider it complementary to Norman Kemp Smith's study of Hume's philosophy, as it focuses on Hume the man rather than his philosophy.As Sir James Jeans said, the biography of a philosopher is not irrelevant to his thought, and Hume is no exception. (This is less true of natural scientists.)Mossner's book is particularly helpful in answering my own questions about Hume's religious views - a topic of the most controversial sort even in his own day.

I'm very impressed that Mossner pointed out the fact that Hume had inspired Einstein on his road to relativity.This little known fact was always very important in my own estimate of the great philosopher.

Here's the irony.Hume wrote his masterpiece in France, which remained the only place where he was really appreciated.Back in Scotland, he could not even find a proper job.And now, the best 20th century biography (there are good 19th century biographies) of Hume was written not by a Scotsman or even an Englishman, but by a Texan (probably) of Jewish descent.What have all these Edinburgh professors (excepting Smith, of course) been doing all these years?Given the primary sources at their disposal, why didn't they just pick up the pen to reconstruct the life of Scotland's - even Britain's - greatest non-scientific thinker?One suspects that to this day Hume is still under-appreciated in Scotland.

Mossner's biography of Hume is a labor of love.

Fine Biography
This is only modern biography of Hume.Very well written and researched, it concentrates on Hume's personal life and career as a man of letters.Hume is a wonderful subject for a biography; an important figure who is simultaneously a warm and attractive personality.Mossner does an excellent job of detailing Hume's personal life, friendships, and literary career.For individuals really interested in Hume, this book is a treasure trove of information.It is also a very valuable work on the intellectual culture of 18th century Scotland and the Enlightenment in general.Mossner describes very well the intellectual atmosphere of lowland Scotland, which produced not only Hume, but Adam Smith, the great chemist Joseph Black (though Mossner mentions him only as a physician), and numerous other important intellectuals.Mossner shows also the international quality of the Enlightenment.Within months of publication, Hume's Treatise on Human Nature was mentioned in German publications, and his later, more popular works were known across Europe.Hume had an international, even intercontinental (Benjamin Franklin), set of correspondents and friends. This books is a valuable companion to reading Hume's work.
What this book is not, however, is a full scale critical work.Actual discussion and analysis of Hume's important philosophical work is relatively brief.Nor is there much explicit discussion of the origins of Hume's thought in the work of prior 18th and 17th century thinkers.This biography was last revised in the late 1970s and apparently not greatly changed from the original version published in 1954.Over the course of the 20th century, Hume came to be regarded as one of the real titans of Western thought, with a corresponding increase in the secondary literature on Hume.We also know much more about the 18th century and the Enlightenment than Mossner.There is definitely a need for a major critical biography of Hume, though producing such a work could easily consume a scholar's career.

THE life of the extraordinary scottish philosopher
What is there not to like about this beautifully written account of the admirable David Hume? It conveys the time (American Independence, the flowering of Scottish genius, the major development of sceptical inquiry), the places (Scotland, England, France), the people: Rousseau, the French Court but most of all Hume himself whose good humour, decency and genius can only inspire others who have the courage to question.I think the full quality of this book is portrayed by the fact that twenty years after I gave a copy to my father he quotes Humes's comments on facing death in a letter to me. A book you could never give away without keeping a copy yourself. ... Read more

Book Description
David Owen explores Hume's account of reason and its role in human understanding, seen in the context of other notable accounts by philosophers of the early modern period. Many of the most famous problems that Hume discusses, and many of the positions that he advocates, are expressed in terms of reason. It is central to his arguments about induction, belief, scepticism, the passions, and moral distinctions; to understand Hume's influential views on these matters, we must understand what his view of reason is. The book begins with chapters on the theories of reasoning put forward by Hume's notable predecessors Descartes and Locke. Owen shows that Hume followed them in rejecting a formal, deductive account of inference, in favour of a new naturalistic account. But he went farther, in what we now call the argument concerning induction, by showing that no account of reason as a separate faculty could explain our inferences to beliefs in the unobserved. Hume offers instead an associationist account of probable reasoning and a new theory of belief. The picture of reason as an independent faculty is replaced with an explanation of reasoning in terms of properties of the imagination. Hume's Reason offers a new interpretation of some of Hume's central ideas, and a treatment of reason which will be illuminating not just to historians of modern philosophy but to all philosophers who are concerned with the workings of human cognition. ... Read more

Book Description
In this book, Professor Pears examines the foundations of Hume's system as laid down in the first book of his Treatise, where his ideas are oresebted in their first fresh and undiluted form.The author steers a middle course between the two extreme views adopted in recent writings on Hume: that he relies exclusively on a theory of meaning, or that he relies exclusively on a theory of truth and evidence.Professor Pears argues that Hume's theory of ideas serves both functions, and he examines in detail its application to three difficult problems: causation, personal identity, and sense-perception.Hume's solutions are shown not to be theories which can be given a place in a standard classification of philosophical theories, but rather to depend upon a subtle form of naturalism not altogether unlike Wittgenstein's naturalism. ... Read more

Book Description
Norman Kemp Smith's The Philosophy of David Hume continues to be unsurpassed in its comprehensive coverage of the ideas and issues of Hume's Treatise. Now, after years of waiting, this currently out-of-print and highly sought-after classic is being re-issued.This ground-breaking book has long been regarded as a classic study by scholars in the field, yet a new introduction by Don Garrett places the book in its contemporary context, showing Humes's continuing importance in the field. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Foundation for modern Hume studies
Norman Kemp Smith's work was, and is, deservedly a watershed in Hume's studies. While philosophy has moved on in its estimate and understanding of David Hume and his philosophy, Kemp Smith's work is clearly the fountainhead--whether one agrees or not with his essential view of Hume's epistemology/ anthropology.One either agrees with Kemp Smith and moves on--or one disagrees with Kemp Smith and then moves on.There is no ignoring him and even though this study was completed in the early 20th century it continues its impact today.Kemp Smith's acheivement here is important not simply because it is a good book, but because he is a patient exegete of the philosophy of Hume, carefully reading and rereading everything by and about Hume until the thesis presents itself to him.That precision and patience is worth learning from.Building upon his two articles in the philosophy journal "Mind" in 1905, Kemp Smith continued to reflect upon Hume's philosophy and its forebears who might have been influential to Hume's thought.We have been given in this study a book that others would do well to emulate.While many books have been written about Hume in the interim between the publication of this book in the 1940's and now, there are few who bring such intellectual integrity to their reading and explication of Hume.Kemp Smith's book was and is foundational and fundamental in understanding Hume the philosopher--to use Kuhn's language of paradigms--its heuristic nature is beyond question.As a model it held tremendous sway. It continues to do so. It presents a careful argument that is a model of precision, of scholarly acumen, and intellectual brilliance, and of a careful, painstaking, thoughtful reading and interpretation. One will not only learn about David Hume and his thought, but also about the "reading," the "doing," and the "writing" of philosophy from Kemp Smith's achievement.A must read!

First-Rate Commentary
Just how important is David Hume? He's the first modern empirical psychologist who anticipates William James by a century. He's also the first modern philosopher to extol experience alone as paramount to understanding human behavior as the first in the long line of Pragmatic philosophers. He's also the first modern philosopher to employ exclusively the scientific method of Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton as paradigmatic. He's the second (after Francis Hutcheson) to instantiate a naturalist and intuitionist ethic known as benevolent or sentimentalist theory. And besides which, he's one of the few major philosophers who is accessible to the general public.

But as accessible as Hume is, it's always helpful to have a reliable commentary to bring out the subtle nuances of a particular philosopher. Thus was A. E. Taylor to Plato, J. H. Randall to Aristotle, Brian Davies to Thomas Aquinas, and Norman Kemp Smith to David Hume. Written in the first-third of the 20thC., this artful and insightful commentary on Hume's basic writings, especially of Hume's "Treatise on Human Nature," is indispensable. Long out of print, Macmillan has corrected the deficit and reissued this important study that covers the antecedents, writings, and subsequent influence of David Hume.

Kemp's thesis is that one cannot understand Hume's project without first understanding Hume's moral epistemology and the ascendent influence of Hutcheson in forming it. Ironically, Hume's moral epistemology isn't made manifest until Part III of his youthful "Treatise," after dealing first with cognition and second the passions. Hume's method is entirely pragmatic in that experience alone, as opposed to a priori speculation, or even induction, is the sole means of understanding human cognition, belief, passions, and morals. Kemp also illustrates Hume's extreme method to avoid both dogmatism and skepticism, the two horns of the philosophers' dilemma that produce a quixotic approach that is uniquely Hume's. Consequently, Kemp's interpretation of Hume comes across as less an empricist and more rigorously a populizer of the "vulgar" in a non-philosophical sense. The only substantive subject Kemp omits is Hume's criticism of religion as superstition, but this omission is somewhat obvious and trivial in light of its natural consequence of Hume's overall experientialist, non-ratiocinative project.

Kemp's style, clarity, and incisiveness match his subject's. He spent thirty years pondering David Hume's thought and writings, and it wasn't until his insight about Hume's moral epistemology that everything came together for him as a coherent whole. And as tendentious as Kemp's thesis is, it's fully documented and carefully executed, so that even the skeptic must concede Kemp's invaluable contribution. Still, the omission concerning the "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" is lamentable, if only because it is of particular importance to Hume's experientialist project. An excellent alternative and complementary commentary, "Cognition and Commitment: Hume's Philosophy," by Dan Garrett is a more current, and a very different, approach. Both are very highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description
Focuses on general remarks on Hume's life and philosophy, his Natural History of Religion, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, and his work on the immortality of the soul and suicide. Contributors include: William Warburton, Henry O'Connor, Thomas Hayter, Joseph Priestley, Joseph Milner, William Craven, and George Giles. ... Read more

Book Description
The author discusses Hume's theories of causal inference and his belief in substance to demonstrate that his philosophy, usually characterized as "total scepticism," is not merely negative. ... Read more