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'A generation ago, Duncan Forbes lamented the "terrible campaign country" confronted by those seeking the "essential continuity of Hume's thought". Ryu Susato takes on that challenge. His nuanced account of Hume's social and political writings - including the History of England - finds continuity in what he aptly defines as Hume's Sceptical Enlightenment.'
Mark G. Spencer, Brock University
A systematic reinterpretation of Hume's social and political thought as an Enlightenment thinker
The Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711 to 1776) has often been regarded as a key Enlightenment thinker. However, his image has been long contested between those who consider him a conservative and those who see him as a key liberal thinker.
Hume's Sceptical Enlightenment offers a new interpretation for such diverse images and demonstrates the uniqueness of Hume as an Enlightenment thinker, illustrating how his 'spirit of scepticism' often leads him into seemingly paradoxical positions. This book will be of interest to Hume scholars, intellectual historians of seventeenth- to nineteenth-century Europe and those interested in the Enlightenment more widely.
Ryu Susato is Professor of Intellectual History at Kansai University, Osaka, Japan.
Cover image: David Hume, 1711-1776. Historian & Philosopher by Allan Ramsay © Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Cover design: Kit Foster
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List of contents
Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations and conventions; 1. Introduction; 2. 'The empire of the imagination': The association of ideas in Hume's social philosophy; 3. 'What is Established?': Hume's Social Philosophy of Opinion 4. 'Refinement' and 'Vicious Luxury': Hume's Nuanced Defence of Luxury; 5. Taming 'the tyranny of priests': Hume's advocacy of religious establishments; 6. 'To refine the democracy': Hume's perfect commonwealth as a development of his political science; 7. Human society 'in perpetual flux': Hume's pendulum theory of civilisation; 8.'The Prince of Sceptics' and 'The Prince of Historians': Hume's Influence and Image in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Ryu Susato is Professor of Intellectual History at Kansai University (Osaka, Japan). He graduated from Waseda University and received his PhD from Keio University. He has published several articles in the Journal of the History of Ideas, Hume Studies and Modern Intellectual History. He is also a joint-translator of the Japanese edition of the Stuart volumes of Hume's History of England (forthcoming).
Summary
Demonstrates the uniqueness of Hume as an Enlightenment thinker, illustrating how his 'spirit of scepticism' often leads him into seemingly paradoxical positions. This book will be of interest to Hume scholars, intellectual historians of 17th- to 19th-century Europe and those interested in the Enlightenment more widely.
