Great Philosophers: Hume - Hume

David Hume 1711-1776 Though acknowledged to be Britain s greatest philosopher, Hume has been undervalued none the less by a grudging posterity. Too breezily readable for the philosophical establishment, his works have offended also by their daring and their range. Hence his caricaturing in the academic tradition. The Scotsman held responsible for the worst excesses of the English empiricists, Hume has come to be associated with a cheerless, coldwater-casting scepticism. But his true project was wider, and more constructive by far. Brief, lucid yet astonishingly inclusive, Anthony Quinton s enthralling introduction opens up the full breadth of Hume s remarkable achievement for the more general readers he himself always wanted to address. Causation, perception, belief, history, religion, economics, aesthetics and psychology Hume explored all these fields and made original contributions to each. And he did it, reveals Quinton, with humour and with warmth. Britain s greatest philosopher was also its most engaging.