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1905Hume’s Academic ScepticismCanadian Journal of Philosophy 16 (3): 407-435. 1986.A philosopher once wrote the following words:If I examine the PTOLOMAIC and COPERNICAN systems, I endeavour only, by my enquiries, to know the real situation of the planets; that is, in other words, I endeavour to give them, in my conception, the same relations, that they bear towards each other in the heavens. To this operation of the mind, therefore, there seems to be always a real, though often an unknown standard, in the nature of things; nor is truth or falsehood variable by the various app…Read more
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474The UnderstandingIn James A. Harris (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, Oxford University Press. pp. 148-70. 2013.The article discusses the varying conceptions of the faculty of ‘the understanding’ in 18th-century British philosophy and logic. Topics include the distinction between the understanding and the will, the traditional division of three acts of understanding and its critics, the naturalizing of human understanding, conceiving of the limits of human understanding, British innatism and the critique of empiricist conceptions of the understanding, and reconceiving the understanding and the elimination…Read more
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3Hume on the origin of 'modern honour' : a study in Hume's philosophical developmentIn Ruth Savage (ed.), Philosophy and religion in Enlightenment Britain: new case studies, Oxford University Press. 2012.
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12Hume and Hume's Connexions (edited book)Pennsylvania State University Press. 1995.Presenting significant new research on the moral and religious philosophy of David Hume, this volume illustrates the importance of intellectual context in understanding the work and career of one of the most important thinkers of the eighteenth century. Distinctive in its reappraisal of the influence of John Locke, Francis Hutcheson, and others, it examines how Hume reacted to, and in turn affected, other thinkers whose views, like his own, were bound up with specific philosophical, theological,…Read more
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1Substance versus Function Dualism in Eighteenth-Century MedicineIn John P. Wright & Paul Potter (eds.), Psyche and Soma: Physicians and Metaphysicians on the Mind-Body Problem From Antiquity to Enlightenment, Clarendon Press. 2002.
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146Hume's 'a Treatise of Human Nature': An IntroductionCambridge University Press. 2009.David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature presents the most important account of skepticism in the history of modern philosophy. In this lucid and thorough introduction to the work, John P. Wright examines the development of Hume's ideas in the Treatise, their relation to eighteenth-century theories of the imagination and passions, and the reception they received when Hume published the Treatise. He explains Hume's arguments concerning the inability of reason to establish the basic beliefs which u…Read more
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31John William Yolton, 1921-2005Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 79 (5). 2006.
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2Matter, Mind, and Active Principles in Mid-Eighteenth-Century British PhysiologyLumen: Selected Proceedings From the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 4 17-27. 1985.
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114The Sceptical Realism of David HumeManchester Up. 1983.Introduction A brief look at the competing present-day interpretations of Hume's philosophy will leave the uninitiated reader completely baffled. On the one hand , Hume is seen as a philosopher who attempted to analyse concepts with ...
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23John Locke, An essay concerning human understanding in focus (edited book)Routledge. 2000.John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is among the most important books in philosophy ever written. It is a difficult work dealing with many themes, including the origin of ideas; the extent and limits of human knowledge; the philosophy of perception; and religion and morality. This volume focuses on the last two topics and provides a clear and insightful survey of these overlooked aspects of Locke's best-known work. Four eminent Locke scholars present authoritative discussions of Lo…Read more
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2RS Woolhouse, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz: The concept of substance in seventeenth-century metaphysics Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 15 (6): 432-434. 1995.
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173Dr. George Cheyne, Chevalier Ramsay, and Hume's Letter to a PhysicianHume Studies 29 (1): 125-141. 2003.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 29, Number 1, April 2003, pp. 125-141 Dr. George Cheyne, Chevalier Ramsay, and Hume's Letter to a Physician JOHN P. WRIGHT The publication of a new intellectual biography of George Cheyne1 provides a "propitious" occasion for "a thoroughly skeptical review"2 of the question which has long exercised Hume scholars, whether Cheyne was the intended recipient of David Hume's fascinating pie-Treatise Letter to a Physici…Read more
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751Metaphysics and Physiology: Mind, Body, and the Animal Economy in Eighteenth-Century ScotlandIn M. A. Stewart (ed.), Studies in the Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, Clarendon Press. pp. 251-301. 1990.
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Kemp smith and the two kinds of naturalism in hume's philosophyRivista di Storia Della Filosofia 62 (3): 17-36. 2007.
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4Hume's causal realism: Recovering a traditional interpretationIn Rupert J. Read & Kenneth A. Richman (eds.), The New Hume Debate, Routledge. pp. 88--99. 2000.
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481Stability and Justification in Hume's Treatise (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 41 (4): 562-564. 2003.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 562-564 [Access article in PDF] Louis E. Loeb. Stability and Justification in Hume's Treatise. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 280. Cloth, $42.50. As is well known, in the last year of his life, Hume repudiated his Treatise of Human Nature in an Advertisement that he had placed at the front of the volume of his writings containing his mature philosophical works. He a…Read more
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91Scepticism, Causal Science and 'The Old Hume'Journal of Scottish Philosophy 10 (2): 123-142. 2012.This paper replies to Peter Millican (Mind, 2009), who argues that Hume denies the possible existence of causal powers which underlie the regularities that we observe in nature. I argue that Hume's own philosophical views on causal power cannot be considered apart from his mitigated skepticism. His account of the origin of the idea of causal power, which traces it to a subjective impression, only leads to what he calls ‘Pyrrhonian scepticism’. He holds that we can only escape such excessive skep…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
History of Western Philosophy |