Russell famously propounded scepticism about memory in The Analysis of Mind (1921). As he there acknowledged, one way to counter this sceptical position is to hold that memory involves direct acquaintance with past, and this is in fact a thesis Russell had advanced in The Problems of Philosophy (1911). Indeed he had there used the case of memory to develop a sophisticated falibilist, non-sceptical, epistemology. By 1921, however, Russell had rejected the early conception of memory as incompatible with the (...) neutral monism he now affirmed. In its place he argued that memory involves a distinctive type of belief whose content is given by imagery. Russell's language here is off-putting but without much distortion his later position can be interpreted as an early formulation of a functionalist theory of mind based on a causal theory of mental representation. Thus interpreted it provides the basis for a different response to Russell's sceptical thesis. (shrink)

This paper owes its inspiration to a remark made by Professor M. Rostovtzeff; in a note in his Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire on the widespread social unrest of the first two centuries A.D., having cited other literary authorities such as Dio Chrysostom, Aelius Aristides, etc., he writes: ‘The social problem as such, the cleavage between the poor and the rich, occupies a prominent place in the dialogues of Lucian; he was fully aware of the importance (...) of the problem.’ No one, as far as I know, has attempted to collect and discuss the main passages in Lucian on this topic, and the latest writer on this aspect of Lucian reaches a conclusion quite opposed to Rostovtzeff and one which I believe to be wholly misleading. The aim of this paper is to collect and discuss the main references in Lucian to the social problem interpreting them in the light of Lucian's life and background, and the social and economic conditions of his age. In particular I shall stress the importance of the Cynic tradition as it bears on Lucian's attitude, but shall endeavour to show that this tradition is firmly rooted in practical politics and actual participation in social revolutionary movements and goes far beyond the repetition of mere ethical cliches generally ascribed to it. (shrink)

This book brings together contributions from scholars from Europe and the United States to honor the theological work of Antje Jackelén, the first female Archbishop of the Church of Sweden. In Archbishop Antje Jackelén's installation homily, she identifies the strength of the Church as a "global network of prayer threads." This book is an honorary and celebratory volume providing a "global network of prayerful essays" by contributors from a variety of academic disciplines to creatively engage, reflect, and illuminate the theological (...) work of Archbishop Jackelén. Prior to her tenure in the Church of Sweden as Bishop of the Diocese of Lund and now the Archbishop of the Church of Sweden, Jackelén served as professor of Systematic Theology, Director of the Zygon Center and President of European Society for the Study of Science and Religion (ESSSAT). While each essay intentionally embraces the theological and ministerial work of Jackelén during her academic tenure, they also venture into areas as diverse as climate change, media studies, human uniqueness, hermeneutics, time, ethics, Christian theological tradition and history, traumatology, politics and society. As the first diverse explication of the theological thinking of Archbishop Jackelén by her theological colleagues, this text provides scholars with an expansion of the scope of Archbishop Jackelén's theological thinking and initiates laity into the impact of Jackelén thinking that combines with grace and precision the traditions of the Church, the challenges and gifts of the sciences, and the needs and longings of society and the world. (shrink)

Philosophy: its relation to life and education.--The ideslism of Spinoza.--Recent discussion in materialism.--Professor Watson on reality and time.--The cosmic and the moral.--Psychology past and present.--The postulates of physiological psychology.--The origin of volition in childhood.--Imitation: a chapter in the natural history of consciousness.--The origin of emotional expression.--The perception of external reality.--Feeling, belief, and judgment.--Memory for square size.--The effect of size-contrast upon judgments of position in the retinal field.--An optical illusion.--New questions in mental chronometry. Types of reaction.--The "type-theory" of reaction.--The psychology (...) of religion.--Shorter philosophical papers.--Shorter literary papers. (shrink)

The author indicates that in his discussion (see record 1926-02981-001), he made a mistake in quoting from Professor Small's article in the American Journal of Sociology, of attributing to him the word 'poach,' inadvertently taking it from a private letter from Professor Smalls on the same subject. (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

V. L. Ménage, who died in 2015, was Lecturer and then Professor at the University of London’s School of Oriental & African Studies from 1955 until 1983, and.

This book traces the growth of philosophical justifications of toleration. The contributors discuss the grounds on which we may be required to be tolerant and the proper limits of toleration. They consider the historical and conceptual relation between toleration and scepticism and ask whether toleration is justified by considerations of autonomy or of prudence. The papers cover a range of perspectives on the subject, including Marxist and Socialist as well as liberal views. The editor's introduction prepares the ground by (...) discussing the essential features of the subject and offers a lucid survey of the theories and arguments put forward in the book. The collection arises out of the Morrell Toleration Project at the University of York and all the papers were written as contributions to that project. The discussion will be of interest to specialists in philosophy, in political and social theory and in intellectual history. (shrink)

Originally published in 1968. Scepticism is generally regarded as a position which, if correct, would be disastrous for our everyday and scientific beliefs. According to this view, a sceptical argument is one that leads to the intuitively false conclusion that we cannot know anything. But there is another, much neglected and more radical form of scepticism, Pyrrhonism, which neither denies nor accepts the possibility of knowledge and is to be regarded not as a philosophical position so much as (...) the expression of a philosophical way of life. Professor Naess argues that, given a sympathetic interpretation, Sextus Empiricus’s outline of Pyrrhonian scepticism provides the essentials of a genuine and rational sceptical point of view. He begins with a brief account of Pyrrhonism, then goes on to argue for the psychological possibility of this kind of scepticism, defending it against common objections, and examining some of its implications. The last two chapters provide detailed support for the rationality of Pyrrhonism, drawing mainly on certain methodological distinctions in semantics which both justify the Pyrrhonist’s failure to make assertions and restrict the scope of recent epistemological arguments against scepticism in such a way as to modify severely the conclusions based on them. (shrink)

Can we ever know that something—some state of affairs, or some action taken or contemplated—is evil or wrong, or is it always at best a matter of opinion? It is curious that analytic philosophers, despite their preoccupation with the issue of scepticism and their many discussions of sceptical doubts, have given so little attention to this question. If we look, for example, at Professor Ayer's recent volume The Problem of Knowledge , which consists in effect of a prolonged (...) consideration of various sceptical arguments, we find no reference to the problem of scepticism in moral matters; and this is the more surprising when we reflect that an explicit comparison between this sort of scepticism and scepticism about knowledge generally had been made in a celebrated essay by an earlier philosopher which is now widely thought to have broken fresh ground both in ethics and in theory of knowledge. I refer, of course, to H. A. Prichard's “Does Moral Philosophy rest on a Mistake?” contributed to Mind in 1912. There Prichard claimed to know that something was his duty, in a particular instance, as surely as he knew that seven times four are twenty-eight; in each case, he said, the knowledge is immediate and underivative. To think the contrary was, he argued, to embark on a hopeless quest; for if you cannot claim to know something until you produce criteria for knowing, you can be asked in turn what makes you think the criteria valid, and this will generate a vicious infinite regress. This is not in principle unlike the argument put forward by linguistic philosophers that, unless we allow that the word “know” is properly used in certain paradigm cases, which we take as in order without further questioning, it will lose all application. The interesting thing about Prichard is that he thought the argument applied to morals as readily as to the topics covered by traditional theory of knowledge. But here, as I say, he has not been explicitly followed by his successors. (shrink)

In an article called ‘Moral Scepticism’ Professor R. F. Holland displays in a pointed and often impressive way both the virtues and the vices of a tempting approach to certain fundamental issues in moral philosophy. The appeal to sanity and honesty may, when directed towards chronic philosophical perplexity, cease to be a virtue and become the vice of disingenuousness. And when a philosopher writes that ‘no clear idea is available to us of what moral scepticism amounts to’, (...) that moral scepticism would, if it were possible at all, have to be a ‘specially cooked-up affair’ by contrast with other varieties of scepticism, it is hard not to accuse him of just such a vice. (shrink)

"I had read the book before in the shorter Harper Torchbook edition but read it again right through--and found it as interesting and exciting as before. I regard it as one of the seminal books in the history of ideas. Based on a prodigious amount of original research, it demonstrated conclusively and in fascinating details how the transmission of ancient skepticism was a bital factor in the formation of modern thought. The story is rich in implications for th history of (...) philosophy, the history of science, and the history of religious thought. Popkin's work has already inspired further work by others--and the new edition takes account of this, most importantly the work of Charles Schmitt. The two new chapters extend the story as far as Spinoza, with special reference to the beginnings of biblical criticism.... Popkin's history is of great potential interest to a wide readership--wider than most specialist publications and wider than it has (so far as I can tell) reached hitherto."--M.F. Burnyeat, Professor of Philosophy, University College London. (shrink)

Originally published in 1968. Scepticism is generally regarded as a position which, if correct, would be disastrous for our everyday and scientific beliefs. According to this view, a sceptical argument is one that leads to the intuitively false conclusion that we cannot know anything. But there is another, much neglected and more radical form of scepticism, Pyrrhonism, which neither denies nor accepts the possibility of knowledge and is to be regarded not as a philosophical position so much as (...) the expression of a philosophical way of life. Professor Naess argues that, given a sympathetic interpretation, Sextus Empiricus’s outline of Pyrrhonian scepticism provides the essentials of a genuine and rational sceptical point of view. He begins with a brief account of Pyrrhonism, then goes on to argue for the psychological possibility of this kind of scepticism, defending it against common objections, and examining some of its implications. The last two chapters provide detailed support for the rationality of Pyrrhonism, drawing mainly on certain methodological distinctions in semantics which both justify the Pyrrhonist’s failure to make assertions and restrict the scope of recent epistemological arguments against scepticism in such a way as to modify severely the conclusions based on them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 531 topic which makes these weaknesses stand out. They detract from the beauty of the work as a whole. Nonetheless, the work is an opus magnum meriting serious scholarly attention and applause. PETER A. REDPATH St. Johns' University Staten Island, New York Scepticism and Reasonable Doubt: The British Naturalist Tradition in Wilkins, Hume, Reid, and Newman. By M. JAMIE FERREIRA. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1986. Pp. (...) xii+ 255. Professor M. Jamie Ferreira has written a major contribution to our knowledge and understanding of scepticism within British intellectual life from the late seventeenth century to the late nineteenth. Her cast of characters is at first sight an unusual, even an eclectic one: John Wilkins, an Anglican bishop and founder of the Royal Society; David Hume, himself often regarded as the chief of sceptics; Thomas Reid, the Scottish philosopher of common sense; and John Henry Newman, the most famous Viotorian convert to Roman Catholicism. In Ferreira's analysis what holds this group together is their varied attempts to re· fute scepticism through an appeal " to ' the natural '-to how we are constituted, to what we, as human beings, are and do in the arena of believing " (p. vii). In other words, the refutation of intellectually derived scepticism lies in an examination of practically lived human ex· perience. Ferreira seeks to describe three distinct modes of naturalism. The first is sceptical naturalism such as found in the clearly sceptical pass· ages of Hume. The other forms of naturalism constitute replies to this sceptical position. These anti-sceptical positions are reasonable doubt scepticism and justifying naturalism. Advocates of the former contend there is no reasonable basis for doubt about fundamental beliefs of human nature. They contend that these fundamental lieliefs are more basic than other beliefs rthart are subject to justification. They are indeed the basis of our juslf:ification of other matters. For persons of ithis outlook, rationality and justification are mallters of practice. By contrast justifying naturalism does seek to provide some kind of justification that links what is natural with what can be justified. In effect, justifying naturalism rejects the argument that only one mode of justification can be regarded as legitimate. Reasonable doubt naturalism and justifying naturalism often closely approach each other, but the latter may reject scepticism on grounds other than those of practice. 53~ BOOK REVIEWS Fundamental to Ferreira's argument is her interpretation of the position of John Locke in the anti-sceptical tradition. In contrast to Henry Van Leeuwen, she asserts that rather than standing as the culmination of an earlier liberal Anglican tradition associated with John Wilkins, Locke actually departed from that anti-sceptical position which had based itself largely on the concept of moral certainty. Locke based his rejection of scepticism on a distinction between kinds of certainty rather than upon human nature itself. Whereas Wilkins and others had seen a close and sometimes identical relationship between the highest probability and certainty, Locke distinguished,the two. For him, cel'tainty had to achieve more than probability. Locke distinguished kinds of evidence from degrees of evidence. He also proposed categories of probability and demonstrated certainty hut no category of proof. This issue is crucial for Ferreira's interpretation of Hume. She contends that Hume understood this distinction in Locke and that he looked to the earlier anti-sceptical tradition. She argues that Hume thought it possible to offer a response to his own sceptical position that actually went beyond simply unavoidably accepting certain beliefs. Hume introduced a category of proof between Locke's categories of certainty and probability. According to Ferreira, he based this category on the previous seventeenth-century distinction between reasonable and unreasonable doubt. Ferreira does not claim a single unified interpretation of Hume, but urges the presence of tension in his thought that allows for the presence at least some of the time of a naturalist approach to scepticism. Thomas Reid was regarded in his day and during most of the nineteenth century as the major critic of Hume. However, Ferreira examines that critique largely in terms of shared concerns. Reid sought to distinguish degrees of certainty in both demonstrative and probabilistic reasoning. His key metaphor was found in the suggestion... (shrink)

This volume delves into the question of how, in an Iberian world apparently far removed from the battlegrounds of modernity and secularisation, doubt and unbelief found fertile soil, stimulated by social and religious developments. Adopting a multidisciplinary perspective, the contributors show how the crisis of identity produced by forced mass conversion touched off inner crises about the nature of Truth. By tracing the path from medieval Spain to the Spanish Inquisition, and from the great literary and artistic works of the (...) Spanish Baroque to Sephardic Marranism, this volume fills a historiographical gap in European social and intellectual history, demonstrating the importance of the Iberian world in the evolution of European scepticism. Mercedes García-Arenal is Research Professor at CSIC, Madrid, and Stefania Pastore is Associate Professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. They work on tolerance and dissent in Early Modern Iberia: on forced conversion, on the violent world of the Inquisition and the debates and protests that it sparked, and on the complex interplay of minorities. They have recently collaborated on After Conversion. Iberia and the Emergence of Modernity (Brill, 2016) and, as editors, Visiones imperiales y profecía. Roma, España, Nuevo Mundo (Abada, 2018). (shrink)

Professor Grayling’s book provides an illuminating and insightful analysis of one variety of epistemological scepticism. It is not a study of scepticism per se; rather, it is an attempt to refute the claim that we can never be satisfactorily justified in our general assertions about the world.

Robert Nozick (1938-2002) was Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University. His early book in political theory, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, was very influential, and he followed it with Philosophical Explanations, The Examined Life, The Nature of Rationality, Socratic Puzzles, and Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World.

Olexandr Lukovyna’s interview with Professor Plínio Junqueira Smith is devoted to skeptic research in Brazilian philosophy, the beginning of skeptic studies in Brazil, Oswaldo Porchat’s and Ezequiel de Olaso’s roles in establishing the tradition of skeptic studies, contemporary studies in skepticism, and the global state of affairs in skeptic research.

Robert Nozick (1938-2002) was Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University. His early book in political theory, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, was very influential, and he followed it with Philosophical Explanations, The Examined Life, The Nature of Rationality, Socratic Puzzles, and Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:178 Reviews c:\users\kenneth\documents\type3302\rj 33,2 113 red.docx 2014-01-15 10:04 THE EARLY MOORE AND RUSSELL Ray Perkins, Jr. Philosophy / Plymouth State U. Plymouth, nh 03264 1600, usa [email protected] G. E. Moore. Early Philosophical Writings. Edited and with an Introduction by Thomas Baldwin and Consuelo Preti. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge U. P., 2011. Pp. lxxxv, 251. isbn: 978-0521190145. £68.00; us$114.00. aldwin and Preti have put together a very nice (...) book which gives us G. E. Moore’s 1897 and 1898 Trinity College dissertations and an informative look at the historical context in which they were written. This story—including information about Moore’s early life, the philosophical influences at Cambridge and a critical commentary on his dissertations and readers’ reports— is clearly and carefully presented in their 78-page introduction.1 The book is a valuable addition to the history of analytic philosophy and will be of special interest to Moore (and Russell) scholars and to historians generally who wish to know more about the genesis of the ideas shaping the new analytic philosophy at the end of the century. Moore entered Trinity in 1892 to study classics. There he met Russell (who was in his third year) and took his advice to study philosophy in his last two years and take his final exams (Tripos, Part ii) in both disciplines, which he did successfully in 1896. And like Russell—who had won a Trinity prize fellowship in 1895 (with a dissertation on the foundations of geometry2 ) only one year after his graduation—he submitted a dissertation (1897) in hopes of winning a prize fellowship. Moore’s first attempt failed, but his 1898 version was successful. And not only did the success of the 1898 dissertation launch Moore’s career as a professional philosopher, it also paved the way for the new analytic philosophy of the next century. Moore’s dissertations and his Trinity examiners’ reports (by Caird, Sidgwick, Ward and Bosanquet3 ) are fascinating reading, and it’s a great convenience to have them handy in a single volume. But the editors deserve special 1 Hereafter I shall use the editors’ convention of referring to the pagination of their introduction with roman numerals and to Moore’s dissertations (plus examiners’ reports) with arabic numerals. 2 Russell’s dissertation was published in 1897 as An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry. 3 Edward Caird was an idealist and highly respected Kant scholar at Oxford. Henry Sidgwick was one of Moore’s teachers at Cambridge and author of the influential _= Reviews 179 c:\users\kenneth\documents\type3302\rj 33,2 113 red.docx 2014-01-15 10:04 praise for not only giving the reader an astute critical summary of the dissertations, but also for their skillful reconstruction of Moore’s surviving, but incomplete, 1898 manuscript from which parts of the early chapters had been removed. The editors make a good case (pp. lxxv–lxxix) that those pages became the basis of Moore’s 1899 Mind article, “The Nature of Judgment”. (Those familiar with Russell’s early work may recall it as an article that Russell claimed as of paramount importance for his own early work.4 I’ll return to the question of Russell and Moore and this article’s significance.) the dissertations, 1897 and 1898 Moore’s dissertations reveal a young Moore with remarkable powers of analysis and more than a hint of the careful, courageous scepticism and intellectual honesty for which he later became known. But as the editors make clear, their main importance is the record they reveal of the transition away from Kant and Hegel to the new philosophy, which put a premium on conceptual analysis and metaphysics without Kantian or neo-Hegelian idealism. The 1897 dissertation (“The Metaphysical Basis of Ethics”) is an analysis of the basic concepts of ethics with considerable critical discussion of Kant, especially concerning freedom and reason, and Moore’s attempt to fashion his own good-based ethics utilizing a little from Kant and much from Bradley (p. l). At this time both Moore and Russell were still under the influence of Kant... (shrink)

Roman Suszko said that “Obviously, any multiplication of logical values is a mad idea and, in fact, Łukasiewicz did not actualize it.” The aim of the present paper is to qualify this ‘obvious’ statement through a number of logical and philosophical writings by Professor Jan Woleński, all focusing on the nature of truth-values and their multiple uses in philosophy. It results in a reconstruction of such an abstract object, doing justice to what Suszko held a ‘mad’ project within a (...) generalized logic of judgments. Four main issues raised by Woleński will be considered to test the insightfulness of such generalized truth-values, namely: the principle of bivalence, the logic of scepticism, the coherence theory of truth, and nothingness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:104 COMMENTARY ON PROFESSOR TWEYMAN ' S 'HUME ON EVIL' Philo concludes his long and celebrated debate with Cleanthes on the problem of evil (Parts X and Xl of Hume's Dialogues) with the assertion that the "true conclusion" to be drawn from the "mixed phenomena" in the world is that "the original source" of whatever order we find in the world is "indifferent" to matters of good and (...) evil. From what Philo says immediately thereafter it is clear that by the phrase "The true conclusion is..." he does not mean 'The truth is...' but rather something like 'The conclusion best supported by the available evidence is....' (D 212) Now according to both Nelson Pike and Stanley Tweyman, the claim made by Philo in these passages involves him in a shift or departure from the procedure he adopted in earlier dialogues when he examined the design argument set forth by Cleanthes. It is claimed that whereas in the earlier dialogues Philo emphatically professed a sceptical outlook — "the view requiring that one embrace no metaphysical position of one's own" (to quote Nelson Pike ) — in the quoted passage he seems to abandon this scepticism in favor of embracing what amounts to being a metaphysical position in natural theology. Pike thinks that this alleged shift is only an apparent one, that the central import of these passages is sceptical rather than metaphysical, and that here, as elsewhere in the earlier dialogues, Philo's sole purpose in offering a more plausible counter-hypothesis is to show that Cleanthes' hypothesis is false. Tweyman, on the other hand, argues that the shift is a very real one and that Hume does indeed "intend Philo's conclusion in Part XI to be a truth in natural theology [.]... Philo is 105 not arguing as a sceptic; rather he is employing the hypothetico-deductive method for testing Cleanthes' 2 hypothesis. " Let me say at once that I agree with Tweyman, as against Pike, that in these passages Philo does claim to put forward a truth Jji natural theology, and I also agree with just about everything that Tweyman says in his paper concerning the proper interpretation of Philo's views in Parts X and XI leading up to this conclusion. I follow the lead of those scholars who, at least since Kemp Smith, have argued that Philo's whole purpose in demonstrating such "truths" is to discredit natural theology in the eyes of a true Christian believer by dramatizing the enormous gulf between the very attenuated form of theism ("diaphonous deism" one scholar calls it), which is the most one can hope to get out of Cleanthes' experimental approach to religion, and the claim of Christian theism to which Cleanthes aspires. But I do not accept the view that Philo's claim in these dialogues represents any sort of sudden departure (and certainly not a "fundamental methodological difference") from his critical stance against the design argument in earlier dialogues. What I hope to show below is that not only does this view distort what Philo does in the earlier dialogues, but it also distracts our attention from the true nature of Hume's achievement in Parts X and XI of the Dialogues. (Incidentally, I will assume throughout the sequel that Kemp Smith's identification of Hume with Philo is essentially correct. ) It would indeed be extremely paradoxical, in the face of Philo's famous (or notorious) peroration at the end of Part VIII proclaiming the "complete triumph of the sceptic" in regard to "all religious 106 systems," to raise any doubts about Philo's acceptance of the sceptical import of his own earlier arguments. But this still leaves unsettled the question as to what sort of scepticism it is whose triumph Philo proclaims at this point and whether it is inconsistent with the conclusion he reaches at the end of his discussion of evil. One would have hoped that at this late stage in the scholarship on the Dialogues, if there is one issue on which all of us could agree it is that Philo at no time in the Dialogues takes the (easy) Pyrrhonian line against Cleanthes' "hypothesis of experimental theism." I mention this because at several places... (shrink)

This is the Polish translation with introduction and commentary in the footnotes of Sextus Empiricus' work "Against the Professors" (AM I-VI).

Professor Vogel claims that my responses to scepticism leave the traditional problems standing. I argue in reply that he fails to take sufficiently seriously the diagnostic character of my enterprise. My aim is not to offer direct refutations of sceptical arguments, taking such arguments at face value, but to undermine their plausibility by revealing their dependence on unacknowledged and contentious theoretical presuppositions. Professor Rorty is much more sympathetic to my approach but thinks that there is a simpler (...) and more direct way to get the job done: that sketched by Davidson, who argues that scepticism fails because belief is intrinsically veridical. I doubt this. My approach is to identify the distinctively epistemological presuppositions of sceptical argumentation. If this remains undone, Davidsonian reflections on belief and meaning will seem only to transform sceptical problems about knowledge of the world into problems about knowledge of meaning. (shrink)

Professor Monro presents an original view of ethics based on empiricism, which leads him to a subjectivist position about moral values. He starts by examining the central problem in moral philosophy: are moral statements objectively true, or are they expressions of preference? The first view conflicts with the empiricist beliefs current in modern thought; the opposing naturalistic theory seems to lead to moral scepticism. After discussing both views, the author presents a detailed defence of the subjectivist position. In (...) the course of his argument he gives a detailed analysis and criticism of the 'universalisability thesis', the theory that moral aspirations differ from others in being applicable to all men, and that it is this that makes them moral. He then offers an alternative account of the nature of moral attitudes. The author illustrates his explanations with straightforward analogies and examples. His clear exposition of the fundamental concepts arising in his argument makes this a book for students as well as for professional moral philosophers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Professor of Moral Philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen, James Beattie (1735–1803) was one of the most prominent literary figures of late eighteenth-century Britain. His major works, An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770) and the two-canto poem The Minstrel (1771–1774), were two of the best-sellers of the Scottish Enlightenment and were key to Beattie’s role in the emergence of both the ‘Scottish School’ of Common Sense Philosophy and British Romanticism. Intellectual history scholarship on the Scottish (...) Enlightenment has tended to discuss Beattie in terms of his relationship to his fellow Aberdonian Thomas Read. While clearly important, his link with Reid does not exhaust our potential interest in Beattie. This article explores his extensive engagement with the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). In the process, it is argued that the Genevan’s works – especially the Confession of the Savoyard Vicar in Emile (1762) – played an important though little noticed role in both Beattie’s rhetoric and anti-scepticism in both the Essay and Minstrel. Moreover, Beattie’s initially praising stance on Rousseau as a potential friend to true religion indicates the complexity of the reception of the Genevan’s works in late eighteenth-century Britain. (shrink)

Professor Vogel claims that my responses to scepticism leave the traditional problems standing. I argue in reply that he fails to take sufficiently seriously the diagnostic character of my enterprise. My aim is not to offer direct refutations of sceptical arguments, taking such arguments at face value, but to undermine their plausibility by revealing their dependence on unacknowledged and contentious theoretical presuppositions. Professor Rorty is much more sympathetic to my approach but thinks that there is a simpler (...) and more direct way to get the job done: that sketched by Davidson, who argues that scepticism fails because belief is intrinsically veridical. I doubt this. My approach is to identify the distinctively epistemological presuppositions of sceptical argumentation. If this remains undone, Davidsonian reflections on belief and meaning will seem only to transform sceptical problems about knowledge of the world into problems about knowledge of meaning. (shrink)

For over thirty years Professor Rescher has been preoccupied with exploring the scope and limits of human knowledge from an array of different points of view. This book collects together these various threads into a unified treatment of this overall terrain. It argues in detail that while scepticism is about the prospect of factual knowledge about the world is emphatically unwarranted, nevertheless the project of amplifying this knowledge does encounter some specifiable and insuperable limits.

James Beattie was appointed professor of moral philosophy and logic at Marischal College, Aberdeen, Scotland at the age of twenty-five. Though more fond of poetry than philosophy, he became part of the Scottish 'Common Sense' school of philosophy that included Thomas Reid and George Campbell. In 1770 Beattie published the work for which he is best known, An Essay on Truth, an abrasive attack on 'modern scepticism' in general, and on David Hume in particular, subsequently and despite Beattie's (...) attack, Scotland's most famous philosopher. The Essay was a great success, earning its author an honorary degree from Oxford and an audience with George III. Samuel Johnson declared in 1772 that 'We all love Beattie'. Hume, on the other hand, described the Essay as 'a horrible large lie in octavo', and dismissed its author as a 'bigotted silly Fellow'. Although Beattie is no match for Hume as a philosopher, the success of the Essay suggests that, unlike Hume, Beattie voices the characteristic assumptions, and anxieties, of his age. The first part of this selection—the first ever made from Beattie's prose writings—includes several key chapters from the Essay on Truth, along with extracts from all of Beattie's other works on moral philosophy. The topics treated include memory, the existence of God, the nature of virtue, and slavery. The second part of the selection is devoted to Beattie's contributions to literary criticism and aesthetics. Beattie's studies of poetry, music, taste, and the sublime are vital to the understanding of the literary culture out of which developed the early Romanticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge. (shrink)

The world contains objective causal relations and universals, both of which are intimately connected. If these claims are true, they must have far-reaching consequences, breathing new life into the theory of empirical knowledge and reinforcing epistemological realism. Without causes and universals, Professor Fales argues, realism is defeated, and idealism or scepticism wins. Fales begins with a detailed analysis of David Hume's argument that we have no direct experience of necessary connections between events, concluding that Hume was mistaken on (...) this fundamental point. Then, adopting the view of Armstrong and others that causation is grounded in a second-order relation between universals, he explores a range of topics for which the resulting analysis of causation has systematic implications. In particular, causal identity conditions for physical universals are proposed, which generate a new argument for Platonism. The nature of space and time is discussed, with arguments against backward causation and for the view that space and time can exist independently of matter or causal process. Many of Professor Fales's conclusions seem to run counter to received opinion among contemporary empiricists. Yet his method is classically empiricist in spirit, and a chief motive for these metaphysical explorations is epistemological. The final chapters investigate the perennial question of whether an empiricist, internalist and foundational epistemology can support scientific realism. (shrink)

The role of Professor McLaughlin's sceptic is to introduce certain 'sceptical hypotheses', hypotheses which imply the falsity of most of what we believe about the world. Professor McLaughlin asks whether these hypotheses are coherent and thus whether they can tell us anything about what are entitled to believe, or to claim to know. He concludes that, semantic externalism notwithstanding, these hypotheses are both coherent and threatening. I shall not question this conclusion but I do wonder whether the fate (...) of scepticism hangs entirely on the coherence of the sceptical hypotheses. (shrink)

This remarkably clear and comprehensive account of empirical knowledge will be valuable to all students of epistemology and philosophy. The author begins from an explanationist analysis of knowing—a belief counts as knowledge if, and only if, its truth enters into the best explanation for its being held. Defending common sense and scientific realism within the explanationist framework, Alan Goldman provides a new foundational approach to justification. The view that emerges is broadly empiricist, counteracting the recently dominant trend that rejects that (...) framework entirely. Topics treated include the Gettier problem, the nature of explanation and inductive inference, the justification of foundations for knowledge in terms of inference to the best explanation, the possibility of realist interpretations of contemporary science, reference, and the relations between empirical psychology and epistemology. Professor Goldman defends the need for a foundational theory of justification and presents a version that refutes standard criticisms of that doctrine. His defense of realism takes into account contemporary advances in semantics and philosophy of science. It attempts to clarify the kinds of skeptical argument the philosopher must take seriously, without succumbing to them. While recent epistemology has tended to dismiss the traditional foundational approach, it has not provided a suitable alternative. Goldman breaks new ground by adapting that approach within his explanationist, inductive theory. (shrink)

Integrationism advocates a radical epistemological reform in semiological theory. It is a relatively recent perspective, developed by Oxford Professor Roy Harris (1931–2015); yet integrationism’s main principles are best seen as the outcome of different timid trends in the history of theories of language. The epistemological exigencies that this perspective puts on theorists has often provoked reproaches that this perspective was too negative, nihilistic, destructive, a form of scepticism. This article takes this criticism at its word and outlines a (...) comparison between the main form of scepticism known in Greek Antiquity, Pyrrhonism, and integrationism. A historical outline of the development of both movements is drawn, for context. Then particular issues serve as comparison points between both: the definition of doctrinal cohesion; the relation of each intellectual movement to ‘science’; the use of particular forms of arguments or ‘modes’; and some specific aspects of language-use that Pyrrhonism has addressed. (shrink)

M. F. Burnyeat taught for 14 years in the Philosophy Department of University College London, then for 18 years in the Classics Faculty at Cambridge, 12 of them as the Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, before migrating to Oxford in 1996 to become a Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at All Souls College. The studies, articles and reviews collected in these two volumes of Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy were all written, and all but two published, before that (...) decisive change. Whether designed for a scholarly audience or for a wider public, they range from the Presocratics to Augustine, from Descartes and Bishop Berkeley to Wittgenstein and G. E. Moore. Their subject-matter falls under four main headings: 'Logic and Dialectic' and 'Scepticism Ancient and Modern', which make up the first volume, with 'Knowledge' and 'Philosophy and the Good Life' contained in this, the second volume. The title 'Explorations' well expresses Burnyeat's ability to discover new aspects of familiar texts, new ways of solving old problems. In his hands the history of philosophy becomes itself a philosophical activity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"General Rules" in Hume's Treatise THOMAS K. HEARN, JR. IT COULDBE CONFIDENTLYASSERTED in 1925 that Hume was "no longer a living figure." x Stuart Hampshire records that when he began his philosophy studies in 1933, Hume's conclusions were regarded at Oxford as "extravagances of scepticism which no one could seriously accept." 2 That virtually no Anglo-American philosopher would now share such opinions about Hume testifies not only to (...) the general change in the philosophical climate but, in addition, it reflects a transformation which has occurred in the interpretation of Hume's philosophy. In eitecting this transformation.much credit is due to the work of Norman Kemp Smith. Kemp Smith argued that preoccupation with Hume's empiricist heritage and his scepticism had blinded scholars to the fundamentally constructive intent of his philosophy, and, indeed, that only from the perspective of his positive achievement was it possible to grasp the nature and significance of Humean scepticism. This paper, in keeping with the basic orientation of Kemp Smith, sets out a central feature in the attempt to describe and assess Hume's constructive, nonsceptical point of view: Hume attributes to general rules "a mighty influence on our actions and understanding..." (374).4 This paper examines the Treatise to show that this was not just a casual comment. To discuss the "influence" of general rules requires an examination of their character and the various aspects of "action and understanding " in which such rules function. The thesis to be developed can be stated briefly. In Book I Hume introduces two sorts of general rules which must be distinguished carefully. One type of rule describes a propensity of the imagination to extend the scope This research was supported by a grant from the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities. x Charles W. Hendcl, Studies in the Philosophy of David Hume (New York, 1963), p. 20. (First published in 1925.) For Professor Hendel's later comments on this statement, see pp. xxi ft. "Hume's Place in Philosophy" in David Hume, ed. D. F. Pears (London, 1963), p. 3. a Proper stress is due here to the phrase "basic orientation." There is much about Kemp Smith's understanding of Hume which is mistaken in my view. 9 The page references in parentheses refer to the Svlby-Bigge edition of A Treatise o/ Human Nature (Oxford, 1888). [4o5] 406 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of judgments formed in one set of circumstances to other resembling but non-identical circumstances. The other type of general rule, the discussion of which largely occupies this paper, functions to correct certain natural propensities which result in erroneous belief or action if permitted to operate unchecked. The same pattern, a natural tendency requiring correction by general rules, is exhibited in all three books of the Treatise, and can be said to represent one of the basic ingredients in Hume's account of human nature and experience. It is somewhat surprising that in a book which patiently discusses almost evcxy theme in the Treatise, Kemp Smith's study contains no discussion at all of rules. This is the more puzzling as Kemp Smith clearly recognized that by reflection the understanding supplies principles which are normative for the interpretation of experience.5 Our aim in this study is to discuss what for Hume these principles are, and, as far as possible, how they fit into the Humean account of human nature. A fuller understanding of the nature and function of such reflective principles is required to spare Kemp Smith's interpretation from a seeming inconsistency. This apparent inconsistency arises because Kemp Smith takes the slavery of reason to the passions as the "key" to his understanding of Hume, but then develops the view that for Hume reason/s a passion, in Hume's words, "a wonderful and unintelligible instinct." (179)6 The inconsistency disappears when it is recognized that Kemp Smith's account of Hume requires a more subtle and complex understanding of the role of reason than that suggested by the emphasis on the "slavery of reason" especially in the early parts of the book. This study represents a way of supplying the broader and more const,ructive understanding of reason which... (shrink)

While results from statistical modelling too often receive blind acceptance, we question whether there is any real alternative to use of modelling. This does not diminish the main point of Professor Freedman, which is that healthy scepticism towards models is needed. While agreeing with many of Professor Freedman's points concerning the objectivist debate, we argue that there is a Bayesian school of objectivists that possesses considerable advantages over the classical objectivist school. At the least, the debate needs (...) to be enlarged to include this school. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant might have stated the central and urgent problem facing contemporary literary theory as the need to seek a path between dogmatism and skepticism. We confront today a multiplicity of critical methods, each filling books and journals with no doubt convincing arguments for its correctness. If we cling to one, denying others possess truth, we are dogmatists; if, however, we grant that two or three or all are equally true, we admit that each is at the same time false (...) in relation to the others’ truth, and so we are skeptics. The “dogmatic employment” of reason, Kant noted, “lands us in dogmatic assertions to which other assertions, equally specious, can always be opposed-that is, in scepticism.”1Into this professional breach steps “pluralism” , claiming it can vindicate sharply limited patterns of reading which nonetheless allow for diversity in the relation of word to idea and, so, of interpreting reader to text. This would make it possible to encompass within a single theory the insights which both camps find in their positions. Clearly, this entices.But do we really understand what pluralism is, if it is at all? Its critical practice already exists—this essay grew from a 1984 conference which sought possible intellectual “foundations” of that practice—but how are these practitioners to understand what they do? Pluralism’s philosophic pedigree may have been neatly sketched by Nelson Goodman as the traditionThat began when Kant exchanged the structure of the world for the structure of the mind, continued when C. I. Lewis exchanged the structure of the mind for the structure of concepts, and that now proceeds to exchange the structure of concepts for the structure of the several symbols systems of the sciences, philosophy, the arts, perception, and everyday discourse. The movement is from unique truth and a world fixed and found to a diversity of right and even conflicting versions of world in the making.2 1. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith , p. 57; all further references to this work, abbreviated CPR, will be included in the text.2. Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking , p. x. Since Lewis is not often classified among pluralists, I support Goodman by calling attention to Pepper having been Lewis’ student and to Lewis’ observation that he and Pepper “have been, so to say, continuously aware of each other, and of a common background of thought…. I should like to think that our respective views, both in theory of value and in ethics, are mutually supplementary rather than rival theories” . Numerous essays from this volume are useful for situating Lewis. Bruch Erlich is associate professor of English and modern languages at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln where he teaches comparative literature and literary theory. He has published on Shakespeare, Walter Benjamin, and intellectual history and is preparing a book on cognitive universals in tension with the experience of historical change, Unintelligible Limits: Time, meaning, and a Hermeneutic of Suffering. (shrink)

Hume'sDialogues Concerning Natural Religion are still much with us. What appears to be the definitive edition was published by Professor Norman Kemp Smith in 1935 with a learned introduction which, among other things, assembled a mass of evidence pointing to the conclusion that Philo is to be identified with Hume himself, and that Hume in the Dialogues is deliberately trying to undermine the religious hypothesis. Though these conclusions have been widely accepted, Dr. B. M. Laing, in the April issue (...) of Philosophy, strenuously attacked them in an ingenious argument based in part on his already published thesis that Hume's fundamental philosophy is not really the scepticism so long assigned him. Dr. Laing takes the opportunity in passing to indicate his sympathy with the recent position of a distinguished British poet that Voltaire, also, has been traditionally abused in the assumption that on the question of religion he wrote with his tongue in his cheek. The present examination is not designed to inquire into this new mode of making the wicked pious; nor to push the question back from the Dialogues to Hume's basic philosophy; nor to press the writer's conviction [“The Enigma of Hume,” Mind, XLV pp. 334–349] that not only is Philo to be identified as Hume, but in addition, Cleanthes as Joseph Butler, and Demea as Samuel Clarke. The present purpose is solely to indicate certain unhistorical bases of Dr. Laing's attack on the more traditional view so ably championed by Professor Norman Kemp Smith. (shrink)

Thomas Reid is the foremost exponent of the Scottish 'common sense' school of philosophy. Educated at Marischal College in Aberdeen, Reid subsequently taught at King’s College, and was a founder of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society. His Inquiry Into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense was published in 1764, the same year he succeeded Adam Smith as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. He resigned from active teaching duties in 1785 to devote himself to (...) writing, and published two more books — Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man and Essays on the Active Powers of Man. Within a short time of publication, Reid’s works were translated into French and German, and greatly influenced debates in philosophy and psychology in Europe. His influence in the emerging colleges and universities of post-revolutionary America was even greater. Reid was widely regarded as David Hume’s most sophisticated contemporary critic. His critique of the "theory of ideas", that lay behind both Hume’s scepticism and Berkeley’s immaterialism, his critique of Locke’s theory of personal identity, and his defence of “moral liberty” against determinism, are all of enduring interest and significance. The aim of this comprehensive selection of his writings is to make the key elements of Reid’s philosophical work available to a new generation of readers. Two other philosophers of the ‘common sense’ school are featured in the Library of Scottish Philosophy— James Beattie and Dugald Stewart. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:John Locke and the Eighteenth-Century Divine by Alan P.F. SellKathy SquadritoAlan P.F. Sell. John Locke and the Eighteenth-Century Divine. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997. Pp. xi + 444. Cloth, $75.00.Professor Sell’s goal is to discern the impact of Locke’s thought upon the later divines; Sell’s scope is the seventeenth century through the nineteenth century. Most of the text is a detailed descriptive account of various scholars’ (...) reactions to Locke’s epistemology, metaphysics, and views concerning religion. Sell focuses on the question of the relative authority of scripture, reason and revelation. He contends that Locke’s epistemological and political positions are intimately bound up with his Christian faith, that as a conservative empiricist, Locke is “much more the rationalist than he has sometimes been painted” (48). The important question bequeathed by Locke to Christian apologetics is: “can the epistemological starting point be redeemed for Christian apologetic use or is it not viable at all?” (12). Sell addresses this question throughout the following chapters: “Ideas, Knowledge and Truth”; “Reason, Revelation, Faith and Scripture”; “Morality and Liberty”; “Toleration and Government”; and “Christian Doctrine”.Sell notes Locke’s roots in Calvinism, his appreciation of Arminian doctrine and his friendship with a number of prominent Latitudinarians. He argues that most criticisms of Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity are misguided. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Locke was charged with scepticism, deism, Socinianism and materialism. Sell presents the objections of numerous scholars, notably Bishop Stillingfleet, William Carroll, John Norris, Richard Bentley, Henry Lee, Richard Price, Bishop Berkeley, and Samuel Johnson. He also covers the views of Locke’s defenders, including Anthony Collins, Catharine Cockburn and Samuel Bold.The reader might be disappointed with Sell’s short presentation of an inordinate number of Lockean critics; there is little analysis or discussion of the merits of the particular objections cited. He does offer an analysis of the general charges against Locke, but rarely quotes Locke sufficiently to justify his conclusion that Locke was not a deist, sceptic, or materialist. Sell simply takes Locke’s word for it. This book is best taken as an excellent reference guide.Sell contends that in spite of Locke’s friendship with deists such as Collins, Locke’s Reasonableness of the Christian Religion was written to dissolve the deist prejudice against Christianity. He dismisses the charge of deism because: (1) Locke argues for revelation and against natural religion, (2) Locke’s God possesses the traditional attributes assigned to him (power, omniscience, providence), (3) Locke grounds morality not exclusively in natural law, as did deists, but in the gospel, (4) the anti-materialist thrust of Book IV, Chapter X of the Essay, and (5) Locke’s argument that there can be truths of revelation which are above reason. Sell concludes that the “main problem posed to Locke by the deists was that of guilt by association” (209), in other words Locke’s work was misused for political reasons.Sell considers the charge of Socinianism more serious than that of deism. Socinianism is defined by its denial of the Trinity, and by the claims that there cannot be an innate idea of God, that there is no original corruption deriving from Adam, that the wicked will not suffer eternal torments, and that some bodies are not raised at general resurrection. Despite Locke’s agreement with most Socinian claims, Sell claims that [End Page 631] Locke cannot be pinned down on the issue of the Trinity. There is no question, he says, that “the Locke of 1662 affirmed both the doctrine of the Trinity and the human divine nature of Christ, whilst recognizing that the human mind could not explain how these things could be so; there is no question that especially from the 1690’s onwards he was actively reviewing the matter; there is no hard evidence that he ever repudiated the doctrine.” (214)According to Stillingfleet, Locke’s sensationalism and his proposal that matter might be capable of thought undermine Christian faith. Sell does not find this charge convincing. He defends Locke’s distinction between “the man” and “the person,” stressing that Locke claims a high degree of probability that the... (shrink)

Let me begin with a true story. Years ago, early in my career as a professor of philosophy, I had a fascinating series of conversations with a student whom I will call Peter. He was a bright and incisive senior, with a double major in philosophy and psychology. Raised in a religious family, the son of a Christian minister, he was himself unable to believe. His doubts were too strong. But the odd fact was that he genuinely wanted to (...) believe. His religious scepticism deeply troubled him; part of him envied the faith of his parents. How do you go about making yourself believe?, he asked me. How do you go about having the kinds of religious experiences that lead people to faith? These were long and intense conversations, and I was unable to move Peter away from his doubts. So far as I know he is still a sceptic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 353 proportionalism that Finnis's theological argument exploits. In this regard, there is no moral theory, good or bad, which overreaches so far as proportionalism does. Princeton University Princeton, New Jersey ROBERT P. GEORGE Faithful Persuasion: In Aid of a Rhetoric of Christian Theology. By DAVID S. CUNNINGHAM. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991. Pp. xvii + 312. $29.95 (cloth) ; $16.95 (paper). The relation between (...) words and the Word has always been of in· terest in Christian theology. Earlier in this century a school of writers approached " the Bible as literature " with a view to bringing Scripture into a more persuasive relation with literature at large, but their insistence on the rigorous exclusion of dogmatic elements from literary scrutiny impoverished their work. A later set of procedures and perspectives on rhetoric and language in their relation to reality was bet· ter able to allow the utterances of a text's speakers their own integrity, whether sacred or secular. In any case, a thematic interpretation of the founding texts of Christianity, influenced by Aristotle's Rhetoricwhere form is a means for persuasively communicating an idea-content -had long predominated in ecclesial usage, germane as it was to the didactic concerns of the Church. An alternative tradition, more indebted to Aristotle's Poetics, where form, content, and functions are treated as factors making for the indissoluble whole which is the literary work, has been less conspicuous-though its offer of initiation into the " world " of the sacred writers gives it great exegetical potential. The text's "word " should be encountered at the level of its own patterned imagery and wrought design. In the appreciation of the Gospels this has become in recent decades a commonplace. However, as the T. S. Eliot scholar Helen Gardner warned, one should not so react against the older approach as to treat the biblical text as the product of a disembodied imagination, rather than a human being writing a work that might make his readers "wise unto salvation." David S. Cunningham's Faithful Persuasion extends this discussion of the propriety or impropriety of a rhetorical approach to Scripture to the discourse of Christian theology as a whole. The intent is a laudable one but its execution vitiated, to my mind, by the excessive concessions to scepticism from which the author sets out. Because his theological epistemology, aware of the limitations of the propositions in which we assert the truths of faith, will grant those assertions no more than a 354 BOOK REVIEWS (continuously) revisable character, he falls back on an account of theology as rhetoric so as to make the best of a bad job. For persuasion is what we use when we know demonstration is hopeless. As a result, Professor Cunningham's study, which could most usefully have "placed" a variety of theologies of past, present, and, prospectively, future on the spectrum of (onto-) logic, poetic, and rhetoric, concludes instead that theology must regard itself as rhetorical or perish! This inevitably narrows the several services theologies of different kinds can perform for the Church. Imagine how biblical studies would be reduced were the exegete only to treat his text as paraenesis, and never as history or as a symbolic world. Nonetheless, on the way from its (as I find) unsatisfactory startingpoint and to its depressing conclusion, Faithful Persuasion has worthwhile points to make about a number of authors (of various periods) and topics, though it might have made them more persuasively (its author's key term) had the intended audience (middle-brow or academic?) been more clearly viewed in advance. AIDAN NICHOLS, O.P. Blackfriars Cambridge, England Church and Culture: German Catholic Theology, 1860-1914. By THOMAS FRANKLIN O'MEARA, O.P. Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991. Pp. x + 260. $35.95 (cloth). " In 1925, Baden's Kultusminister, a Protestant, began an address to the Gorresgesellschaft in Heidelberg by describing this era: ' Brave men like Hertling, Schell, Julius Bachem, and Carl Muth, shook the German Catholic world in order to lead it out of its fortress, to lead it again into the midst of the life and activity of the entire people, even when this seemed at... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:AN EARLY ACCOUNT OF DAVID HUME In New Letters of David Hume, Professor Klibansky and Mossner lamented the "dearth of information on Hume's early development". Though some new facts and documents have emerged since 1954, the early period of Hume's life, to 1740, remains the most obscure. The account of Hume in 1740 presented below adds nothing to our knowledge of the evolution of Hume's philosophy, but it (...) does give us an interesting picture of the young philosopher in society, and it suggests that those traits of character which later earned him the title of "le bon David" were already in evidence. The sketch below stresses, as many of his friends and adversaries were later to do, the divergence between the detached scepticism of his writings and his amiable engagement in the social life of a company. And if we take seriously the report that Hume was left in charge of the domestic "oeconomy" in the family he was visiting at Richmond, we might see this as foreshadowing his solicitude over, and constant interest in, the management of his own household and financial affairs in later years. The account printed here is an extract from a letter by William Mure of Caldwell to his sister Agnes, 2 dated "Richmond June 5th 1740". Mure has long been recognized as one of Hume's most intimate friends: Hume himself summed up the relationship when he wrote, on Mure' s death in 1776, "The Baron was among the oldest and best Friends I had 3 in the World." The document published here constitutes the earliest concrete evidence of their friendship yet recovered, ante-dating Hume's first published letter to Mure by more than two years. It appears that the two men were spending the summer of 17 40 in or near London, and possibly both staying at the house of some mutual friend. Mure had at this time just finished his study of law at Edinburgh University, and would probably have been vacationing in 79 London eri route to Leyden, where he was to complete his legal training. Hume may have been in the capital preparing to see Book III of his A Treatise of Human Nature, "Of Morals", through the press: it was published in November 1740. This, and the first two books of the Treatise, which had been published in 1739, were presumably the writings which he discussed with the company at Richmond. We have been here now these ten days, and pass our time in a very agreeable way, we have our aountrey man Mr. Hume the author of the Metaphysical books 7 that you heard so much of last summer as a party in our retirement, he is a very sensible young fellow and extreamly curious in most parts of learning and how much soever he has shown himself a Sceptick upon subjects of speculation and enquiry, he is as far from it as any man with regard to the qualities of a well natured friendly disposition, and an honest heart which are no doubt of greater consequence to the intrinsick worth of a character than any abstract opinions whatever. As he is very communicative of all his knowledge we have a great deal from him in the way of dispute and argument, and not a little too in the way of plain information we reason upon every point with the greatest freedom, even his own books, (which we are working at at present) we canvass with ease, and attack him boldly whereever we can get the least hold of him, and question or contradict his most favourite notions; all this goes on with thè greatest good humour, and affords us entertainment both within doors, and in the feilds at our walks in this delightful country, which is the finest that one can possibly imagine, and has the preference by people that has travel'd throw most of Europe, to any they ever saw. We make use of our Philosopher too in another way less becoming the dignity of his Character, as- we 80 keep family within ourselves, he provides the necessaries of household (¡economy and manages all the affairs of house keeping. From these... (shrink)