Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy

Selected Essays

Paul Russell (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

520 Seiten

2021
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-757726-4 (ISBN)

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In this collection of essays, philosopher Paul Russell addresses major figures and central topics of the history of early modern philosophy. Most of these essays are studies on the philosophy of David Hume, one of the great figures in the history of philosophy. One central theme, connecting many of the essays, concerns Hume's fundamental irreligious intentions. Russell argues that a proper appreciation of the significance of Hume's irreligious concerns, which runs through his whole philosophy, serves to discredit the deeply entrenched framework for understanding Hume - and much of early modern philosophy - in terms of the idea of "British Empiricism". In a substantive introduction, Russell outlines how his various insights overlap and connect to each other.

The volume is organized thematically into five sections: metaphysics, free will, ethics, religion, and general interpretations of Hume's philosophy. The collection also features a previously unpublished essay on Hume's atheism and an essay on Adam Smith's views on religion and ethics that has not been previously published in English.

Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy presents the reader with Russell's substantial and significant set of interconnected observations and insights on the matters and figures of the greatest importance in early modern philosophy. These essays not only provide different and original perspectives on the subject, they also show that the various issues addressed are very relevant to each other, as well as to a number of major topics in contemporary philosophy.

Paul Russell is a Professor of Philosophy at Lund University (Sweden), where he also serves as Director of the Lund Gothenburg Responsibility Project (LGRP).

Contents
Introduction
Acknowledgments
Sources

I. Metaphysics & Epistemology
1. Hume's "Two Definitions" of Cause and the Ontology of "Double Existence"
Appendix 2020: Was Hume a "Causal Realist"?
2. Probability, Induction and a Future State: Hume contra Butler
3. The Material World and Natural Religion in Hume's Treatise
4. Causation, Cosmology and the Limits of Philosophy

II. Free Will and Moral Luck
5. Of Gods and Clocks: Free Will and the Hobbes-Bramhall Debate
6. "Hume's Lengthy Digression": Free Will in the Treatise
7. Hume on Responsibility and Punishment
8. Smith on Moral Sentiment and Moral Luck

III. Ethics, Virtue and Optimism
9. Hume's Anatomy of Virtue
10. Hume's Optimism and Williams' Pessimism

IV. Skepticism, Religion and Atheism
11. Hume's Lucretian Mission: Is it Self-Refuting?
12. Hume's Skepticism and the Problem of Atheism
Appendix: "Abduction and Hume's Atheism"
13. "True Religion" and Hume's Practical Atheism
14. Irreligion and the Impartial Spectator in Smith's Moral System

V. Irreligion and the Unity of Hume's Thought
15. Hume's Legacy and the Idea of British Empiricism
16. Hume's Philosophy of Irreligion and the Myth of British Empiricism

Other writings by Paul Russell on Hume and Early Modern Philosophy
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	03.08.2021
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	238 x 163 mm
Gewicht	894 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Geschichte der Philosophie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
ISBN-10	0-19-757726-1 / 0197577261
ISBN-13	978-0-19-757726-4 / 9780197577264
Zustand	Neuware