The Pursuits of Philosophy: An Introduction to the Life and Thought of David Hume

BAIER, Annette C.

ISBN 10: 0674061683 / ISBN 13: 9780674061682

Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2011

About this Item

viii, [2], 165 p. 19 cm. B&w illustrations. Quarter black cloth with blue paper boards in pictorial dustjacket.

Seller Inventory # 136132

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Pursuits of Philosophy: An Introduction to the Life and Thought of David Hume
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
• Publication Date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0674061683
• ISBN 13: 9780674061682
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Philosophy

About this title

Synopsis

Marking the tercentenary of David Hume's birth, Annette Baier has created an engaging guide to the philosophy of one of the greatest thinkers of Enlightenment Britain. Drawing deeply on a lifetime of scholarship and incisive commentary, she deftly weaves Hume’s autobiography together with his writings and correspondence, finding in these personal experiences new ways to illuminate his ideas about religion, human nature, and the social order.

Excerpts from Hume’s autobiography at the beginning of each chapter open a window onto the eighteenth-century context in which Hume’s philosophy developed. Famous in Christian Britain as a polymath and a nonbeliever, Hume recounts how his early encounters with clerical authority laid the foundation for his lifelong skepticism toward religion. In Scotland, where he grew up, he had been forced to study lists of sins in order to spot his own childish flaws, he reports. Later, as a young man, he witnessed the clergy’s punishment of a pregnant unmarried servant, and this led him to question the violent consequences of the Church’s emphasis on the doctrine of original sin. Baier’s clear interpretation of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature explains the link between Hume’s growing disillusionment and his belief that ethics should be based on investigations of human nature, not on religious dogma.

Four months before he died, Hume concluded his autobiography with a eulogy he wrote for his own funeral. It makes no mention of his flaws, critics, or disappointments. Baier’s more realistic account rivets our attention on connections between the way Hume lived and the way he thought―insights unavailable to Hume himself, perhaps, despite his lifelong introspection.

About the Author

Annette C. Baier was Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy, Emerita, at the University of Pittsburgh. She also taught at the philosophy department of the University of Otago in New Zealand.