Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T13:54:06.410Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Critical Notice: James A Harris’ Hume: an intellectual biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Anders Kraal*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Abstract

James Harris’s new Hume biography offers, among other things, ‘a series of conjectures as to what Hume’s intentions were in writing in the particular ways that he did about human nature, politics, economics, history, and religion’. The biography is particularly novel with regard to Hume’s intentions when writing about religion, which, Harris argues (in opposition to recent developments in Hume scholarship), were rather benign. Harris fails to appreciate the full extent of the difficulties attaching to his series of conjectures, however.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bailey, Alan, and O’Brien, Dan. 2014. Hume’s Critique of Religion: ‘Sick Men’s Dreams’. Dordrecht: Springer. 10.1007/978-94-007-6615-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Don. 2010. “Review of The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion by Paul Russell.” Philosophical Review 119(1): 108112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herrick, James A. 1997. The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Scepticism, 1680–1750. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Heydt, Colin. 2010. “Review of The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion by Paul Russell.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 48(3): 401402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurlbutt, R. H. III 1954. “David Hume and Scientific Theism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 14(4): 486497.Google Scholar
Holden, Thomas. 2010. Spectres of False Divinity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579945.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, David. 2008. Dialogues and Natural History of Religion. Edited by Gaskin, J. C. A.. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1522/030145278CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, David. 2000. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Jeffner, Anders. 1966. Butler and Hume on Religion. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wicksell.Google Scholar
Kraal, Anders. 2013. “Philo’s Argument from Evil in Hume’s Dialogues X: A Semantic Interpretation.” Sophia 52(4): 573592. 10.1007/s11841-013-0372-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meeker, Kevin. 2015. “Review of The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion by Paul Russell.” Mind 124: 675679.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millican, Peter. 2011. “Review of The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion by Paul Russell.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 19(2): 348353. 10.1080/09608788.2011.555168CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mossner, Ernest Campbell. 1980. The Life of David Hume. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Greig, J. Y. T., ed. 1932. The Letters of David Hume. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Mossner, Ernest Campbell, and Ross, Ian Simpson, eds. 1977. The Correspondence of Adam Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Russell, Paul. 2008. The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195110333.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar