Hume A Guide For The Perplexed

Continuum's Guides for the Perplexed are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to fathom, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material. David Hume is arguably one of the most important philosophers ever to have written in English. His monumental contributions to epistemology and metaphysics, represented in his two landmark works, A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, were hugely influential on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet he is also notorious as a puzzling and difficult thinker and students of his work and thought regularly face very particular intellectual challenges. Hume: A Guide for the Perplexed is a clear and thorough account of Hume's philosophy, his major works and ideas, providing an ideal guide to the important and complex thought of this key philosopher. The book covers the whole range of Hume's work, offering examination of the key areas of his thought, including the origin and association of ideas, space and time, causal (inductive) reasoning, necessary connexions, free will, personal identity, and scepticism. Geared towards the specific requirements of students who need to reach a sound understanding of Hume's thought, the book provides a cogent and reliable survey of his work and ideas. This is the ideal companion to the study of this most influential and challenging of philosophers.

The Empiricists: A Guide for the Perplexed offers a clear and thorough guide to the key thinkers responsible for developing this central concept in the history of philosophy. The book focuses on the canonical figures of the empiricist movement, Locke, Berkeley and Hume, but also explores the contributions made by other key figures such as Bacon, Hobbes, Boyle and Newton. Laurence Carlin presents the views of these hugely influential thinkers in the context of the Scientific revolution, the intellectual movement in which they emerged, and explores in detail the philosophical issues that were central to their work. Specifically designed to meet the needs of students seeking a thorough understanding of the topic, this book is the ideal guide to a key concept in the history of philosophy.

'Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.' David Hume David Hume is generally recognized as the United Kingdom's greatest philosopher, as well as a notable historian and essayist and a central figure of the Enlightenment. Yet his work is delicately poised between scepticism and naturalism, between despair at the limited powers of the mind and optimism at the progress we can make by understanding it. This difficult balancing act has given rise to a multitude of different interpretations: reading Hume has never been free of controversy. In this new approach to his writings, Simon Blackburn describes how Hume can be considered one of the earliest, and most successful, evolutionary psychologists, weaving plausible natural accounts of the way we should think of ourselves and of how we have come to be what we are.

This Guide provides students with the scholarly andinterpretive tools they need to understand Hume’s ATreatise of Human Nature and its influence on modernphilosophy. A student guide to Hume’s A Treatise of HumanNature. Focuses on recent developments in Hume scholarship. Covers topics such as the formulation, reception and scope ofthe Treatise, imagination and memory, the passions, moralsentiments, and the role of sympathy. All the chapters are newly written by Hume scholars. Each chapter guides the reader through a portion of theTreatise, explaining the central arguments and keycontemporary interpretations of those arguments.

Invaluable wisdom on living a good life from one of the Enlightenment's greatest philosophers David Hume (1711–1776) is perhaps best known for his ideas about cause and effect and his criticisms of religion, but he is rarely thought of as a philosopher with practical wisdom to offer. Yet Hume's philosophy is grounded in an honest assessment of nature—human nature in particular. The Great Guide is an engaging and eye-opening account of how Hume's thought should serve as the basis for a complete approach to life. In this enthralling book, Julian Baggini masterfully interweaves biography with intellectual history and philosophy to give us a complete vision of Hume's guide to life. He follows Hume on his life's journey, literally walking in the great philosopher's footsteps as Baggini takes readers to the places that inspired Hume the most, from his family estate near the Scottish border to Paris, where, as an older man, he was warmly embraced by French society. Baggini shows how Hume put his philosophy into practice in a life that blended reason and passion, study and leisure, and relaxation and enjoyment. The Great Guide includes 145 Humean maxims for living well, on topics ranging from the meaning of success and the value of travel to friendship, facing death, identity, and the importance of leisure. This book shows how life is far richer with Hume as your guide.

"We all like to think we value and abide by it - but what is the truth? In a world with so many contradictory beliefs, habits and religions, does any such thing really exist? Simon Blackburn's new book is a sure-footed companion through this thorny territory, showing us the different ways in which we have interpreted and sought the truth from classical to modern times." "Getting to grips with the issues that touch all of us, Truth asks: are there really such things as moral absolutes or good and evil? Can we maintain any form of personal integrity in a society awash with cults, astrology, Feng shui, homeopathy and self-help? Or should every viewpoint be given respect, however absurd we may think it? This essential guide to truth, the enemies of truth and the wars that have been fought between them steers a clear path through ideas such as relativism and absolutism, toleration and belief, objectivity and knowledge and the new religions of 'Science' and 'the Market'. It introduces figures from Plato and Locke to Nietzsche and Foucault, and explores the moral and political implications, as well as the nuances, of the many conflicting concepts in the struggle to determine what we really mean by 'the truth'." "Whether you're an atheist or a true believer, a post-modernist or a pragmatist, a sceptic or a nihilist - or just perplexed by it all - this book offers positive guidance for anyone who believes that the truth is out there."--BOOK JACKET.

This book, by the author of 'Small is Beautiful' is about the different ways in which people may see and the blindness of only seeing in one particular way. The arguments Schumacher presents are invigorating, provoking and often dramatic.

Examines each section of Hume's second Enquiry in detail and considers its place within Hume's philosophy as a whole.