AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Hume's philosophical -writings received little attention, except in Scottish circles, and it was not until the present century that Hume came to be generally regarded as one of the greatest British philosophers. At the time when I began this thesis, there was still relatively little published criticism of his ethical thought, for reasons which are discussed elsewhere. Interest has largely been confined to his epistemology, and his ethics have been neglected or treated as subsidiary to his theory of knowledge. It was never suggested, I think, until Professor Kemp Smith's Philosophy of David Hume appeared in 1941, that moral philosophy was Hume's original, and perhaps his main, concern. This suggestion, coming from such an authoritative source, might alone be thought to justify a re-examination of his ethical writings.[...]