Influencing ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of science, David Humes Treatise of Human Nature remains unrivalled by perhaps any other works in philosophy. The Treatise is of interest, and not merely historical interest, to professional academic philosophers. It is remarkable that it can, and often does, also serve as one of the best introductions to philosophy-to what philosophers really do-for the novice.
The major topics that have dominated contemporary philosophy can nearly all be found in the Treatise, and in many cases they are the locus classicus for ensuing debates. Among these are the foundations of ethics, causation and induction, personal identity, skepticism and the external world, philosophical method, meaning and empiricism, and immortality.
About the author
David Hume was born on April 26, 1711, and grew up in Ninewells and Edinburgh, Scotland. His widowed mother educated her ‘uncommonly wake-minded’ son until he enrolled at age eleven at the University of Edinburgh, where he initially considered a career in law. At fifteen years old, he left the university to answer inner questions of theology and metaphysics. Among his friends were notables Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), Adam Smith (1723-90), and James Boswell (1740-95). After his death, others including Auguste Comte (1798-1857), Charles Darwin (1809-82), and Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) admitted admiration for his writings.
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