Commerce and Politics in Hume's History of England

Commerce and Politics in Hume's History of England

Author: Jia Wei

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1783271876

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Illuminates the relationship between Hume the political thinker, Hume the historian, and Hume the political economist and highlights the social, economic and institutional changes which he wove into an innovative theory of causation David Hume's six-volume History of England: From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 (1754-61) is probably his most important work as a constitutional historian and political theorist. Jia Wei's book shows that the History can be understood in two ways: firstly, as Hume's own narrative of England's state formation, and secondly, as his answer to the question of how eighteenth-century Britain could cope with the challengesof commercial revolution. It illuminates the relationship between Hume the political thinker, Hume the historian, and Hume the political economist and highlights the social, economic and institutional changes which he wove into aninnovative theory of causation. The first part of the book considers Hume's account of the fundamental rationale of maritime trade and England's unique approach to liberty in the modern era. The second part looks at his views concerning the profound impact of maritime trade on English politics. From his perspective, the problem of how to cope with the challenges posed by the commercial revolution in eighteenth-century Britain was closely linked tothe question of how transoceanic trade had fundamentally recast English politics from the sixteenth century onwards. This study shows how these two narratives were interwoven into Hume's History and will be of interest to scholars and students not only of David Hume and political theory but of historiography, eighteenth-century British history and Enlightenment studies. JIA WEI received her PhD from the University of Cambridge.


Hume's Politics

Hume's Politics

Author: Andrew Sabl

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-09-08

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0691168172

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Hume's Politics provides a comprehensive examination of David Hume's political theory, and is the first book to focus on Hume's monumental History of England as the key to his distinctly political ideas. Andrew Sabl argues that conventions of authority are the main building blocks of Humean politics, and explores how the History addresses political change and disequilibrium through a dynamic treatment of coordination problems. Dynamic coordination, as employed in Hume's work, explains how conventions of political authority arise, change, adapt to new social and economic conditions, improve or decay, and die. Sabl shows how Humean constitutional conservatism need not hinder--and may in fact facilitate--change and improvement in economic, social, and cultural life. He also identifies how Humean liberalism can offer a systematic alternative to neo-Kantian approaches to politics and liberal theory. At once scholarly and accessibly written, Hume's Politics builds bridges between political theory and political science. It treats issues of concern to both fields, including the prehistory of political coordination, the obstacles that must be overcome in order for citizens to see themselves as sharing common political interests, the close and counterintuitive relationship between governmental authority and civic allegiance, the strategic ethics of political crisis and constitutional change, and the ways in which the biases and injustices endemic to executive power can be corrected by legislative contestation and debate.


David Hume's Political Economy

David Hume's Political Economy

Author: Margaret Schabas

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1134362501

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This collection of twelve new essays by distinguished scholars in the fields of history and the philosophy of economics is one of the first book-length studies of Hume‘s political economy.


Opinion and Reform in Hume's Political Philosophy

Opinion and Reform in Hume's Political Philosophy

Author: John B. Stewart

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 140086285X

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"The picture of Hume clinging timidly to a raft of custom and artifice, because, poor skeptic, he has no alternative, is wrong," writes John Stewart. "Hume was confident that by experience and reflection philosophers can achieve true principles." In this revisionary work Stewart surveys all of David Hume's major writings to reveal him as a liberal moral and political philosopher. Against the background of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century history and thought, Hume emerges as a proponent not of conservatism but of reform. Stewart first presents the dilemma over morals in the modern natural-law school, then examines the new approach to moral and political philosophy adopted by Hume's precursors Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hutcheson, and Butler. Illuminating Hume's explanation of the standards and rules that should govern private and public life, the author challenges interpretations of Hume's philosophy as conservative by demonstrating that he did not dismiss reason as a key factor determining right and wrong in moral and political contexts. Stewart goes on to show that Hume viewed private property, the market, contracts, and the rule of law as essential to genuine civilized society, and explores Hume's criticism of contemporary British beliefs concerning government, religion, commerce, international relations, and social structure. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


A Philosopher's Economist

A Philosopher's Economist

Author: Margaret Schabas

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2020-07-15

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 022669125X

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Reconsiders the centrality and legacy of Hume’s economic thought and serves as an important springboard for reflections on the philosophical underpinnings of economics. Although David Hume’s contributions to philosophy are firmly established, his economics has been largely overlooked. A Philosopher’s Economist offers the definitive account of Hume’s “worldly philosophy” and argues that economics was a central preoccupation of his life and work. Margaret Schabas and Carl Wennerlind show that Hume made important contributions to the science of economics, notably on money, trade, and public finance. Hume’s astute understanding of human behavior provided an important foundation for his economics and proved essential to his analysis of the ethical and political dimensions of capitalism. Hume also linked his economic theory with policy recommendations and sought to influence people in power. While in favor of the modern commercial world, believing that it had and would continue to raise standards of living, promote peaceful relations, and foster moral refinement, Hume was not an unqualified enthusiast. He recognized many of the underlying injustices of capitalism, its tendencies to promote avarice and inequality, as well as its potential for political instability and absolutism. Hume’s imprint on modern economics is profound and far-reaching, whether through his close friend Adam Smith or later admirers such as John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek. Schabas and Wennerlind’s book compels us to reconsider the centrality and legacy of Hume’s economic thought—for both his time and ours—and thus serves as an important springboard for reflections on the philosophical underpinnings of economics.


David Hume's Political Theory

David Hume's Political Theory

Author: Neil McArthur

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2007-12-15

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1442638648

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David Hume (1711-1776) is perhaps best known for his treatises on problems of epistemology, skepticism, and causation. A less familiar side of his intellectual output is his work on legal and political theory. David Hume's Political Theory brings together Hume's diverse writings on law and government, collected and examined with a view to revealing the philosopher's coherent and persuasive theory of politics. Through close textual analysis, Neil McArthur suggests that the key to Hume's political theory lies in its distinction between barbarous and civilized government. Throughout the study, the author explores Hume's argument that a society's progress from barbarism to civilization depends on the legal and political system by which it is governed. Ultimately, McArthur demonstrates that the skepticism apparent in much of Hume's work does not necessarily tie him to a strict conservative ideology; rather, Hume's political theory is seen to emphasize many liberal virtues as well. Based on a new conception of Hume's political philosophy, this is a groundbreaking work and a welcome addition to the existing literature.


Liberty in Hume’s History of England

Liberty in Hume’s History of England

Author: N. Capaldi

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 9400905351

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LIBERTY IN HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND In his own lifetime, Hume was feted by his admirers as a great historian, and even his enemies conceded that he was a controversial historian with whom one had to reckon. On the other hand, Hume failed to achieve positive recognition for his philosophical views. It was Hume's History of England that played an influential role in public policy debate during the eighteenth century in both Great Britain and in the United States. Hume's Hist01Y of England passed through seven editions and was beginning to be perceived as a classic before Hume's death. Voltaire, as an historian, considered it "perhaps the best ever written in any lan guage. " Gibbon greatly admired Hume's work and said, of a letter written by Hume in 1776 praising the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that a compliment from Hume "overpaid the labor of ten years. " After Hume's death on August 20, 1776, the History became a factor in the revolutionary events that began to unfold. Louis XVI was a close student of Hume's History, and his valet records that, upon having learned that the Convention had voted the death penalty, the King asked for the volume in Hume's History covering the trial and execution of Charles I to read in the days that remained. But if Louis XVI found the consolations of philosophical history in the Stuart volumes, Thomas Jefferson saw in them a cause for alarm.


The Oxford Handbook of Hume

The Oxford Handbook of Hume

Author: Paul Russell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-02-22

Total Pages: 833

ISBN-13: 0190493925

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The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) is widely regarded as the greatest and most significant English-speaking philosopher and often seen as having had the most influence on the way philosophy is practiced today in the West. His reputation is based not only on the quality of his philosophical thought but also on the breadth and scope of his writings, which ranged over metaphysics, epistemology, morals, politics, religion, and aesthetics. The Handbook's 38 newly commissioned chapters are divided into six parts: Central Themes; Metaphysics and Epistemology; Passion, Morality and Politics; Aesthetics, History, and Economics; Religion; Hume and the Enlightenment; and After Hume. The volume also features an introduction from editor Paul Russell and a chapter on Hume's biography.


Political Thought and History

Political Thought and History

Author: J. G .A. Pocock

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-02-05

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0521886570

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Selected essays of arguably the greatest and most influential historian of ideas of modern times.


Hume: Political Essays

Hume: Political Essays

Author: David Hume

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994-07-07

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 9780521466394

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A fully annotated edition of Hume's most important political essays.