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.

The first thematically arranged collection of Hume's political writings, this new work brings together substantive selections from A Treatise on Human Nature, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, and Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, with an interpretive introduction placing Hume in the context of contemporary debates between liberalism and its critics and between contextual and universal approaches.

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.

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.

This is a study of Hume's political thought based on a survey of all his writings in their original and revised versions, with full reference to the works of predecessors and contemporaries, including journalists, pamphleteers and historians. Hume's political thinking is presented in its historical context as an innovative, 'philosophical', empirically based system of politics for a radical post-revolutionary age, and a political education for parochial, backward-looking party men.

Dearest friends -- The cheerful skeptic (1711-1749) -- Encountering Hume (1723-1749) -- A budding friendship (1750-1754) -- The historian and the Kirk (1754-1759) -- Theorizing the moral sentiments (1759) -- Fêted in France (1759-1766) -- Quarrel with a wild philosopher (1766-1767) -- Mortally sick at sea (1767-1775) -- Inquiring into the Wealth of Nations (1776) -- Dialoguing about natural religion (1776) -- A philosopher's death (1776) -- Ten times more abuse (1776-1777) -- Smith's final years in Edinburgh (1777-1790) -- Hume's My Own Life and Smith's Letter from Adam Smith, LL. D. to William Strahan, Esq

Scott Yenor argues that David Hume's reputation as a skeptic is greatly exaggerated and that Hume's skepticism is a moment leading Hume to defend common life philosophy and the humane commercial republic. Gentle, humane virtues reflect the proper reaction to the complex mixture of human faculties that define the human condition.

Demonstrates the uniqueness of Hume as an Enlightenment thinker, illustrating how his 'spirit of scepticism' often leads him into seemingly paradoxical positions. This book will be of interest to Hume scholars, intellectual historians of 17th- to 19th-century Europe and those interested in the Enlightenment more widely.

This is the first intellectual biography of the British philosopher and historian David Hume.