In this first study of the role of scepticism in literature, Fred Parker offers a lively and stimulating introduction to key issues in eighteenth-century literature and philosophy. Parker traces the presence of sceptical thinking in works by Pope, Hume, Sterne, and Johnson, relates it more broadly to the social self-consciousness of eighteenth-century culture, and discusses its source in Locke and its inspiration in Montaigne.

Since the 1950s, Terence Penelhum has been a leading contributor to studies on the thought of David Hume. In this collection, he presents a selection of the best of his essays on Hume. Most of the essays are quite recent and three are previously unpublished.

Hume's Aesthetic Theory examines the neglected area of the development of aesthetics in empiricist thinking, exploring the link between the empiricist background of aesthetics in the eighteenth century and the work of David Hume.

This chapter contains sections titled: Biography Philosophy.

A significant reassessment of current assumptions about eighteenth-century literature and art. Seldom has a single book, much less a translation, so deeply affected English literature as the translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote in 1612. The comic novel inspired drawings, plays, sermons, and other translations, making the name of the Knight of la Mancha as familiar as any folk character in English lore. In this comprehensive study of the reception and conversion of Don Quixote in England, Ronald Paulson highlights the qualities (...) of the novel that most attracted English imitators. The English Don Quixote was not the same knight who meandered through Spain, or found a place in other translations throughout Europe. The English Don Quixote found employment in all sorts of specifically English ways, not excluding the political uses to which a Spanish fool could be turned. According to Paulson, a major impact of the novel and its hero was their stimulation of discussion about comedy itself, what he calls the "aesthetics of laughter." When Don Quixote reached England he did so at the time of the rise of empiricism, and adherents of both sides of the empiricist debate found arguments and evidence in the behavior and image of the noble knight. Four powerful disputes battered around his grey head: the proximity of madness and imagination; the definition of the beautiful; the cruelty of ridicule and its laughter; and the role of reason in the face of madness. Paulson's engaging account leads to a significant reassessment of current assumptions about eighteenth-century literature and art. (shrink)

The present work is, as its title indicates, a study of Hume's theory of imagination. Naturally, it is a study of a particular sort. It has a certain scope and limitations, takes a certain line of approach, exhibits certain emphases, has certain ends-in-view, etc. As an initial step in specifying the nature of this study, I shall indicate its central problem, i. e. , that problem to the solution of which the solutions of the various other problems with which it (...) is concerned are merely means. The central problem of this study is that of determining how Hume's theory of im agination is related to, or involved in, the generic features and main lines of argument of his philosophy of the human understanding. The expression "philosophy of the human understanding" is obvious to allude to a restriction on the scope of this investigation. ly intended Actually, it is a title suggested to me by two of Hume's philosophical writings; and to anyone who is even modestly acquainted with these writings, its reference should be no mystery. Hume published the first two so-called "Books" of his A Treatise of Human Nature in 1739. The first of these two Books was entitled "Of the Human Understanding. " Nine years later, he published a work under the title, An Enquiry Con cerning Human Understanding. (shrink)

This portrait of Hume as an ironist is offered as a supplement to recent historical and biographical studies, and especially to Mossner's The Life o] David Hume. While others have commented on the irony in Hume's writings, Price goes further and suggests that irony is a key with which to unlock Hume's philosophical attitudes and beliefs. Since ap- preciation of irony depends on an awareness of context, Price interprets this to mean that Hume's writings must be read against the background (...) of his life and intellectual milieu. He traces the development of Hume's use of irony through four successive stages, beginning with the formative influences on the early writings and concluding with the culmination of Hume's ironic style in the last works -- principally the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. (shrink)

The Seventh Sense is the definitive study of the aesthetic theory of the great eighteenth-century philosopher Francis Hutcheson, arguably the founder of the modern discipline of aesthetics, and one of the most important figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. This new edition brings Peter Kivy's seminal work back into print, substantially expanded by the addition of seven essays, which deal primarily with Hutcheson's relation to other thinkers, and his influence on eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century aesthetics.Part I of The Seventh Sense presents (...) a detailed analysis of Hutcheson's aesthetic theory. Part II traces the considerable influence of Hutcheson's theory up to the early years of the nineteenth century. Part III is a new and substantial addition to the original work, collecting Peter Kivy's essays on this topic since the first edition appeared, which deal primarily with Hutcheson, David Hume, and Thomas Reid. Philosophers of art, historians of philosophy, and historians working on eighteenth-century European art and culture will find this new edition an invaluable resource. (shrink)