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jonbrammer's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to read Hume because he is considered to be a precursor to secular humanism, and unafraid to wade into the debate over the balance of power between crown and parliament. I was a bit underwhelmed by his political and economic arguments, just because we are the products of this Enlightenment thinking that basically defines liberal democracy. What feels obvious today was pretty radical in Hume's time. And some of his theories come off as half baked, as if he was combining deep knowledge of the ancient world with a specious understanding of how governments formed in his contemporary society.
There are a couple of heretical essays at the end that were published posthumously, defending suicide and arguing against an afterlife. If you read though some of Hume's notes at the end, you will also find that he is virulent racist . I don't know how influential Hume was with the founders, who were steeped in Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, etc. But his secularism easily coexists with the advance of science during the period.
There was an interminable essay in the middle about the population of the ancient world, wherein Hume expostulates at length about the number of slaves people had and how they were "bred". He admits at one point that they didn't have any real idea of populations during HIS time - gathering that data was too complicated in a pre-industrial world.
There are a couple of heretical essays at the end that were published posthumously, defending suicide and arguing against an afterlife. If you read though some of Hume's notes at the end, you will also find that he is virulent racist . I don't know how influential Hume was with the founders, who were steeped in Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, etc. But his secularism easily coexists with the advance of science during the period.
There was an interminable essay in the middle about the population of the ancient world, wherein Hume expostulates at length about the number of slaves people had and how they were "bred". He admits at one point that they didn't have any real idea of populations during HIS time - gathering that data was too complicated in a pre-industrial world.