Hume and History

Keynote speaker:

James Harris (St. Andrews)

‘The Vacant Post in the English Parnassus: Hume’s Intentions as a Historian’

Following from the success of the 2012 Hume and the Virtues and 2013 Why Hume Matters, the annual Oxford Brookes Hume Workshop series continues this year with Hume and History. Abstracts are invited on all aspects of Hume’s relation to the writing of history, and on the connections between his philosophical writings and his History of England. Various interpreters have seen the History as Hume moving away from philosophy—which, by his own assessment, was not as well received as he would have liked—in order to devote his time to achieving literary fame (his ‘Ruling Passion’). Recently, though, closer connections are drawn between his two careers, with the history illuminating his philosophical views on character, morality and religion, and providing a ‘just medium’ through which to view human nature. The workshop will aim to explore such connections.

This workshop is in part-funded by the British Society for the History of Philosophy.

Contact: [email protected]