Hume's Conventionalism: Utility and Sociability

Brian Chen

Format
Hardback
Publisher
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Country
United Kingdom
Published
31 December 2023
Pages
240
ISBN
9781138999510

Hume’s Conventionalism: Utility and Sociability

Brian Chen

David Hume’s political philosophy is heavily influenced by various philosophers, especially Thomas Hobbes and Francis Hutcherson. Because of this, we tend to see him as either a conventionalist contractarian, or an empiricist of the Scottish Enlightenment. However, Chen asserts the claim that both perspectives, when employed individually in analysis, are inadequate in contemporary Hume studies. Especially in the aspect of modern utilitarianism, many nuances are overlooked in considering Hume as either one thing or the other. This results in an imbalanced interpretation of his political philosophy and therefore, a limited analysis of his thought. This book thus focuses on revisiting Hume’s political philosophy through traditional utilitarianism. Chen criticizes the contemporary approaches of marginalizing utilitarianism in interpreting Hume. Instead, he argues that we should understand Hume in the context of conventionalism in order to fully grasp his thought.

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