Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment

Thomas W. Merrill is a political theorist in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, DC. He was a senior research analyst at the President's Council on Bioethics and is the co-editor of Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver: Honoring the Work of Leon R. Kass (with Yuval Levin and Adam Schulman, 2010) and Human Dignity and Bioethics (with Edmind D. Pellegrino and Adam Schulman, 2009). He has held fellowships from Princeton University, New Jersey, Harvard University, Massachusetts, and the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC.

• Introduction; 1. Hume's Socratism; 2. Calling philosophy down from the heavens; 3. Turning to the human things; 4. Investigating morality and politics; 5. Hume's cultural revolution: the Essays, part 1; 6. The education of the honest gentlemen: the Essays, part 2; Epilogue.

'A political view of Hume's philosophy and a philosophical view of his politics, nicely combined. Thomas W. Merrill's fine interpretation centers on Hume's revealing early works and finds in them more Socrates than Newton, a scientific skepticism that doubts science, and a prudent deference to political opinion.' Harvey C. Mansfield, Professor of Government, Harvard University, Massachusetts and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution