David Hume: The Philosopher as Historian

Historians on Historians

by Nicholas Phillipson

A giant of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, David Hume was one of the most important philosophers ever to write in English. He was also a brilliant historian. In this succinct study, Nicholas Phillipson shows how Hume freed history from religion and politics. As a philosopher, Hume sought a way of seeing the world and pursuing happiness independently of a belief in God. His groundbreaking approach applied the same outlook to Britain's history, showing how the past was shaped solely through human choices and actions.

In this analysis of Hume's life and works, from his university days in Edinburgh to the rapturous reception of his History of England, Nicholas Phillipson reveals the gradual process by which one of the greatest Western philosophers turned himself into one of the greatest historians of Britain. In doing so, he shows us how revolutionary Hume was, and why his ideas still matter today.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Biography, Scotland

176 pages, Paperback

First published May 18, 1989

About the author

A specialist in the history of the Scottish Enlightenment, Nicholas Tindal Phillipson was Emeritus Reader in History and Honorary Fellow at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. Phillipson studied as an undergraduate at the universities of Aberdeen and Cambridge, and completed his PhD at Cambridge in 1967. He joined the History department at Edinburgh as a Lecturer in 1965, and was subsequently promoted to Senior Lecturer and Reader, before retiring in 2004.

Reviews

[Charlie Huenemann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many people know of David Hume the great empiricist, the skeptic of causality, and the architect of a moral system based on natural sentiments. But in his own day, Hume was most famous as an historian and political analyst. This book helps us by providing an overview of those works of Hume which made him famous and fairly wealthy in his lifetime.

Phillipson reminds us that the Britain of Hume's day was arguing fiercely over the right frame to put around its own history, especially the tumultuous 17th century. Traditionalist Tories gave credit to royalists and placed blame on the rebellious mob, while forward-thinking Whigs did just the opposite. It was a political fight over who would get to appropriate history to which cause. In this contentious spectrum, Hume found himself somewhere in the middle as a skeptical Whig, reading history as demonstrating that while there must be some check on royal power, society also requires leadership by a firm hand. If any cultural segment deserved blame for the violent upheavals, it was the religious enthusiasts, who poured the gasoline upon any heated dissent. Religious extremism made governing nearly impossible, and mob action thoroughly irrational.

In the end, according to Phillipson, Hume's aim was as much "to liberate human beings from the priestcraft of historians as it was to liberate them from clerics" (141). The historians of his own day twisted history to their own ends, just as clerics twisted philosophy to their own ends. Hume sought instead to provide his readers "with a model of themselves as historical agents whose understanding of themselves, their interests, and their happiness was shaped in the time-bound, historical world of common life" (141). He was, in short, an Enlightenment secularist. And whether his own ends twisted the particular history he offered is exactly the sort of question he would encourage his readers to raise.

[Jerry Wall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Author here, Phillipson, is a historian who wrote Adam Smith An Enlightened life which I read before I read this book on another of the great philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Adam Smith was about the enlightened life of Smith and insightful about influences and background of the philosophical thought and accomplishments of Smith. I was looking for something similar in David Hume even though the subtitle, the philosopher as historian gainsaid that approach.
Anyway, I liked Adam Smith very much. For those whose bent and inclination is historiography then
David Hume is the dish for them.

[Supriyo Chaudhuri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good short biography focused on David Hume the historian and his unique contribution through his revisionist history of England. As Hume's reputation as a philosopher overshadowed his historical work in the twentieth century (it was the opposite during his lifetime), this is a very interesting book to read.

[Ray Du · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was left wondering, when did David Hume pass? (This offers some very great discussions of his A Treatise of Human Nature and A History of England but falls short in telling of life of the great philosopher & historian.)