09/11/2024: 51st Annual Hume Conference: 14-18 July 2025 at McMaster University, Canada

The Hume Society is pleased to announce that its 51st annual Hume conference will be held at McMaster University, Canada, in conjunction with the Bertrand Russell Research Centre, from 14-18 July 2025. The conference themes are: Hume and the Development of Analytic Philosophy, Hume and Feminism, and Hume and the Philosophy of Emotion. You may visit the conference website here.

06/21/2024: Hume Society session at 2024 World Congress of Philosophy (Rome)

Workshop: Recent Work on Hume’s Philosophy
Organizer & Chair: Enrico Galvagni (University of St Andrews)

Session 1: Hume on Mind and Knowledge (1-3pm)

Coffee break, 3:00-3:30pm

Session 2: Hume on Passion and Virtue (3:30-5:50pm)

05/31/2024: Ruth Weintraub's monograph, Humean Bodies and their Consequences, now released

We are delighted to note the publication of Ruth Weinbraub's monograph, Humean Bodies and their Consequences: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-50799-1#about-this-book

Here is the abstract: This book, published by Springer in February, 2024, defends the very contentious Idealist interpretation of Hume on external objects, and draws from it far-reaching consequences for Hume’s philosophy. Its interest is both interpretive and analytic. The content Hume ascribes to the belief in “bodies” is susceptible to more than one reading, and has not been systematically considered. Upholding the Idealistic interpretation is interesting in its own right, but also yields several important conclusions about the spatiality of objects, causation, Hume’s “science of man” and his epistemology. For instance, it argues that the Idealist reading means that there are no cross-temporal spatial relationships, and that the (more prevalent) Materialist reading takes Hume further away from methodological empiricism than does the Idealist counterpart, and may render his practice less in conformity with his official methodology.

02/09/2024: 14th Annual NYC Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy

12/07/2023: Call for Proposals: South Central Society for Eighteenth Century Studies

The South Central Society for Eighteenth Century Studies is inviting proposals for papers and panel participation for its annual meeting, which will be held March 1-2, 2024 in Portland, Oregon. The theme of the conference is "The Book and the City." Proposals are due December 23, 2023.

More information is available here.

12/05/2023: Graduate Student Fellowship for Canadian Universities

The Robert and Moira Sansom Ideas Foundation is requesting applications for a Graduate Student Scholarship for Studies in the History of Ideas. The scholarship provides $10,000 to support work in the 2024-25 academic year. Applications are open to graduate students who are or will be studying at a university in Canada.

Applications are open now; the deadline to apply is March 1, 2024. More information is available here.

08/30/2023: International Conversation on Hume and the Feminine

This meeting will bring together 12 junior and senior researchers from Colombia, Brazil and Argentina with the aim of discussing the feminine in the context of David Hume's philosophy. The meeting is intended as a space for problematizing and rethinking different aspects of Hume's philosophy from a gendered perspective. The contributions will study his conceptions of the feminine and of women, as well as making a positive appropriation of aspects of Hume’s philosophy that can be useful resources for contemporary feminist philosophical projects.

The meeting will be held virtually every Monday from 3 to 6 PM (Argentina time, GMT -3) from September 4 to 18, 2023. Official languages of the event will be Spanish and Portuguese. More information at: https://idihcs.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/ciefi/encuentro-internacional-hume-y-lo-femenino-encontro-internacional-hume-e-ofeminino/.

Carlota Salgadinho (Brazil) and Sofía Calvente (Argentina) are the general coordinators.

The meeting is sponsored by the Argentine Association of Studies of the Eighteenth Century, Rio de Janeiro Pontifical Catholic University - Brazil and Early Modern Thought Center (NUPEM – PUC Río), and Hume Society.

To attend the meeting, please fill in this form.

07/27/2023: Call for Papers for 50th Anniversary Conference

The Hume Society is pleased to announce its 50th annual Hume conference to be held in Oxford, UK from July 1-6, 2024. Themes include Oxford Connections, Hume and Reason, Developments in Hume's Ethics and Its Influence, and New Narratives and the Next 50 Years. The submissions deadline is December 1, 2023 and the submission portal is now open.

Please visit the conference website for further information, and we will look forward to seeing you in Oxford!

01/16/2023: Hume Studies Essay Prize Winner and Call for Submissions

The officers of the Hume Society and the editors of Hume Studies are pleased to announce the winner of the second annual Hume Studies Essay Prize.

The recipient of the prize for 2022 is Taro Okamura, for his paper, “Hume’s Passion-Based Account of Moral Responsibility.” Dr. Okamura received his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in 2022. He is currently a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology at the University of Tokyo. Dr. Okamura is primarily interested in the history of early modern philosophy. His current project is to elucidate the significance of passion in Hume's epistemology.

Dr. Okamura receives $1000 US, and his paper will be published in Hume Studies 48:2, November 2023. Congratulations to Taro for his fine work!

Thank you to all the authors who submitted papers and especially to the members of the Hume Studies Editorial Board who served on this year’s prize panel: John P. Wright (chair), James Fieser, Peter Fosl, and Ruth Weintraub.

Submissions for the Third Annual Hume Studies Essay Prize Welcome

We invite submissions for the Third Annual Essay Prize. The competition is open to those ten or fewer years from the Ph.D., including graduate students. The deadline for submissions is August 1, 2023. For details, see the journal home page.

12/15/2022: Submissions for Hume Society 2023 Conference

Submissions are now open for the Hume Society 2023 annual conference! This link will take you to the submissions portal: Submissions. You will need to register for a free EasyChair account if you do not already have one. Thank you for your patience!

Because of delays in providing the submission portal, the organizers have extended the deadline for submissions until December 30 (closing at midnight Pacific Standard Time, GMT-8).

12/01/2022: Graduate Student Scholarship for Studies in the History of Ideas

The Robert and Moira Sansom Ideas Foundation is accepting applications for a $10,000 Graduate Student Scholarship for Studies in the History of Ideas. The scholarship is open to graduate students who are or will be studying at a university in Canada. Applications for awards to support work in the 2023-24 academic year are open from now through February 28, 2023. More information is available here.

09/02/2022: History of Philosophy job at Rice University

Rice University’s Department of Philosophy seeks to hire a tenure-track Assistant Professor with a specialization in the history of modern philosophy. Ideally, candidates should have an additional competence in one or more of the following areas: political philosophy, the history of political thought, or feminist or decolonizing approaches to the history of philosophy.

For more information click here.

08/11/2022: Call for Papers for Hume Society Conference 2023

06/15/2022: Hume Studies News

The second Hume Studies Essay Prize is to be awarded in 2023! The competition is open to those ten or fewer years from the Ph.D., including those currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program. The winning paper will be published with acknowledgment in Hume Studies, and the author will receive $1,000. Hume Studies, the interdisciplinary journal of the Hume Society, publishes work on all aspects of Hume and his world.

To be eligible for the prize, papers must be submitted any time before and including August 1, 2022 (11:59 Eastern Daylight Savings time). We invite qualified authors to submit their papers to the competition. For more information, see:

https://www.humesociety.org/ojs/index.php/hs/announcement

Also, we hope you have noticed that Hume Studies 46:1-2 (2020) and Hume Studies 47:1 (Apr. 2022) are both now available on the Hume Society and Project Muse websites:

https://www.humesociety.org/hs

https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/432

As the Editors’ Introduction to 47:1 explains, the Executive Committee, the Editorial Board, and the Editors agreed to advance the cover date ahead a year so that Hume Studies issues will coordinate with the calendar. Subscribers will be credited for the skipped year.

04/06/2022: Conference for Latin American Hume Scholars

We are pleased to share a new initiative to bring together scholars from Latin America interested in Hume:

An international meeting will bring together for the first time 23 researchers from all over Latin America with the aim of strengthening the academic work on the philosophy of David Hume in our continent. We will discuss the different aspects of Hume’s thought: religion, politics, ethics, philosophical writing, space and time, causation, among others.

The meeting will be held virtually every Tuesday from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. (Argentina time, GMT -3) from May 3 to June 7, 2022. Official languages of the event will be Spanish and Portuguese.

Organizing committee and coordination: Mauricio Zuluaga (Colombia), Jerónimo Narváez Cano (Colombia) and Sofía Calvente (Argentina). More information, including the program, can be found here.

02/23/2022: New Hume Studies Book Review Editor Appointed

The editors of Hume Studies and the Executive Committee of the Hume Society are pleased to announce that Dan O’Brien will become the next book review editor of the journal this April. Dan is Reader in Philosophy and Subject Co-ordinator for Philosophy in the Department of History, Philosophy and Culture at Oxford Brookes University. Many of you will know him as the convener of the Oxford Hume Forum; he is also presently serving on two Hume Society conference planning committees (Prague 2022 and Oxford 2024). He has written numerous books and articles on Hume and edited still more. We are grateful for his willingness to dedicate his time to the journal and look forward to working with him.

We are also grateful for the excellent service of our outgoing book review editor, David Landy. David will work with Dan to facilitate a smooth transition to his new position.

02/06/2022: Graduate Student Scholarship in the History of Ideas

The Robert and Moira Sansom Ideas Foundation is offering a $10,000 Graduate Student Scholarship for Studies in the History of Ideas. The scholarship is open to graduate students in Canada and is intended to support work in the 2022-23 academic year.

Hume-related applications are welcome! The application deadline is March 1, 2022. More information and an application link is here.

11/22/2021: Deadline Extended

The deadline for the Annual Hume Society Conference (Prague, July 2022) has been extended to the end of the month (November 30th). Paper submission is processed through the conference website: https://www.humeconferenceprague.com/submissions/.

11/09/2021: Call for Applicants: Hume Studies Book Review Editorship

After serving a 5-year term as Book Review Editor of Hume Studies, David Landy has decided to step down. The Hume Society and the past and current editors of Hume Studies are very grateful to David for his excellent work in procuring the journal’s reviews for five years.

The Hume Society Executive Committee, in consultation with the editors of Hume Studies, are looking for a replacement to begin a 5-year term on April 1, 2022. The new book review editor will start working with David in early 2022. The book review editor is tasked with the job of keeping informed of new and forthcoming books related to Hume and his context, recruiting appropriate reviewers, arranging with publishers for reviewers to have access to the books they are reviewing, and reading and editing submitted reviews before passing them to the editors.

Minimal qualifications: Ph.D. in a field related to Hume scholarship. We encourage applications from underrepresented groups, but happily accept applications from all who are interested. If you have questions about the position, please contact the editors, Elizabeth Radcliffe (eradcliffe@wm.edu) and Mark Spencer (mspencer@brocku.ca) or book review editor David Landy (landy@sfsu.edu).

To apply, send a brief note of interest and a cv to Hume Society Executive Vice President-Treasurer, Emily Kelahan (vicepresident@humesociety.org).

09/07/2021: Hume Society Early Career Mentorship Program

The deadline for expressions of interest for Early Career Scholars is October 15th, 2021. Mentors and mentees will be matched on a rolling basis. Please apply by filling out the following form:

Early Career Scholars Application Form

If you are willing to act as a mentor for the Hume scholarship community, please volunteer by filling out the following form:

Early Career Scholars Mentor Form

Questions about the program? Contact the program organizer, Katie Paxman at katie_paxman@byu.edu.

Important dates:

• October 15: Deadline for applications from mentees
• Early November: Date for virtual ECSM workshop TBD (consider volunteering to be on the discussion panel!)

07/07/2021: Collection of Anti-Racist and Inclusive Resources Ongoing

The Hume Society is continuing its work to develop resources for anti-racist and inclusive teaching and scholarship on the works of David Hume and other historical figures. Please email the Executive Vice President-Treasurer (vicepresident@humesociety.org) if you would like to suggest materials for inclusion on our website.

05/19/2021: Hutcheson Workshop

The "New Perspectives on Hutcheson’s Moral Philosophy" Workshop will take place online June 3rd and 4th, 2021. Please see the conference website for more information: https://praktischegruendevorkant.wordpress.com/conferences/new-perspectives-on-hutchesons-moral-philosophy/.

02/09/2021: 2022 Conference Announcement

The Executive Committee has accepted an exciting proposal for the 48th Annual Hume Society Conference. It will be held in beautiful Prague in the summer of 2022! Many thanks go to our lead organizers, Hynek Janoušek and Lorenzo Greco, for their work so far and for giving us something to look forward to! More details are forthcoming.

02/05/2021: Hume Book Event

Please consider attending this upcoming virtual event celebrating A Philosopher's Economist: Hume and the Rise of Capitalism by Margaret Schabas and Carl Wennerlind. The event will take place on Wednesday, February 17, 2021 at 4:00pm (EST). See http://heymancenter.org/events/celebrating-recent-work-by-margaret-schabas-and-carl-wennerlind/ for more details.

01/12/2021: Panel Event on the Renaming of Hume Tower

Jen Marušić and Jonny Cottrell (Hume Society members and faculty at the University of Edinburgh) have organized a panel discussion on the renaming of Hume Tower to be held on Friday, 22nd January, 3–5pm GMT. The event will bring together staff members and a student of the University of Edinburgh to discuss the renaming of the tower and Hume's legacy on their campus. Details and registration are available via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/panel-event-the-renaming-of-david-hume-tower-tickets-136274110533

01/02/2021: Next Editors of Hume Studies Named

We are happy to announce that Elizabeth Radcliffe (William and Mary) and Mark Spencer (Brock University) will serve as the next editors of the Society’s journal, Hume Studies. They will begin handling new submissions now and will work with the current editors to manage the transition before their official term begins on July 1 of this year.

We are enormously grateful to the journal’s current editors, Ann Levey (University of Calgary), Karl Schafer (University of California Irvine), and Amy Schmitter (University of Alberta) for their work shepherding the journal over the past five years and for their continuing service during the transition period.

09/16/2020: Hume Society Statement on the Re-naming of the University of Edinburgh David Hume Tower

The Hume Society acknowledges and abhors Hume’s racism and the contributions he made to pro-slavery movements and the oppression of Black people in Europe and the Americas. We recognize the right of the University of Edinburgh community to determine whom to honor in the naming of its buildings. We also endorse the university’s decision to undertake a thoughtful review of the petition to change the name before making any permanent decisions on this matter. As we continue to explore Hume’s legacy in various areas of thought, we are committed to increasing awareness of the harmful aspects of that legacy and encouraging an ongoing conversation about these issues. The Hume Society affirms that Black Lives Matter and is committed to fighting white supremacy. Efforts to institutionalize inclusivity and decenter whiteness need not be at odds with efforts to critically examine the intellectual contributions of historical figures.

06/05/2020: Hume Society Statement on Racial Violence and Injustice

In response to the ongoing racial injustice and violence being protested in the United States and around the world, the Executive Committee of the Hume Society unanimously issues the following statement:

The Hume Society condemns institutional racism and acts of racial injustice. We denounce the brutal murder of black people, including but not limited to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and we affirm that Black Lives Matter.

The Executive Committee of the Society is dedicated to promoting the free exchange of ideas in an equitable and inclusive environment that is respectful of the dignity of all persons. As scholars and teachers, we recognize our responsibility to promote justice, including by acknowledging and responding to David Hume’s own contribution to the history of racism.

We are in the process of putting together a list of resources to post on our website for those interested in learning more and/or teaching about this history. Please send us your suggestions (vicepresident@humesociety.org).

11/03/2019: NEH Institute on Hume in the 21st Century

Details on the rescheduling of the NEH Institute on "Hume in the 21st Century: Perpetuating the Enlightenment" organized by and featuring several Hume Society members are forthcoming.

This Institute is designed to study multidisciplinary perspectives on the work of eighteenth-century Enlightenment giant, David Hume. It features a rotating faculty of twelve eminent scholars. While we will explore Hume’s impact in epistemology, ethics, history, and economics, a notable feature is its focus on the implication of Hume’s thought in non-traditional areas. Faculty will address Hume’s approach in relation to Eastern thought, the status of women (including early modern woman philosophers' responses to Hume), race, the status of animals, and the environment. Participants will also have opportunities for small group discussions with faculty while enjoying the environs of beautiful Portland, Oregon.

https://nehinstitutehume21.wm.edu/index.html

09/07/2021: M.A. Stewart

The Hume Society is grateful to Ruth Barlow, James Harris, and John P. Wright for sharing the following obituary of M.A. Stewart.

Michael Alexander Stewart (1937-2021)

Sandy, as he was known to so many Hume scholars, died peacefully in Salisbury, England on July 30, 2021. For many years, Sandy welcomed Hume scholars to Edinburgh where he was often found working in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Departments of the National Library of Scotland and the University of Edinburgh. He shared his vast knowledge of all things Humean in conversation with visitors from all parts of the world, as well as in his many publications. He was especially generous with his time and expertise to younger Hume scholars at the start of their careers.

In various collections including Studies in The Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment (1990) and in the co-edited Hume and Hume’s Connexions (1995) Sandy published important papers by Hume scholars. In his own work he often focused on Hume’s philosophy of religion and on Hume’s intellectual relations with his Scottish contemporaries including Hutcheson. One of his most remarkable achievements was his meticulous work on the dating of Hume’s manuscripts, which he analysed using the best tools of modern scholarship. A collection of Sandy’s writings on Hume will be published by Oxford University Press in January of 2022 under the title Hume’s Philosophy in Historical Perspective.

Sandy received his first degree in Greek, and Logic & Metaphysics from the University of St. Andrews in 1961, and his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1965.

In 1965 he joined the University of Lancaster as lecturer in ancient philosophy, and soon, in the history of philosophy—carrying the concerns of the classics scholar into the study of early modern philosophy, something recognizable in his later work on Hume. He was Lecturer in Philosophy 1965-77, Senior Lecturer 1977-93, and Professor of the History of Philosophy 1993-2000. He also served terms as Head of the Department of Philosophy, and Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Humanities.

Sandy was joint general editor of the Clarendon edition of the Philosophical Works of David Hume—as well as being involved in the supervision of many other publication projects in the history of modern philosophy. He was general editor of the Clarendon edition of the Works of Locke, founding chairman of the British Society for the History of Philosophy in 1984, elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2006, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society in 2009. Sandy contributed immeasurably to Hume studies by his endless ingenuity in ferreting out the figures and events around Hume, and combining such findings with the acute reading of Hume’s philosophical texts.

04/01/2021: Book Launch Event for Anderson's Kant, Hume, and the Interruption of Dogmatic Slumber

Title of Workshop (Book Launch):

The Principle of Sufficient Reason in Kant and Hume

Meeting Date:

May 5th, 12 pm EST (6 pm Cairo time)

Meeting Place:

Hosted by the American University in Cairo

Contact for Registration:patrick.hassan@aucegypt.edu

Brief Description:

The Department of Philosophy at the American University in Cairo warmly invites you to a book launch workshop on Professor Abraham Anderson’s book Kant, Hume, and the Interruption of Dogmatic Slumber(Oxford University Press, 2020). The thematic focus of this workshop will be how David Hume’s critical reflections on the principle of sufficient reason, the fundamental principle of rationalist metaphysics, interrupted Kant’s dogmatic slumber, and on the implications of this event for understanding both Kant’s relation to his predecessors and his significance for his successors, whether, like Bradley, they sought to restore that principle in its unrestricted form or, like Schopenhauer, agreed with Kant’s restriction of its use to appearances.

Comments from Invited Discussants:

Professor Michael Della Rocca (Yale)

Professor Richard Fincham (AUC)

Dr. Patrick Hassan (AUC)

01/02/2021: Executive Committee Election Results

Jennifer Smalligan Marušić (University of Edinburgh), Anik Waldow (University of Sydney), and Andre Willis (Brown University) have been re-elected to the Hume Society Executive Committee. Many thanks to all of them for their service!

07/20/2020: Schabas and Wennerlind Publish Book on Hume's Economics

A Philosopher's Economist: Hume and the Rise of Capitalism, by Hume Society members Margaret Schabas and Carl Wennerlind, is now available from the University of Chicago Press. For more information, including a table of contents, go to: A Philosopher's Economist. Congratulations, Margaret and Carl!

The University of Chicago Press has arranged a book launch with Don Garrett in conversation with the authors on September 15th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/margaret-schabas-and-carl-wennerlind-in-conversation-with-don-garrett-tickets-115218593916?aff=erellivmlt.

This event has been re-scheduled from September 8th to September 15th in solidarity with #ScholarStrike.

02/07/2021: CFP Journal of Scottish Philosophy

Journal of Scottish Philosophy

CFP: Scottish Enlightenment Theories of Social and Cultural Development

Edited by Becko Copenhaver

Scottish philosophers and scientists in the 18th and 19th centuries applied the methods of the new science to the study of the human mind. But they did so with an interest in the improvement and cultivation of mind. Their interests ranged from what we would now call developmental psychology, anthropology, and sociology, to linguistics and theories of education. And these studies were intended to apply to innovations in practical activities from agriculture to economics. The human mind was their object of study, but they did not approach it as an isolated, individual, internal phenomenon. Rather, their interest in and understanding of mind was ineliminably social and cultural. In this special issue of the Journal of Scottish philosophy, we invite papers that contribute to our understanding of this tradition. We invite papers examining Hutcheson, Reid, Hume, Smith, Ferguson, Shepherd as well as other figures who examined the development of the human mind in society.

Deadline for submission is May 1, 2021. Submissions should be sent to jsp@usiouxfalls.edu, and marked 'Special Issue' in the subject line.

Submissions for non-themed issues are always welcome. Submission guidelines can be found at the EUP website https://www.usiouxfalls.edu/academics/issp/publications

09/10/2020: Sanders Prize in the History of Early Modern Philosophy

The editor of Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is pleased to announce that submissions are now being received for the third Sanders Prize in the History of Early Modern Philosophy. The Sanders Prize in the History of Early Modern Philosophy is a biennial essay competition open to scholars who are within fifteen (15) years of receiving a Ph.D. or students who are currently enrolled in a graduate program. Independent scholars may also be eligible, and should direct inquiries to Donald Rutherford, editor of Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy at drutherford@ucsd.edu.

The award for the prizewinning essay is $5,000. Winning essays will be published in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy. This year’s deadline is October 1, 2020.

For more details on submissions, see: http://www.marcsandersfoundation.org/sanders-prizes/early-modern-philosophy/.

06/29/2020: Spencer Receives McGill David Hume Research Grant

Congratulations to Hume Society member Mark Spencer on being awarded the 2020 McGill University David Hume Research Grant. For more information, go to https://www.mcgill.ca/philosophy/resources/humegrant.

06/29/2020: Tolonen and Team Secure Funding from the Finnish Academy

Congratulations to Hume Society member Mikko Tolonen and his team on securing grant funding from the Finnish Academy to support work on "The Rise of Commercial Society and Eighteenth-Century Publishing." This Helsinki-based project combines intellectual history, book history, and sociolinguistics and analyzes the rise of commercial society in eighteenth-century publishing networks. The team will study the structure of these networks, linguistically innovative individuals and groups, questions of publishing and readership, and interaction between social and linguistic change. They will focus on Scottish, transatlantic, and French influences on British print media using large bibliographic databases enriched by background information on the individuals. They will link this data for the first time with full-text sources for linguistic analysis using methods that renew the research culture in history and linguistics. They hope to obtain new knowledge about the Enlightenment and the rise of commercial society. Instead of focusing merely on well-known authors, they will identify influencers in a data-driven way, revealing that these can also be printers or publishers.

The research group has a website: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/computational-history.