Please join us in welcoming Professor Tina Baceski

Rockhurst University

UNB Philosophy Department Visiting Researcher

 

 

Abstract: In the 1742 edition of David Hume’s Essays, Moral and Political (and in all subsequent editions of the Essays) we find an interesting quartet of essays on the topic of human happiness. Hume tells us, in a footnote, that the essays, titled “The Epicurean,” “The Stoic,” “The Platonist,” and “The Sceptic”, are not intended to explain accurately the teachings of these ancient sects of philosophy. Rather, their purpose is to describe “the sentiments of sects, that naturally form themselves in the world”; they represent four different, but common points of view on what it is to live a good life.  This paper is an attempt to understand how these several essays, when taken together, can offer important insights into Hume’s moral philosophy.