Hume's Treatise and Hobbes's the Elements of Law

Abstract

The central thesis of this paper is that the scope and structure of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature 1 is modelled, or planned, after that of Hobbes's The Elements of Law and that in this respect there exists an important and unique relationship between these works.This relationship is of some importance for at least two reasons.First, it is indicative of the fundamental similarity between Hobbes's and Hume's project of the study of man.Second, and what is more important, by recognizing this relationship between Hume's and Hobbes's works we can come to appreciate the unity of the project of the Treatise itself.My discussion will proceed in three stages.In section I present the evidence for my central thesis.In the second section I shall consider why Hume does not, as one might expect, acknowledge this important debt to Hobbes in the Introduction to the Treatise or in the Abstract.Finally, in the third section I shall note a few points of some importance to the understanding of Hume's philosophy which this relationship between Hobbes's and Hume's work touches upon.I. Hume begins the Abstract as follows: "This book [i.e. the Treatise] seems to be written upon the same plan with several other works that have had great vogue of late years in England."(p. 5) It would seem reasonable to assume that the works which Hume has in mind are those produced by the "late philosophers" whom he proceeds to name in the following paragraph: Locke, Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hutcheson, and Butler.2This suggestion seems particularly plausible given the obvious influence which these authors had in shaping the central doctrines of References to A Treatise of Human Nature (T) are to the Selby-Bigge edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888).

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 45 citations exist upstream.