Hume on Rationality in History and Social Life

Abstract

After elaboration of the content and structure of Hume’s notion of human nature, his interpretation of superstition is examined. Hume’s ‘science of human nature’ permits him to label certain practices as depraved and to a discount the societal specificity of these practices. This means that Hume has, what is here called, a substantive theory of human nature with a formal theory of society which is the reverse of much modern (neo-Wittgensteinian) analysis.