The Infidel and the Professor
：David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought
Publication subTitle ：David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought
Author： Rasmussen Dennis C.
Publisher： Princeton University Press
Publication year： 2017
E-ISBN: 9781400888467
P-ISBN(Paperback): 9780691177014
Subject： B561.2 The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of philosophy
Keyword： 社会科学理论与方法论,哲学理论,政治理论,现代哲学,伦理学(道德哲学),世界各国经济概况、经济史、经济地理,马克思、恩格斯、列宁、斯大林、毛泽东、邓小平生平和传记,中国人物传记,传记
Language： ENG
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Description
The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships—and how it influenced modern thought
David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as “the Great Infidel” for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy, and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism. Remarkably, the two were best friends for most of their adult lives, sharing what Dennis Rasmussen calls the greatest of all philosophical friendships. The Infidel and the Professor is the first book to tell the fascinating story of the friendship of these towering Enlightenment thinkers—and how it influenced their world-changing ideas.
The book follows Hume and Smith’s relationship from their first meeting in 1749 until Hume’s death in 1776. It describes how they commented on each other’s writings, supported each other’s careers and literary ambitions, and advised each other on personal matters, most notably after Hume’s quarrel with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Members of a vibrant intellectual scene in Enlightenment Scotland, Hume and Smith made many of the same friends (and enemies), joined the same clubs, and were interested in many of the same subjects well beyond philosophy and economics—from psychology and history to politics and Britain’
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