Hume Book

My low rating here has nothing to do with the content of David Hume's ideas, which are actually quite fascinating. It has entirely to do with the author's terrible exposition of them. Rather than give a truly "short introduction" to the basic tenets of Hume's writings, he tediously argues the minutia of them. He is more concerned with responding to Hume than to explaining him to the naive reader. This book is just terrible and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. You can probably get a better (and free) introduction on Wikipedia. For example, Hume is famous for asking of the Christian religion, "Which is more likely, that the whole natural order be suspended, or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?" This book does NOT contain this quote. How do you skip over that?

I think the following two sentences epitomize what I hate about the author's style. In the first, please take a moment to count all six (SIX!) commas in this nearly unintelligible behemoth. And in the second notice how the author immediately reacts to Hume instead of simply summarizing the idea:

"This goes with the fact, which has been strangely overlooked by the many philosophers, starting with Kant, who have tried to rebut Hume by arguing for the necessity, or at least the probability, of some general principle of uniformity, that its very generality would prevent such a principle from doing the work required of it. I am not sure whether Hume believed that the adoption of the principle which he formulated would legitimize inductive arguments by making them deductive, but if he did, he was mistaken."

I mean this guy cannot take himself out of the book. He is constantly saying Hume was wrong and saying why his own modern ideas are superior. Not exactly what I thought I was getting based on the title. Skip this one, trust me.