Rousseau and Hume: Contrasting Views of Liberty
This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Contrasting Views of Liberty in Hume and Rousseau.”
Contrasting Views of Liberty in Hume and Rousseau
Topic
The contrast between David Hume and Jean Jacques Rousseau on the nature of liberty is one of most enduring aspects of the eighteenth century. How can two thinkers who seem to cherish liberty and a free society have such different views of liberty?
Guide to the Readings
Editions used:
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, translated with an Introduction by G.D. H. Cole (London and Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1923).
- David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary, edited and with a Foreword, Notes, and Glossary by Eugene F. Miller, with an appendix of variant readings from the 1889 edition by T.H. Green and T.H. Grose, revised edition (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1987).
- David Hume, The Natural History of Religion. By David Hume. With an Introduction by John M. Robertson (London: A. and H. Bradlaugh Bonner, 1889).
- David Hume, Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, M.A. 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902).
See also in the Online Library of Liberty:
- Collections: The Scottish Enightenment
- Collections: The French Enlightenment
For additional reading see:
Session I: Progress and Liberty in Rousseau
The Social Contract and Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Session II: Progress and Liberty in Hume
David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary
Session III: Liberty, the Social Contract, and Consent
The Social Contract and Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary
Session IV: Political Institutions and Liberty
The Social Contract and Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
- The Social Contract, Book II, Chapters 1–6
- Book III, Chapters 12–15
- Book IV, Chapter I
David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary
- “That Politics May be Reduced to a Science”
- “Of the Independency of Parliament”
- “Of Parties in General”
- “Of Passive Obedience”
Session V: Religion and Free Government
The Social Contract and Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
David Hume, The Natural History of Religion
David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary
Session VI: Moral Judgment and Responsibility
David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
Reading Lists
- Addison and Smith: Freedom and Responsibility
- American Liberty in Political Documents before 1787
- An Introduction to the Major Writings of Ludwig von Mises
- Banned Books
- British and French Sources of American Constitutionalism
- Burlamaqui, Bayle: Freedom Tolerance, Natural Law
- Cato’s Letters: Liberty and Responsibility
- Cobden: Liberty and Peace
- Constant’s Principles of Politics
- Emerson on Anti-slavery
- Eric Mack, An Introduction to the Political Thought of John Locke
- Gibbon and the Rise of Christianity and Islam
- Homer’s Iliad: Liberty and Responsibility
- Hume, Smith, and Ferguson: Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption
- Hume: History of England
- James Tyrrell on Authority and Liberty
- Jefferson-Hamilton Debate
- John Milton: Liberty in his Prose and Poetry
- Major Political Thinkers: Plato to Mill
- Mandeville: Vice, Virtue and Liberty
- Mill-Macaulay Debate on Government
- Old Testament and English Political Thought
- Political Sermons of the Founding Era
- Readings from the OLL Reader
- Rousseau and Hume: Contrasting Views of Liberty
- Shakespeare and Marlowe: Liberty in Four Plays
- Shakespeare: Liberty and Responsibility
- Socialist Tracts
- Sophocles and Aeschylus: Blood Justice and the Founding of Legal Order
- Tacitus: Liberty and Tyranny in the Annals
- The Ruling Class and the State: An Anthology
- Thomas Paine and American Liberty
- Thucydides: War, Empire, and Liberty