Philosophers Past and Present: Selected Essays

This volume of uncollected essays by Barry Stroud explores central issues and ideas in the work of individual philosophers, ranging from Descartes, Berkeley, Locke, and Hume to Quine, Burge, McDowell, Goldman, Fogelin, and Sosa in our own day. Seven of the essays focus on David Hume, and examine the sources and implications of his "naturalism" and his "scepticism." Three others deal with the legacy of that "naturalism" in the twentieth century. In each case Stroud moves beyond providing a description of historical contexts and developments, and confronts the philosophical issues as they present themselves to the philosophers in question.