In Hume’s time

A leading expert at the University of St Andrews will take part in Radio 4’s In Our Time tomorrow.

Dr James Harris of the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies will participate in a discussion on the philosopher David Hume in the weekly ideas programme presented by Melvyn Bragg.

Dr Harris is currently writing an intellectual biography of Hume for Cambridge University Press during this, the tercentenary of the Scottish philosopher’s birth.

Hume was a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. His works, beginning in 1739 with A Treatise of Human Nature, greatly influenced thinkers from Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant to Charles Darwin, James Madison and Friedrich von Hayek.

Today Hume is regarded by many as the most important philosopher ever to write in English.

Dr Harris, a senior lecturer in philosophy at St Andrews, is a leading expert in early modern philosophy and enlightenment philosophy, specialising in Hume.

He is editor of The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century and co-editor of Scottish Philosophy in the Age of the Enlightenment, Volume 2 of The Oxford History of Scottish Philosophy.

ENDS

Note to Editors

Dr Harris will participate in In Our Time on Radio 4 at 10.00am on Thursday 6 October and later via the BBC iPlayer.

Issued by the Press Office, University of St Andrews

Contact Fiona MacLeod on 01334 462108 / 0771 414 0559.
Ref: (inourtime 05/10/11)
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