Abstract

This article interprets David Hume’s social and political thought as a ‘theory of civil society’, arguing that as such it constituted an important challenge to the civic humanism of much early 18th-century British political argument. Since republican theorists invoke the historical traditions of civic thought in current debates, Hume’s theory of civil society therefore is of especial interest in relation to the foundations of contemporary neo-republicanism. The first part argues that, in A Treatise of Human Nature, by analysing various different kinds of relation between human beings, Hume articulated a fundamental distinction between society and the state. The second examines Hume’s Essays and Political Discourses, focusing in particular on the relationship between the respective interests of society and government, the effects of commercial refinement on virtues and sociability, and on forms of mediation between society and the state. The concluding section reviews the historical and theoretical significance of Hume’s theory, focusing particularly on concepts of liberty