Abstract

Book II of A Treatise of Human Nature is David Hume's only sustained expression of a theory of human emotion and motivation. Hume's theory has been much maligned and even dismissed as incoherent and philosophically uninteresting. This work shows that Hume's account of passion is indeed coherent and possessed of philosophical merit. In addition, this work shows that even though Hume's theory is an example of antiquated empirical psychology it is also and more importantly an instance of interesting conceptual analysis of passion and volition. To see this is to see that Hume's theory has genuine relevance to present day philosophical analyses of passion and volition.