The main argument of this book is that Hume is best understood as a Pyrrhonian philosopher who maintains that the foundations of our knowledge, ethics, and political practices may be found only in custom and habit. What do the parallels mean? Are there any deeper or wider conclusions that we can make about parallels that appear in very different philosophical traditions? Is convergence of ideas a confidence builder in their solidity and truth, or rather a reminder of common human tendencies to fallacy? If philosophy is ever going to join the ranks of truly global human enterprises, it will have to ask and answer these questions about far-flung philosophical traditions. A work like this, drawing attention to many similarities and parallels in philosophy, could be followed up by some methodological work on how to compare philosophies from such different intellectual traditions. In this case, Jay Garfield is the author of many works on Indian philosophy, including Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy (2015), so he has authority in the matter.

Of course, one of the reasons that most of us cannot compare a figure like Hume to Indian or Chinese philosophy is that we do not know the languages and have not been trained in those areas. The latter are still of philosophical interest because they show how similar philosophies can develop from different roots. In Hume’s case, it is possible that there was some influence through Pyrrho and his followers, or that these were simply parallel developments. We are not used to the idea that Western philosophers may have drawn some of their ideas from non-Western philosophy, although we have long known that Pyrrho traveled to India and may have taken ideas from the gymnosophists, and that later philosophers like Bayle and Leibniz were very interested in Chinese ideas. In contrast, this book peppers the footnotes, and even some of the text, with comparisons to Buddhist schools and figures such as Madhyamaka, Candrakirti, Nagarjuna, and the like. We follow what our thinkers are doing, and pay little or no attention to the rest of the world. Concerning the first of these, I think it would be widely admitted that most of the study of Western philosophy is done in blissful ignorance of non-Western philosophy. ) The other is that it gives custom and habit the place they deserve in Hume’s philosophy.

One is that it is one of the first in the Hume literature to be truly global. This book has at least two original and great merits. The Concealed Influence of Custom: Hume’s “Treatise” from the Inside Out. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Concealed Influence of Custom: Hume’s “Treatise” from the Inside Out by Jay L.

Hume a treatise of human nature