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.

Barry Stroud is Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of Philosophy in the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and the author of Hume (1977), The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism (OUP, 1984), The Quest for Reality (OUP, 2000), and two collections of essays, Understanding Human Knowledge (OUP, 2000) and Meaning, Understanding, and Practice (OUP, 2000).