Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1 The Conceptual Unity of Scottish Newtonianism -- 2 The Methodological Unity of Scottish Newtonianism -- 3 Hume’s Copernican Turn -- 4 Newton’s Method and Hume’s Science of Man -- 5 Hume and the Changing Ideology of Natural Inquiry -- 6 Hume’s Experimental Method -- 7 A Chemistry of Perceptions -- 8 An Anatomy and Physiology of Mind -- 9 Three Perspectives on Human Action -- 10 The Objectivity of Moral Cognition and Philosophy -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Subject Index -- Name Index.

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David Hume has a canonical place in the context of moral philosophy, but his insights are less frequently discussed in relation to natural philosophy. David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism offers a discussion of Hume’s methodological and ideological commitments in matters of knowledge as reflected in his language and outlook. Tamás Demeter argues that several aspects of Hume’s moral philosophy reflect post-Newtonian tendencies in the aftermath of the Opticks , and show affinities with Newton-inspired Scottish physiology and chemistry. Consequently, when Hume describes his project as an 'anatomy of the mind' he uses a metaphor that expresses his commitment to study human cognitive and affective functioning on analogy with active and organic nature, and not with the Principia ’s world of inert matter.

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