Abstract

David Hume is one of Isaac Newton’s most celebrated eighteenth-century readers, but after much scholarly debate a consensus has emerged that presents Hume as simultaneously “Newtonian” and “anti-Newtonian”. This article offers an alternative to this ostensibly contradictory verdict by taking a new approach to the question of Hume’s Newtonianism: focusing on direct engagement with Newton by Hume and his Scottish contemporaries and considering how Newton’s example was used, rather than directly comparing Hume’s philosophical corpus to that of Newton. When his remarks are read in the context of Newton’s eighteenth-century Scottish reception, Hume stands out among his peers for presenting a radical image of Newton in line with his own views on causation, with Newton’s ideas acting as reference and support for Hume’s own novel epistemological claims. Rather than the ambivalent treatment of Newton that scholars have previously found in Hume, this article finds that Hume lauded Newton and presented a singular vision of Newtonian philosophy as a precursor to Humean philosophy. It also finds that Hume’s interpretation of Newton became more widely held after mid-century. These findings shed new light on Hume’s authorial intentions and point to a way forward for understanding Newton’s impact on eighteenth-century intellectual history.