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Was David Hume a racist? Interpreting Hume's infamous footnote (Part II)

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  • Kendra Asher

Abstract

This is the second part of a two‐part article. The first part appeared in the June 2022 issue of Economic Affairs. In his essay ‘Of National Characters’, David Hume added a now‐infamous footnote denigrating African civilisations and black people in general. Hume is widely recognised as a critic of bigotry, yet his footnote is the height of bigotry. I argue that Hume often wrote in an ambiguous and occasionally contradictory fashion to draw readers with opposing views into his work, yet his true beliefs were sometimes hard to discern. This article examines a number of oddities and inconsistencies in Hume's writing on race, including a striking non sequitur within the footnote.

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  • Kendra Asher, 2022. "Was David Hume a racist? Interpreting Hume's infamous footnote (Part II)," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 477-499, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecaffa:v:42:y:2022:i:3:p:477-499
    DOI: 10.1111/ecaf.12540
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    1. Kendra Asher, 2022. "Was David Hume a racist? Interpreting Hume's infamous footnote (Part I)," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 225-239, June.
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    1. James F Fieser, 2022. "A response to Kendra Asher," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 500-504, October.

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