I'm not sure about him being read with pleasure

Addison vs. Locke.

Near the start of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume is talking about distinctions between abstract and practical philosophy, noting that more abstract philosophers tend to be forgotten. He says

And Addison, perhaps, will be read with pleasure, when Locke shall be entirely forgotten.

Out of curiosity, and knowing that such a survey is of dubious accuracy at best, I put Addison and Locke into Google to see whose name is more frequently attested. The results are

Addison, Joseph (essayist) 3,820,000 results
Locke, John (philosopher) 1,870,000 results

Of course, I have no way of telling whether anyone reads Addison for pleasure, or Locke for that matter, or whether the pair of them are only seen in fragments on the relevant courses at university which give no particular pleasure to anyone. Because I didn’t think that Addison counted as a philosopher, I’m not sure why he’s being mentioned beside Locke except as a means for Hume to parallel Cicero and Aristotle in the same paragraph. I didn’t think Cicero counted as a philosopher.

Ironically, Hume only gets 1,060,000 results.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

FH5, Series 37, Week 4

FH5, Series 29, Week 4

FH5, Series 38, preview