My interest in undertaking the David Hume Bibliography project began in 1986, when I was invited by Routledge ( London) to research and put together, in six volumes, David Hume: Critical Assessments. The aim of the project was to collect and publish the most important articles on Hume written in the twentieth century. Needless to say, bibliographic material needed to be gathered in order to learn about the Hume literature written in the last century. Beryl Logan, who at the time was a student in the Graduate Philosophy Program at York University (she currently lectures in Philosophy at York University), assisted me with the bibliographic searches.

The project was completed and published nine years later, in 1995. Each of the six volumes of David Hume: Critical Assessments contains extensive bibliographic material, relative to the topics covered in the given volume. Considerable additional bibliographic material (beyond that obtained for my David Hume: Critical Assessments) was collected, with the assistance of Beryl Logan, for inclusion in the publication of my new edition of David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published by Routledge in 1991; and with the assistance of Paula Peel (assigned as my Research Assistant) for the publication of the second edition of my edition of Hume’s Dialogues, Caravan Books, 2000.

While working on the David Hume: Critical Assessments project and my two editions of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, I began to view the bibliographic material as a possible object of study. In particular, I became interested in the question of whether it is possible to speak of progress in this scholarship. In other words, while acknowledging that much is being written and published on Hume’s writings, I became interested in whether our knowledge and understanding of Hume’s philosophy are increasing in some recognizable sense. Or, is it rather the case that this scholarship proceeds with no discernible sense of progress. As a preliminary effort in this regard, I wrote, and published, The Current State of Hume Scholarship (included in the present work). After completing this paper, I realized that a much larger project on the status of Hume scholarship awaited me and other scholars, namely, one that takes a more comprehensive view of the Hume secondary literature. Clearly, in order to undertake this research, I needed to expand the bibliographic material. Hence, my interest in undertaking, and completing, the David Hume Bibliography project.

As I indicated above, the current work effectively began in 1986. In addition to the research assistance provided by Beryl Logan and Paula Peel, the following York graduate students have served as research assistants: Slava Sadovnikov, began as a research assistant in September 2000 (when I had more than one graduate student participating in the project at the same time, he assisted me in coordinating their research efforts—Slava left the project in February 2005); Mar’yana Svarnyk (September 2001–April 2002); Jamie Pratt (September 2002–April 2004); Ryan Brenders (September 2003–April 2004); Alexandre Da Silva Maia (May 2004–August 2004); Steven Doran (September 2004–December 2004); Sahar Rizvi (May 2003–July 2003); Hope Shamonda (September 2004–April 2005); Jennifer Di Paolo (September 2005–present); Craig Roxboro (September 2005–present). I am indebted to Craig Roxboro for his assistance with bibliographical searches, and for his careful reading of the entire project that enabled me to eliminate errors that hitherto had gone undetected. My wife, Barbara, accompanied me to all the libraries I visited, and assisted with searches for the project.

I was fortunate to have John Marshall assigned to me as a research assistant earlier this year (John is currently a doctoral candidate in our Graduate Philosophy Program). At our first meeting, I mentioned to him that I not only wanted to list the bibliographic entries in chronological order, but that for the convenience of the reader, I also wanted to list the entries in a variety of other ways. It is through John’s efforts that I came to be able to display the entries through these various indexes (set out later in this Introduction).

In addition to assistance I received from numerous Hume scholars and librarians I consulted throughout the time I was working on this bibliographic project, I want to acknowledge the efforts of Adam Potkay. I sent Adam an earlier draft of this work: he examined the entire manuscript as it existed at that time, and provided extremely helpful comments and suggestions.

Objective of this bibliographic project

Once the research for the current volumes was completed, I had to decide how the material was to be arranged. A number of options presented themselves. I could arrange the entries under books, parts of books/ collections/ anthologies, and journals, and arrange entries under each of these heading either alphabetically or chronologically. Alternatively, I could arrange all the entries either alphabetically or chronologically, without regard as to whether a particular entry is a book, part of a book/ collection/ anthology, or journal article. It was when John Marshall began as my assistant that I was able to reach a decision on this. In the end, I decided that the primary listing of the entries will be chronological-that the reader will be able to track all the bibliographic entries on Hume’s writings from 1741 until 2005, a period of 265 years. This way of grouping the material enables the reader to appreciate the evolution of the Hume scholarly process, to learn of periods when certain of Hume’s works/ topics were emphasized or ignored, and in general to obtain a panoramic understanding of the history of Hume scholarship. (I am confident that other advantages to this grouping will be discerned by other scholars.) In addition to listing all of the entries chronologically, I present the entries under 7 additional categories. These are all found in the second volume.

Index of Keywords. For each entry in the primary (chronological) list, certain keywords have been provided, which indicate (at least some of) the topics contained in that work. The keyword section contains a list of all keywords, and by identifying numbers that correspond to the numbers in the entries in the primary list, the reader is able to locate every entry characterized by that keyword.

Index of Authors. The Index of Authors lists alphabetically all authors whose work(s) has (have) been included. Through identifying numbers that correspond to the numbers in the entries in the primary list, the reader is thereby able to locate every entry in the bibliography contributed by a particular author.

Index of Articles in Journals. The Index of Articles in Journals lists alphabetically the titles of all journal articles included in the primary listing. Through identifying numbers that correspond to the numbers of the entries in the primary list, the reader is able to locate the full entry for a particular article.

Index of Journal. The Index of Journal Titles lists alphabetically all journals in the primary list, along with the identifying corresponding numbers for all articles in that journal.

Index of Essays in Anthologies and Chapters in Books. The Index of Contributions to Anthologies/ Chapters in Books/ Collections lists alphabetically all titles of sections in anthologies/ chapters in books/ collections recorded in the primary list, along with the identifying corresponding numbers.

Index of Book Titles. The Index of Book Titles lists alphabetically all book titles recorded in the primary list, along with the identifying corresponding numbers.

Index of Publication Types. The Index of Publication Types is divided into three sections—Anthologies/ Chapters in Books/ Collections, Books, and Articles. Each of these sections contains all identifying corresponding numbers of entries in the primary list.

My aim in presenting the primary list along with the seven indexes is to make it as easy as possible for the reader to locate entries in the primary list that best fulfill the reader’s scholarly needs.

* * *

This bibliographic project is dedicated to the memory of my parents Fay and David Tweyman z"l ; to my wife Barbara; our daughter and son-in-law Justine and Tzvi Erez; our grandchildren Kessem and Jonah; and my brother Martin.

Stanley Tweyman
stweyman@yorku.ca

York University
Toronto , Ontario, Canada
M3J 1P3