The Reluctant Revolutionary

David Hume's eminence as a philosopher, most notably as a critical investigator of issues in metaphysics, is beyond dispute. Yet his contributions to a concern he regarded as central to metaphysics - namely, the question on the status of necessary connections, or powers - is less widely appreciated, and subject to divergent and conflicting interpretations. The Reluctant Revolutionary is an attempt to develop, through close textual analysis and careful argumentation, a new interpretation of Hume's view of necessary connection. After a detailed critical examination of this view and its foundation, the author argues for an interpretive framework that accounts for Hume's adoption of a radical thesis that Hume himself acknowledged was little likely to win many converts.