Abstract
In September 2020, ‘The David Hume Tower’ in Edinburgh was renamed ‘40 George Square’ because Edinburgh University had concluded that the philosopher, historian and essayist, David Hume, was guilty of holding racist views. There were also public allegations of his support for slavery. The supposed evidence comes from a letter he wrote to Lord Hertford in March 1766; an assumed loan to a slave plantation investor; a letter he received in June 1766 from the Marquis d’Ennery and a footnote added to his essay Of National Characters in 1753. In this essay we review the events in Edinburgh prior to the renaming of the tower and re-examine some of the documentary evidence used to support current attacks on Hume’s moral character. Each of the charges of supporting slavery and being a racist is examined, both in the context of Hume’s writings as a whole and in relation to modern definitions of racism. Our conclusion is that Hume is innocent of both accusations, and that he has been unjustly vilified.
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