Of translation: the conceptual work of multilingualism in David Hume

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although David Hume never addresses translation at length, he regularly invokes an interlingual movement at decisive moments in his work. Each of this article’s three sections addresses a pair of such moments. The first argues that translation establishes the association of ideas in A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. The second analyzes translation as the ground of both the rational and the emotional arguments for God in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. The third and final section addresses translation as a highly regulated object of criticism in the History of England before turning to the Essays where it launches the search for the standard of taste in all criticism. Because translation thus intervenes not only in Hume’s criticism, where one might expect it, but also in his historiography, theology and epistemology, this article concludes by formalizing the interdisciplinary perspective translation opens in Hume’s work.