/lit/ - Literature

HE is generally reckoned to be Scotland’s greatest philosopher and one of the world’s leading thinkers.

But before the rise of Black Lives Matter and the toppling of statues, it is likely that few Scots suspected David Hume was guilty of making racist statements.

The author of a A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding was one of the greatest figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, but once wrote a footnote to an essay stating “I am apt to suspect the negroes, and in general all the other species of men … to be naturally inferior to the whites.”


Admittedly that was in the middle of the 18th century, and the Aberdeen Philosophical Society took him to task at the time, writing: “Learn, Mr Hume, to prize the blessings of liberty and education, for … had you been born and bred a slave, your genius, whatever you may think of it, would never have been heard of.”
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19006264.re-naming-david-hume-tower-racism-row-discussed-panel/