Trousson, Raymond / Vercruysse, Jeroom (dir.), Dictionnaire general de Voltaire. (Champion classiques, references et dictionnaires 18) 1272 p. 2020:10 (Champion, FR) <670-9>
ISBN 978-2-38096-016-7 paper ¥7,064.- (税込) EUR 38.00

ヒュームの『奇跡論』の評価
Larmer, Robert A., Hume's Counterfeit Check: An Appraisal of Hume's "Of Miracles". XXII, 204 pp. 2025:2 (P. Lang, SZ) <746-40>
ISBN 978-1-63667-945-7 hard ¥23,823.- (税込) SFR 98.00

Hume’s essay "Of Miracles" has the reputation of providing, in Hume’s own words, an "everlasting check" to accepting reports of miracles. Author Robert Larmer demonstrates that this reputation is undeserved. Taking seriously the environment in which "Of Miracles" was composed reveals that its arguments are neither original to Hume nor compelling. Both before and after the publication of "Of Miracles" these arguments received devastating criticisms by Hume’s predecessors and contemporaries. Contemporary revisionary attempts to defend the argument by insisting that Hume cannot really have meant what he has traditionally been understood to claim are inevitably guilty of eisegesis and systematically ignoring crucial passages fatal to their idiosyncratic readings. The clarity of Larmer’s writing makes Hume’s Counterfeit Check accessible both to professional academics and interested lay persons. Anyone interested in assessing the rationality of accepting testimonial evidence for the occurrence of miracles should view this book as required reading. "Hume’s Counterfeit Check is the best book on the historical context and reception of Hume’s argument on miracles in over fifty years ? deeply informed and judicious yet written with a light touch that makes this material accessible to non-specialist readers. I wish I had written it myself." ?Tim McGrew, Professor and Chair of Philosophy, Western Michigan University

Watkin, Christopher, The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity: Tracing the Roots of Colonialism, Secularity, and Ecology. 379 pp. 2025:12 (Cambridge U. Pr., UK) <746-41>
ISBN 978-1-009-67046-3 hard ¥29,568.- (税込) GB￡ 105.00

The state of nature is a powerful idea at the heart of the fragmented and sometimes conflicting stories the modern West tells about itself. It also makes sense of foundational Western commitments to equality and accumulation, freedom and property, universality and the individual. By exploring the social and cultural imaginaries that emerge from the distinct and often contradictory accounts of the state of nature in the writing of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity offers a fresh perspective on some of the most pressing debates of our time, showing how the state of nature idea provides a powerful lens through which to focus the complex forces shaping today's political and cultural landscape. It also explores how ideas about human nature and origins drive today's debates about colonialism, secularism, and the environment, and how they can shed new light on some of society's most heated debates.