The Philosophers' Quarrel: Rousseau, Hume, and the Limits of Human Understanding

The dramatic collapse of the friendship between Rousseau and Hume, in the context of their grand intellectual quest to conquer the limits of human understanding.

The rise and spectacular fall of the friendship between the two great philosophers of the eighteenth century, barely six months after they first met, reverberated on both sides of the Channel. As the relationship between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume unraveled, a volley of rancorous letters was fired off, then quickly publis...