ABSTRACT
This chapter presents history, both qua distillation of experience and qua scholarly practice, as fundamental to Hume’s political theory. Humean conventions of authority and allegiance are historical in two senses: they rest on long habit, rather than consent or rational analysis; and they embody progress (akin to that of technology) while harboring myriad innovative projects. Finally, Hume’s History of England, as an “auto-discourse” by a great philosopher on his own historical narrative, can address political theorists’ blind-spots, reminding us how political concepts arise (from experience) and that the ones we currently favor may be dispensable.
