Peter Millican explains why we still study Hume's 300-year-old work:
Without my interest in Hume, I might never have read Price’s views on perception and “sense data”. Through his book, the greatest philosopher of the 18th century has thus provided a connecting thread through which the insights of a different period – the early 20th century – can be conveyed forward even to those who have no special interest in that period. Thus one can learn greatly both about Hume and about philosophy through seeing his issues explored in a variety of ways, both over time and through the involvement of a variety of scholars with different emphases (and, of course, disagreements).
This also facilitates serendipity, the way in which interesting ideas can turn up unexpectedly, and chance observations or associations can prompt fruitful enquiries (perhaps quite distinct from the intentions of the relevant texts). One famous example is Einstein’s recollection of studying Hume’s Treatise “with eagerness and admiration shortly before finding relativity theory”. Einstein did not approach Hume’s text as a scholar, but his understanding of its “positivism … was of great influence” and even “suggested relativity theory”. Such serendipity can occur with all sorts of reading, but a particular virtue of going back to classical texts is that doing so forces us systematically to reinterpret our own ideas in their terms (or vice-versa), providing an especially fertile source of novel connections.
The Dish 