Charles Hendel

Charles William Hendel Jr. (16 December 1890 – 12 November 1982) was an American philosopher and Hume scholar. He was elected as the President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in 1940 until 1941 as well as the president of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy from 1959 until 1961.

Biography Charles William Hendel Jr. was born on 16 December 1890 in Reading, Pennsylvania to Charles William Hendel Sr. and Emma Leninger Stolz Hendel.

In 1916, Hendel married Elizabeth Jones and had two children together, Elizabeth Hendel and Charles William Hendel III. He continued his position as 2nd lieutenant until the end of the war, where he then took the position as a teacher in Princeton Preparatory School in 1919. A 1940 McGill yearbook detailing his resignation from the University considered Hendel to be the first Canadian to be elected in that spot, while also noting that he was born in Pennsylvania. Among his students was academic philosopher Richard Popkin. He worked as a professor from 1943 to 1959, where he became professor emeritus from 1959 until his death. Following his retirement, he was then elected as the President of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy from 1959 to 1961. He delivered a Gifford Lecture at the University of Glasgow in 1962–3.

He was awarded the William C. DeVane Medal of the Yale Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa as well as an honorary degree in the Master of Arts in 1940.

Hendel died in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 12, 1982.

Works on David Hume Hendel's research on David Hume's major works is said to made valuable contributions to the field. His most notable work, Studies in the Philosophies of David Hume, details the history of Hume's philosophy and which people and sources influenced him. Hendel was one of the first to discern the works of Cicero in order to understand Hume. He also gave credit to the works of Michel de Montaigne and Joseph Butler in order to understand Hume's background.

He was also one of the first scholars to postulate that Hume's works are motivated by theological concerns. He argues that Hume searched for a principle of causation because he wanted to explain the world without an appeal to God. Hendel believed that Hume's message on cause and effect being part of the imagination is not him denying the idea of causality because mental habits of thought that represent a fact may lead to the truth if provided further experience in the world. Furthermore, Hendel argued that Hume didn't denied the reality of self but rather denying the scholarly views on self as a soul, adding that Hume's perception on self is an organization of beliefs and habits.

In the part on Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in his work, He argued that Philo and Cleanthes are just two different ways in viewing religious beliefs, and that Pamphilus is a stand-in character for Hume's, who listened to both sides of the conversation and the one who didn't have any personal connection to one character or another. Hendel implied Hume was an idealist. He argued that Hume's position are that things are believed to exist when given perception in relation to other concepts. Hendel also suggested that no experience can be real unless it is a part of a system of other experiences.

Publications