Hume turns out to have been right about an awful lot, but still... why read Hume when you can read contemporary works of science and philosophy there are clearer, more precise, and more correct? (If you're reading Hume for his lovely prose, I suppose that's a different matter.)

Speaking of Hume, the Nov. 30th episode of Philosophy Bites was kind of amusing. A bunch of philosophers, including famous ones, gave their answers to "Who's your favorite philosopher?" IIRC, when giving their reasons for liking their favorite philosopher, almost nobody said "because this philosopher turned out to be correct about so much" — except for all the people who picked Hume.

Bostrom simply said: "I'm not sure I have one favorite philosopher. Contemporary philosophy, at least the way I'm doing it, is more like science in that there are many people who have made significant contributions and you're not so much following in the footsteps of one great individual. [Instead] you're drawing on the heritage accumulated by many people working for a long time."