Society News
winners of 2025 Hume Studies Essay Prize
The officers of the Hume Society and the editors of Hume Studies are pleased to announce the winner of the Fifth Hume Studies Essay Prize. The winning essay is a co-authored paper. The recipients of the prize for 2025 are Robert Ziegler and Travis Tanner, for their essay, “Shepherd Contra Hume on Ordinary Induction.”
Mr. Ziegler is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at the University of Virginia and Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. His work centers on the history of philosophy, particular on Leibniz, Shepherd, Suárez, and Augustine. Dr. Tanner received his Ph.D. in 2024 from the University of Virginia and currently teaches Philosophy and Religion at Austin Peay State University. He coedited The Cartesian Mind (Routledge: 2026), and his published work centers on Descartes, Hume, and Shepherd.
Dr. Tanner and Mr. Ziegler each receive $1000 US, and their paper will be published in Hume Studies 51:2 (November 2026) as the lead paper of a special panel on “David Hume and the Enlightenment: New Perspectives.” We send sincere congratulations to Travis and Robert for this recognition of their excellent work!
Thank you to all the scholars who submitted papers. We received seventeen submissions for the Fifth Prize, although several of those papers were declined in the routine review process. We are deeply grateful to the members of the Hume Studies Editorial Board who served on this year’s panel: Ruth Weintraub (panel chair), Rachel Cohon, and Todd Ryan.
The Hume Studies Essay Prize is an annual competition open to those ten or fewer years from the Ph.D., including those currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program. Here Here is information on how to submit to the Sixth Prize competition.
Mario Chávez Tortolero receives 2026 McGill Library-Hume Society Research Travel Grant
Mario Chávez Tortolero, a member of the Hume Society, is the winner of the 2026 McGill Library-Hume Society Research Travel Grant!
Here is a brief biography of Professor Chávez Tortolero and his research project:
Mario Edmundo Chávez Tortolero is a full-time Associate Professor C at the College of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He is a Level 1 member of the National Researchers System (SNI) of the SECIHT. In 2022, he received the National University Distinction Award for Young Academics. His publications include the book Sobre una posible influencia del Quijote en el pensamiento de Hume (On a Possible Influence of Don Quixote on Hume's Thought, 2020); the article “Una hipótesis sobre la hipótesis en Hume: el papel de la intuición” (“A Hypothesis on Hypothesis in Hume: The Role of Intuition”, 2022); and the book chapter “Aspectos literarios de la filosofía de Hume” (“Literary Aspects of Hume's Philosophy”, 2021)."The primary goal of the project is to publish, in Spanish, the Hume–Boufflers and Rousseau–Boufflers letters from the McGill University David Hume Collection. To this end, I propose translating the letters and writing an introduction that highlights two main aspects: their philosophical content and David Hume's relationships with women. At present, no such edition exists in Spanish.”