Counterexamples like educated Francis Williams could not change Hume’s racism

Evidence

Celebrity Scottish philosopher David Hume learned about the Cambridge-trained Francis Williams. But neither Williams, nor the growing fashion of having Black boys as servants in England, nor Buffon’s climate theory could change his mind about natural human hierarchy and Blacks’ incapability for Whiteness. Hume declared his segregationist position emphatically. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 246

Categorization

• XREF: The rationalist-economist theme: the reader’s past work on institutions and reputation shows how rational actors hold to harmful beliefs despite contrary signals — same pattern here.