A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40)
Three books (understanding, passions, morals) applying the "experimental method" to the mind; in his words it "fell dead-born from the press"
Philosophy
David Hume
1711–1776 · Scottish
British empiricism; Scottish Enlightenment; scepticism
Scottish philosopher, historian and essayist, a central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment and the most thoroughgoing of the British empiricists. His analyses of causation, induction, the self, morality and religion pushed empiricism to sceptical conclusions, and Kant credited him with waking him from his "dogmatic slumber".
How to spot them
- ▸The problem of induction; causation as constant conjunction
- ▸Is–ought gap (Hume's law); Hume's fork
- ▸"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions"
- ▸Bundle theory of the self; "Of Miracles"; "commit it then to the flames"
Key works
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
Recasting of Treatise Book I; first titled Philosophical Essays; includes the section "Of Miracles"
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751)
Grounds morality in sentiment and utility; Hume thought it his best work
The History of England (1754–62)
Six-volume bestseller from Julius Caesar's invasion to 1688, which made his fame in his lifetime
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (published 1779)
Posthumous dialogue between Cleanthes, Philo and Demea criticising the design argument
Key ideas
- All perceptions are impressions (vivid) or ideas (fainter copies); an idea without a source impression is suspect
- We never observe necessary connection between cause and effect, only constant conjunction; the idea of necessity comes from habit or custom
- Problem of induction: there is no non-circular rational justification for expecting the future to resemble the past
- Hume's fork: meaningful knowledge concerns either relations of ideas (a priori) or matters of fact (empirical)
- The self is "nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions"
- Morality rests on sentiment, not reason; one cannot validly derive an "ought" from an "is"
Quick-fire facts
- •Born in Edinburgh; he was refused professorships at Edinburgh (1745) and Glasgow (early 1750s), partly over suspicions of atheism
- •He became Keeper of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, where he wrote much of his History of England
- •In "Of Miracles" he argues that testimony can never reasonably establish a miracle as the basis of religion
- •His Enquiry ends by saying that a volume containing neither abstract reasoning about quantity nor experimental reasoning about fact should be committed "to the flames"
- •Kant said Hume interrupted his "dogmatic slumber"
- •He was a close friend of Adam Smith, who wrote an admiring account of his last days
- •In 1766 he brought Rousseau to England; they soon fell out in a public quarrel
- •He served as secretary to the British embassy in Paris, where he was lionised in the salons as "le bon David"
Drill it — 10 cards
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Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — David Hume
- Bertrand Russell — A History of Western Philosophy