David Hume

About this figure

David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish philosopher, essayist, and historian, a central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment whose empiricist and skeptical arguments shaped the subsequent course of Western philosophy. Born and largely based in Edinburgh, Hume abandoned early plans for a career in law to pursue philosophy and, after a period living in France, published A Treatise of Human Nature anonymously in three volumes between 1739 and 1740, a work laying out his account of how human understanding, passions, and moral judgment arise from experience and habit rather than reason alone.

The Treatise attracted little attention on publication, a disappointment Hume later described by remarking that it fell "dead-born from the press," and he subsequently reworked its arguments into more accessible essays, including An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1748, which contains his influential discussion of causation, arguing that the connection between cause and effect cannot be established by reason alone but rests on custom and habitual association, alongside his skeptical treatment of miracles.

Hume never held a university chair, in part because his skepticism about religion made him a controversial candidate, but he worked as a librarian for the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh and served in diplomatic posts, including a period as a secretary in Paris, where he was warmly received by French intellectual circles and became a friend of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a friendship that later collapsed acrimoniously. Hume also wrote a multi-volume History of England that was widely read in his lifetime, and he maintained a close friendship with the economist Adam Smith. He died in Edinburgh in 1776, reportedly facing his final illness with notable equanimity.

Written by Epoch Voices. Not the figure’s own words.