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David Hume

Born

in Edinburgh, Scotland

May 07, 1711

Died

August 25, 1776

Genre

Philosophy, Science, Religion & Spirituality

Influences

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David Hume was a Scottish historian, philosopher, economist, diplomat and essayist known today especially for his radical philosophical empiricism and scepticism.

In light of Hume's central role in the Scottish Enlightenment, and in the history of Western philosophy, Bryan Magee judged him as a philosopher "widely regarded as the greatest who has ever written in the English language." While Hume failed in his attempts to start a university career, he took part in various diplomatic and military missions of the time. He wrote The History of England which became a bestseller, and it became the standard history of England in its day.

His empirical approach places him with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others at the time as a Brit David Hume was a Scottish historian, philosopher, economist, diplomat and essayist known today especially for his radical philosophical empiricism and scepticism.

In light of Hume's central role in the Scottish Enlightenment, and in the history of Western philosophy, Bryan Magee judged him as a philosopher "widely regarded as the greatest who has ever written in the English language." While Hume failed in his attempts to start a university career, he took part in various diplomatic and military missions of the time. He wrote The History of England which became a bestseller, and it became the standard history of England in its day.

His empirical approach places him with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others at the time as a British Empiricist.

Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably René Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behaviour. He also argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. He argued that inductive reasoning and therefore causality cannot be justified rationally. Our assumptions in favour of these result from custom and constant conjunction rather than logic. He concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self.

Hume's compatibilist theory of free will proved extremely influential on subsequent moral philosophy. He was also a sentimentalist who held that ethics are based on feelings rather than abstract moral principles, and expounded the is–ought problem.

Hume has proved extremely influential on subsequent western philosophy, especially on utilitarianism, logical positivism, William James, the philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive philosophy, theology and other movements and thinkers. In addition, according to philosopher Jerry Fodor, Hume's Treatise is "the founding document of cognitive science". Hume engaged with contemporary intellectual luminaries such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Boswell, and Adam Smith (who acknowledged Hume's influence on his economics and political philosophy). Immanuel Kant credited Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumbers". ...more

Combine Editions
David Hume’s books

Average rating: 3.93 · 60,638 ratings · 2,545 reviews · 3,186 distinct works • Similar authors

	An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 3.94 avg rating — 22,978 ratings — published 1748 — 552 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Treatise of Human Nature 3.95 avg rating — 12,858 ratings — published 1739 — 675 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume, J.B. Schneewind (Introduction), Eric Steinberg (Editor) 3.98 avg rating — 6,384 ratings — published 1751 — 344 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume, Richard H. Popkin (Editor) 3.96 avg rating — 6,201 ratings — published 1779 — 977 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion / The Natural History of Religion by David Hume, J.C.A. Gaskin (Editor) 4.04 avg rating — 1,107 ratings — published 1757 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Treatise on Human Nature, Volume 1 really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,038 ratings — published 1739 — 37 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	On Suicide 3.54 avg rating — 1,119 ratings — published 1775 — 44 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: with Hume's Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature and A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh by David Hume, Eric Steinberg (Editor) 3.84 avg rating — 1,005 ratings — published 1748 — 43 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals 4.09 avg rating — 694 ratings — published 1751 — 87 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Natural History of Religion 3.54 avg rating — 650 ratings — published 1757 — 139 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by David Hume…

Series by David Hume

The History of England (6 books)
by

David Hume

3.82 avg rating — 732 ratings

Quotes by David Hume (?)

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”
― David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays

tags: beauty, beholder, evil, god, perception, religion, religious-meaning

648 likes

“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”
― David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

tags: errors, philosophy, religion

454 likes

“No man ever threw away life while it was worth keeping.”
― David Hume, Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul

tags: death, endurance, inspirational, joy, life, optimism, strength, suicide, truth

408 likes

See all David Hume's quotes »

Polls

Which one is your favorite philosopher?

If it is one that is not on the list, comment below!

Friedrich Nietzsche

100 votes, 9.0%

Albert Camus

74 votes, 6.7%

Karl Marx

60 votes, 5.4%

Soren Kierkegaard

49 votes, 4.4%

Ludwig Wittgenstein

43 votes, 3.9%

Aristotle

41 votes, 3.7%

Immanuel Kant

40 votes, 3.6%

Plato

38 votes, 3.4%

Marcus Aurelius

35 votes, 3.2%

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

32 votes, 2.9%

Gilles Deleuze (write-in)

32 votes, 2.9%

Jean-Paul Sartre

29 votes, 2.6%

cumdump (write-in)

29 votes, 2.6%

Thomas Aquinas

28 votes, 2.5%

yes (write-in)

26 votes, 2.3%

Arthur Schopenhauer (write-in)

26 votes, 2.3%

Fyodor dostoevsky (write-in)

25 votes, 2.3%

spinoza (write-in)

24 votes, 2.2%

Simone de Beauvoir

22 votes, 2.0%

René Descartes

20 votes, 1.8%

Augustine of Hippo

18 votes, 1.6%

Jesus of Nazareth (write-in)

18 votes, 1.6%

Socrates (write-in)

17 votes, 1.5%

David Hume

16 votes, 1.4%

Martin Heidegger

16 votes, 1.4%

Jordan Peterson (write-in)

15 votes, 1.4%

Jesus (write-in)

14 votes, 1.3%

Hannah Arendt

13 votes, 1.2%

Epictetus (write-in)

11 votes, 1.0%

José Ortega y Gasset

10 votes, 0.9%

Ibn Sina (write-in)

10 votes, 0.9%

Carl Jung (write-in)

10 votes, 0.9%

Bertrand Russell (write-in)

9 votes, 0.8%

Olavo de Carvalho

8 votes, 0.7%

Julius Evola (write-in)

8 votes, 0.7%

Simone Weil (write-in)

8 votes, 0.7%

Slavoj Zizek (write-in)

8 votes, 0.7%

Aristotle (write-in)

8 votes, 0.7%

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

7 votes, 0.6%

Mário Ferreira dos Santos

6 votes, 0.5%

wine (write-in)

6 votes, 0.5%

Buddha (write-in)

6 votes, 0.5%

Sigmund Freud (write-in)

6 votes, 0.5%

Roger Scruton

5 votes, 0.5%

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (write-in)

5 votes, 0.5%

Nicholas Sparks (write-in)

4 votes, 0.4%

Charles Darwin (write-in)

4 votes, 0.4%

Ayn Rand (write-in)

4 votes, 0.4%

Kosov (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

Serb (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

Hypatia

3 votes, 0.3%

Maimonides (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

Euclid (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

Alfred Whitehead (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

Edmund Husserl (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

Judith Butler (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

Max Stirner (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

Michel Foucault (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

Eric Voegelin

2 votes, 0.2%

Rene Guenon (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

William James (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Thomas Hobbes (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Albert Einstein (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Francis Bacon (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Alan Watts (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Jacques Derrida (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Niccoló Machiavelli

2 votes, 0.2%

Diogenes (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

immanuel kant (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Seneca (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Michael Oakeshott

1 vote, 0.1%

John Dewey (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Henri Bergson (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

George Berkeley (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Heraclitus (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Teilhard de Chardin (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Parmenides (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Democritus (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Rudolf Carnap (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Lucretius (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Paul Preciado (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

my dad :) (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Julius Bahnsen (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Joseph Campbell (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Gottfried Leibniz (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

George Santayana (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Voltaire (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Jeremy Bentham (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

B. F. Skinner (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Karl Popper (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

1110 total votes

18 comments

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David Hume’s Followers (1,781)

David Hume

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David Hume’s books