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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 · 60,986 ratings · 2,576 reviews · 3,211 distinct works • Similar authors

	An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 3.94 avg rating — 23,118 ratings — published 1748 — 513 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 — 12,892 ratings — published 1739 — 649 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 — 6,410 ratings — published 1751 — 231 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 — 6,246 ratings — published 1779 — 677 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) 4.03 avg rating — 1,114 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 4.01 avg rating — 1,046 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 — 1,130 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) 3.85 avg rating — 1,019 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 — 700 ratings — published 1751 — 79 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 3.53 avg rating — 655 ratings — published 1757 — 82 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

3.83 avg rating — 736 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

650 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

412 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

102 votes, 8.9%

Albert Camus

74 votes, 6.5%

Karl Marx

63 votes, 5.5%

Soren Kierkegaard

49 votes, 4.3%

Ludwig Wittgenstein

45 votes, 3.9%

Aristotle

41 votes, 3.6%

Immanuel Kant

41 votes, 3.6%

Plato

38 votes, 3.3%

Marcus Aurelius

35 votes, 3.1%

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

32 votes, 2.8%

Gilles Deleuze (write-in)

32 votes, 2.8%

Jean-Paul Sartre

30 votes, 2.6%

cumdump (write-in)

30 votes, 2.6%

Thomas Aquinas

28 votes, 2.5%

yes (write-in)

27 votes, 2.4%

Arthur Schopenhauer (write-in)

27 votes, 2.4%

Fyodor dostoevsky (write-in)

25 votes, 2.2%

spinoza (write-in)

24 votes, 2.1%

Simone de Beauvoir

22 votes, 1.9%

René Descartes

21 votes, 1.8%

Augustine of Hippo

18 votes, 1.6%

Jesus of Nazareth (write-in)

18 votes, 1.6%

Martin Heidegger

17 votes, 1.5%

Socrates (write-in)

17 votes, 1.5%

David Hume

16 votes, 1.4%

Jesus (write-in)

16 votes, 1.4%

Jordan Peterson (write-in)

15 votes, 1.3%

Hannah Arendt

14 votes, 1.2%

Carl Jung (write-in)

13 votes, 1.1%

Epictetus (write-in)

11 votes, 1.0%

José Ortega y Gasset

10 votes, 0.9%

Ibn Sina (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%

Sigmund Freud (write-in)

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%

Roger Scruton

5 votes, 0.4%

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (write-in)

5 votes, 0.4%

Michel Foucault (write-in)

5 votes, 0.4%

Nicholas Sparks (write-in)

4 votes, 0.4%

Charles Darwin (write-in)

4 votes, 0.4%

Ayn Rand (write-in)

4 votes, 0.4%

Judith Butler (write-in)

4 votes, 0.4%

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%

Niccoló Machiavelli

3 votes, 0.3%

Max Stirner (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

my dad :) (write-in)

3 votes, 0.3%

Michael Oakeshott

2 votes, 0.2%

Eric Voegelin

2 votes, 0.2%

Kosov (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Rene Guenon (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Heraclitus (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%

Diogenes (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

immanuel kant (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

Seneca (write-in)

2 votes, 0.2%

John Dewey (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Henri Bergson (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

George Berkeley (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%

B. F. Skinner (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Paul Preciado (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Karl Popper (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%

1140 total votes

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David Hume’s Followers (1,790)

David Hume

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David Hume’s books