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David Hume

  • Born: May 7, 1711 (Edinburgh, Scotland)
  • Died: August 25, 1776 (Edinburgh, Scotland)

BiographyDavid Hume

David Hume was born in 1711 in Edinburgh, Scotland, originally with the surname ‘Home’. He enrolled at the University of Edinburgh at around age 10 – much younger than the usual age of 14. He initially studied law but soon turned to philosophy.

At around age 18, Hume became obsessed with a “new Scene of Thought” – the exact nature of which is unknown – and decided to dedicate himself entirely to philosophy, ignoring “every other Pleasure or Business to apply entirely to it”. However, this obsession led to a period of physical and mental strain, and Hume became ill. His doctor prescribed him ‘anti-hysteric pills’ to be taken daily with wine. Although this improved his health initially, in 1731, Hume began experiencing an intense appetite and palpitations. This appetite transformed Hume from – in his words – “tall, lean and raw-bon’d” to “sturdy, robust [and] healthful-like”. Hume became well-known for his obese frame and would often reference port and cheese in his philosophy.

Hume’s first major work, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), was published when he was still in his twenties. In it, Hume outlined his empiricist approach, challenging traditional beliefs about knowledge, causation, and the self, and making him one of the foremost figures of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Key Ideas

Empiricism and the Limits of Knowledge

Hume was an empiricist, arguing that all knowledge originates in experience. In A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740) and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), Hume argues that even the most complex ideas we form are simply combinations of simpler impressions. For example, the idea of a ‘golden mountain’ is just the combination of simpler impressions of ‘gold’ and ‘mountain.’

Hume also challenged the notion of innate ideas – the idea that certain concepts are hardwired into us from birth, independent of experience. Instead, Hume claimed all our knowledge and beliefs stem from our perceptions. According to Hume, this reliance on experience places strict limits on what we can know with certainty, as sensory impressions are not infallible. Our understanding, he argued, is always constrained by the boundaries of what can be directly perceived and experienced. This scepticism extended to concepts like causation and the self (see below).

A key part of Hume’s empiricism is ‘Hume’s Fork‘ – his division of all knowledge into two categories: relations of ideas and matters of fact. Relations of ideas include mathematical and logical truths – analytic propositions such as “all triangles have 3 sides” – which lead to contradictions when denied and thus can be verified a priori. Matters of fact – synthetic propositions such as “grass is green” – do not lead to contradictions when denied, and so require a posteriori experience to verify.

Causation

Hume’s analysis of causation, outlined in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), is among his most well-known contributions to philosophy. According to Hume, we never directly perceive a ’cause’ in the world, we only observe one event consistently following another (‘constant conjunction’). We might, for example, see a ball strike another, followed by the second ball moving, but we don’t perceive any inherent causal connection between the two events. Our belief in causation, Hume argues, arises from habit or custom: Through repeated experiences, we come to expect certain outcomes. Over time, we develop a mental habit of linking these events together, assuming a cause-effect relationship based on their regular association.

Hume thus concluded that causation is not something we can know with certainty, but rather an expectation that forms based on observed patterns. For Hume, causation is an inferred relation, not a directly perceivable reality, and thus falls outside the realm of absolute knowledge.

The Self as a Bundle of Perceptions

Hume’s view of the self, presented in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), challenges the traditional notion of a stable, core identity. Rather than seeing the self as a unified entity, Hume argued that all we ever experience is a ‘bundle’ of constantly shifting perceptions – impressions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences – that are always in motion. However, he says, we never actually experience a permanent ‘self’ – only this series of connected experiences. For Hume, this means that the self is not a fixed substance but rather an ongoing collection of experiences that gives the illusion of continuity.

Religious Scepticism

Although Hume did not explicitly deny God’s existence, he insisted that human reason and understanding are too limited to offer conclusive evidence about divine matters.

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), Hume presented and challenged traditional arguments for the existence of God, focusing particularly on the teleological or design argument. Hume argued that, rather than requiring a designer, natural processes could explain the order and complexity we see in nature – an idea that was radically sceptical for the time, given that it preceded Darwin’s theory of evolution by many decades.

Hume also challenged belief in miracles in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). He argued that reports of miracles – events that supposedly violate natural laws – are usually unreliable, often based on weak evidence or contradictory to regular experience. For Hume, the balance of evidence always suggests the testimony is flawed or exaggerated rather than that the miracle actually happened because of the overwhelming experience we have of the consistency of the laws of nature.

Quotes

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.”

– A Treatise of Human Nature

“All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. [Relations of ideas] are discoverable by the mere operation of thought… Matters of fact… are not ascertained in the same manner… The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality.”

– An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“We say, for instance, that the vibration of this string is the cause of this particular sound. But what do we mean by that affirmation? We either mean that this vibration is followed by this sound, and that all similar vibrations have been followed by similar sounds: Or, that this vibration is followed by this sound, and that upon the appearance of one the mind anticipates the senses, and forms immediately an idea of the other. We may consider the relation of cause and effect in either of these two lights; but beyond these, we have no idea of it.”

– An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.”

– An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.”

– An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish… I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.”

– An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Influences and Influenced

Influences: Hume was deeply influenced by earlier empiricists, such as John Locke, who also rejected any notion of innate ideas and whose theory of knowledge also emphasised the role of sensory experience. Hume also drew heavily on the methods of Isaac Newton, applying the same empirical focus to explain human psychology as Newton did to explain the natural world. Hume engaged with the sceptical arguments of Michel de Montaigne, whose scepticism and questioning of the possibility of certainty provided a backdrop for Hume’s own scepticism. Another key influence on Hume was Francis Hutcheson, who many believe to be the man responsible for the “new Scene of Thought” that captivated Hume at age 18. Hume incorporated Hutcheson’s moral philosophy – particularly the idea that moral judgements stem from feelings of approval or disapproval – into his own theories on ethics and human nature.

Influenced: Hume’s empiricism and scepticism had a profound impact on later philosophers. His work directly influenced Immanuel Kant, for example, who credited Hume with awakening him from a “dogmatic slumber” and motivated him to develop his own theories. Hume’s scepticism and ideas on causation, personal identity, and religion also shaped subsequent thinkers. For example, the logical positivist movement of the 20th century was heavily influenced by Hume’s views on verification and the importance of empirical evidence. In moral philosophy, Jeremy Bentham extended Hume’s empiricism into ethics with his utilitarian approach. Hume’s critical approach to religion has also influenced many secular thinkers, encouraging a reliance on evidence and cautioning against accepting beliefs without empirical support.

Key Works and Further Reading

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