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David Hume
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See also:David Hume of Godscroft
Western Philosophy
18th-century philosophy
David Hume
Name: David Hume
Birth:April 26,1711 (Edinburgh,Scotland)
Death:August 25,1776 (Edinburgh,Scotland)
School/tradition:Empiricism,
Scottish Enlightenment
Main interests:Metaphysics,Epistemology,Philosophy of mind,Ethics,Political philosophy,Aesthetics,Philosophy of religion
Notable ideas:Problem of causation,Induction,Is-ought problem
Influences:Locke,Berkeley,Hutcheson,Newton,Cicero[1],Malebranche[1]
Influenced:Adam Smith,Adam Ferguson,Kant,Arthur Schopenhauer,Bentham,James Madison,Alexander Hamilton,Comte,William James,Darwin,Russell,Karl Popper,T. H. Huxley,J. S. Mill,Einstein,Ayer,Simon Blackburn,Iain King,J. L. Mackie
David Hume (April 26,1711 –August 25,1776)[2] was aScottishphilosopher,economist, andhistorian. He is considered one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and theScottish Enlightenment. Although in recent years interest in Hume‘s work has centred on his philosophical writing, it was as a historian that he first gained notoriety. His The History of England[3] was the standard work on English history for sixty or seventy years until Macaulay‘s.[4]
Historians predominantly see Humean philosophy as a form of deepskepticism, but others arguenaturalism is equally central to his thought. Humean scholarship has tended to oscillate between those who emphasize the skeptical component (such as thelogical positivists), and those who emphasize the naturalist component (such as Don Garrett,Norman Kemp Smith, Barry Stroud, andGalen Strawson).
Hume was heavily influenced byempiricistsJohn Locke andGeorge Berkeley, along with variousFrancophone writers such asPierre Bayle, and various figures on theAnglophone intellectual landscape such asIsaac Newton,Samuel Clarke,Francis Hutcheson,Adam Smith, andJoseph Butler.[5]
Contents
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1 Life2 Legacy2.1 The problem of causation2.2 The problem of induction2.3 The bundle theory of the self2.4 Practical reason: instrumentalism and nihilism2.5 Sentiment-based ethical theory2.6 Free will versus determinism2.7 The is-ought problem2.8 Utilitarianism2.9 The problem of miracles2.10 The design argument2.11 Political theory2.12 Contributions to economic thought2.13 Human species
3 Perspectives on Hume4 Works5 See also6 Further reading7 Footnotes and references8 External links
[edit] Life
David Home (later Hume), the son of Joseph Home of Ninewells, advocate, and Katherine, Lady Falconer, was born on26 April 1711 (Old style) in atenement on the North side of theLawnmarket inEdinburgh. Throughout his life Hume, who never married, was to spend time occasionally at his family home at Ninewells byChirnside,Berwickshire. (He changed his name to Hume in 1734 because the English had difficulty in pronouncing Home in the Scottish manner.) He was sent by his family to theUniversity of Edinburgh at the unusually early age of twelve (fourteen would have been more normal). At first he considered a career inlaw, but came to have, in his words, "an insurmountable aversion to everything but the pursuits ofPhilosophy and general Learning; and while [my family] fanceyed I was poring over Voet and Vinnius,Cicero andVergil were the Authors which I was secretly devouring." He had little respect for professors, telling a friend in 1735 "there is nothing to be learned from aProfessor, which is not to be met with in Books."[6]
At the age of eighteen Hume made a philosophical discovery that opened up to him "a new Scene of Thought" which inspired him "to throw up every other Pleasure or Business to apply entirely to it".[7] He did not recount what this was, but it seems likely to have been his theory ofcausality - that our beliefs about cause and effect depend on sentiment, custom and habit, and not uponreason, nor upon abstract, timeless, generalLaws of Nature. The careers open to a poor Scottish gentleman in those days were very few. As Hume‘s options lay between a travelling tutorship and a stool in a merchant‘s office, he chose the latter.
In 1734, after a few months in commerce inBristol, he went toLa Flèche inAnjou,France. He had frequent discourses with theJesuits of the famouscollege in whichDescartes was educated. During his four years there, he laid out his life plan, resolving "to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvements of my talents in literature."[8] While there, he completedA Treatise of Human Nature at the age of twenty-six. Although many scholars today consider the Treatise to be Hume‘s most important work and one of the most important books in the history of philosophy, the public inGreat Britain did not agree at first. Hume himself described the (lack of) public reaction to the publication of the Treatise in 1739–40 by writing that it "fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I soon recovered from the blow and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country". There he wrote the Abstract[9] Without revealing his authorship, he aimed to make his larger work more intelligible by shortening it. Even this advertisement failed to enliven interest in the Treatise.[10]
The effort of writing the Treatise drove the youthful Hume to near insanity. To restore his perspective he escaped to the common life.[11]
After the publication ofEssays Moral and Political in1744, he applied for the Chair of Ethics and pneumatic philosophy at theUniversity of Edinburgh but was rejected. During theJacobite Rebellion of 1745 he tutored the Marquise of Annandale (1720-92) officially described as a "lunatic".[12] This engagement ended in disarray after about a year. But, it was then that he started his great historical workThe History of Great Britain[13] which would take fifteen years and run to over a million words, to be published in six volumes in the period 1754 to 1762. During this period he was involved with theCanongate Theatre and in this context associated withLord Monboddo and otherScottish Enlightenment luminaries in Edinburgh. In 1748 he served for three years as Secretary toGeneral St Clair writing his Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding later published asAn Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. The Enquiry proved little more successful than the Treatise.
Hume was charged withheresy, but he was defended by his young clerical friends who argued that as anatheist he lay outside the jurisdiction of theChurch. Despite his acquittal—and, possibly, due to the opposition ofThomas Reid ofAberdeen, who that year launched a Christian critique of his metaphysics—Hume failed to gain the Chair of Philosophy atGlasgow. It was after returning to Edinburgh in 1752, as he wrote in My Own Life, that "the Faculty of Advocates chose me their Librarian, an office from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the command of a large library." It was this resource that enabled him to continue his historical research for his History.
Hume achieved great literary fame as an essayist and historian. His enormousHistory of Great Britain from theSaxon kingdoms to theGlorious Revolution was a best-seller in its day. In it, Hume presented political man as a creature of habit, with a disposition to submit quietly to established government unless confronted by uncertain circumstances. In his view, only religious difference could deflect men from their everyday lives to think about political matters.

Tomb of David Hume inEdinburgh
Hume‘s early essayOf Superstition and Religion laid the foundations for nearly all subsequent secular thinking about the history of religion. Critics of religion during Hume‘s time were required to express themselves cautiously. Less than 15 years before Hume was born, 18-year-old college studentThomas Aikenhead was put on trial for saying openly that he thought Christianity was nonsense; he was later convicted and hanged forblasphemy. Hume followed the common practice of expressing his views obliquely, through characters in dialogues. Hume did not acknowledge authorship of Treatise until the year of his death, in 1776. His essaysOf Suicide, andOf the Immortality of the Soul and hisDialogues concerning Natural Religion were held from publication until after his death (published 1778 and 1779, respectively), and they still bore neither author‘s nor publisher‘s name. So masterly was Hume in disguising his own views that debate continues to this day over whether Hume was actually adeist or anatheist. Regardless, in his own time Hume‘s alleged atheism caused him to be passed over for many positions.
Hume told his friend Mure of Caldwell of an incident which occasioned his conversion to Christianity. Passing across the recently drained Nor’ Loch to theNew Town of Edinburgh to supervise the masons building his new house, soon to become No 1 St David Street, he slipped and fell into the mire. Hume, being then of great bulk, could not regain his feet. Some passing Newhaven fishwives seeing his plight, but recognising him as the well-known atheist, refused to rescue him until he became a Christian and had recitedThe Lord’s Prayer and theCreed. This he did and was rewarded by being set again on his feet by these brawny women. Hume asserted thereafter that Edinburgh fishwives were the "most acute theologians he had ever met".[14]
From 1763 to 1765 Hume was Secretary toLord Hertford inParis, where he was admired byVoltaire and lionised by the ladies in society. He made friends with and, later, fell out withRousseau. He wrote of his Paris life "I really wish often for the plain roughness of theThe Poker Club of Edinburgh . . . to correct and qualify so much luciousness." For a year from 1767, Hume held the appointment of Under Secretary of State for the Northern Department. In1768 he settled inEdinburgh. Attention to Hume‘s philosophical works grew after theGerman philosopherImmanuel Kant credited Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumbers" (circa 1770) and from then onwards he gained the recognition that he had craved all his life.
James Boswell visited Hume a few weeks before his death. Hume told him that he sincerely believed it a "most unreasonable fancy" that there might be life after death.[15] Hume wrote his own epitaph:"Born 1711, Died [----]. Leaving it to posterity to add the rest." It is engraved with the year of his death1776 on the "simple Roman tomb" which he prescribed, and which stands, as he wished it, on the Eastern slope of theCalton Hill overlooking his home in theNew Town of Edinburgh at No. 1 St David Street.
[edit] Legacy

Statue of David Hume in Edinburgh, Scotland
Although Hume wrote in the18th century, his works remain uncommonly relevant with respect to the philosophical disputes of today when compared to those of his contemporaries. A summary of some of Hume‘s most influential works in philosophy may include the following:
[edit] The problem of causation
Hume claimed that most people believe that when one event continually follows after another, a connection between the two events makes the second event follow from the first (post hoc ergo propter hoc - after this, therefore, because of this.). Hume challenged this belief in the first book of his Treatise on Human Nature and later in his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. He noted that although we do perceive the one event following the other, we do notobserve anynecessary connection between the two. And according to his skepticalepistemology, we can trust only the knowledge that we acquire from our perceptions. Hume asserted that our idea ofcausation consists of little more than expectation for certain events to result after other events that precede them. "We have no other notion of cause and effect, but that of certain objects, which have been always conjoin‘d together, and which in all past instances have been found inseparable. We cannot penetrate into the reason of the conjunction. We only observe the thing itself, and always find that from the constant conjunction the objects acquire a union in the imagination." (Hume, 1740: 93). We cannot actually say that one event caused another. All we know for sure is that one event is correlated to another. For this Hume coined the term "constant conjunction". That is, when we see that one event always "causes" another, what we are really seeing is that one event has always been "constantly conjoined" to the other. As a consequence, we have no reason to believe that one caused the other, or that they will continue to be "constantly conjoined" in the future (Popkin & Stroll, 1993: 268). The reason we do believe in cause and effect is not because cause and effect are the actual way of nature; we believe because of the psychological habits of human nature (Popkin & Stroll, 1993: 272).
Such a lean conception robs causation of all its force, and some later Humeans likeBertrand Russell have dismissed the notion of causation altogether as something akin tosuperstition. But this defies common sense; hence, the problem of causation – what justifies our belief in a causal connection and what kind of connection can we have knowledge of? – is a problem that has no accepted solution. Hume held that we (and other animals) have aninstinctive belief in causation based on the development of habits in ournervous system, a belief that we cannot eliminate, but which we cannot prove true through any argument,deductive orinductive, just as is the case with regard to our belief in the reality of the external world.
It may be noted that while the idea of "constant conjunction" and its sequelae are always cited as Humean notions, they have their antecedents in earlier philosophical traditions. Such antecedents can be found in the philosophies ofPyrrhonian skepticism, especiallySextus Empiricus, whom Hume may very well have read (Popkin 1993).Nagarjuna, arguably the most widely read towering saint ofMahayana Buddhism and father of theMadhyamaka philosophical school, opens hisMūlamadhyamakakārikā, or Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way with an attack on reified understandings of causality. Nagarjuna’s critique of causality, as well as motion and the necessary prior existence of the subject of perception (see "The bundle theory" section below), has been compared to Hume’s critiques by scholars of Buddhism (Garfield 103-123; 135n; 183).
Additional antecedents can be found in IslamicOccasionalism.Maimonides cites certain schools ofKalamic thinkers who seem to have been equally skeptical of the notion of "causality". He writes inGuide to the Perplexed (I:73,S. Pines ed.), "To sum up: it should not be said in any respect that this is the cause of that. This is the opinion of the multitude [of the Mutakallimūn]." In their view, rather, God creates everything anew at each discrete instant of time, and there is therefore no necessary connection between any events.
[edit] The problem of induction
Main article:Problem of induction
In Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (EHU), §4.1.20-27, §4.2.28-33,[16] Hume articulated his view that all human reasoning is of two kinds, to wit Relation of Ideas and Matters of Fact. While the former involves the abstract concepts of logic and mathematics where intuitive anddeductive certitude presides, the latter concerns what exists in the world. In order to avail ourselves of any matter of fact or existence beyond what we are aware of in our present sensory experience and our memory, we must employinductive reasoning.
Inductive inference operates on the principle that the past acts as a reliable guide to the future (sometimes called the principle of the uniformity of nature). For example, if in the past the sun has risen in the east and set in the west, then, inductive inference suggests that it will probably rise in the east and set in the west in the future. But how are we to explain our ability to make such an inference? Hume argued that we cannot explain our capacity as a product of our faculty ofreason. For reason could only come in two flavours, and neither of these can be used to ground our inferences.
Demonstrative or Intuitive. This sort of reasoning is basically a priori (before knowledge). We cannot determinea priori that the future will be conformable to the past, because it is both (logically) consistent and conceivable that the world stop being uniform. Hume here does not distinguish adequately between the uniformity of nature in general and the persistence of particular regularities. For it is open to a philosopher (perhaps of a Kantian bent) to argue that it is in fact inconceivable that the world not be regular in some ways. However, what is important, and what vindicates Hume, is that for any particular regularity in the operations of nature, it is consistent and conceivable that it might cease. Thus we cannot ground our inductions in a priori reasoning. Inductive. We cannot appeal, either, to our past successes in using inductive inference, to the fact that it has worked in the past, for this would becircular reasoning.
Hume thus concludes that our inductive practices have no rational foundation, for no form of reason will certify it. However, there are many points to note about what Hume is definitely not saying. He is not saying that induction is not deduction, and thus not rational (i.e. he is not a "deductivist"). For in the Treatise, in a section entitled Of Scepticism with regard to Reason, he argues that if unaided reason determined our beliefs, if belief-formation were rational all the way down, then we would never believe anything, including intuitive or deductive truths. Furthermore, Hume is not saying that induction doesn‘t work, or doesn‘t reliably lead to true conclusions, or anything of that sort; rather, he argues just that it isn‘t spurred on by reason. The important thing to remember with Hume is that although pessimistic about the likelihood of showing that induction was a rational procedure, he thought it was a remarkable -- indeed, quasi-magical -- ability to predict the future. The fuel for the inductive fire for Hume, and his solution to the problem of explaining our inductions, is Nature. Nature has determined us to expect more of the same, for: "this operation of the mind, by which we infer like effects from like causes, and vice versa, is so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures, it is not probable, that it could be trusted to the fallacious deductions of our reason, which is slow in its operations; appears not, in any degree, during the first years of infancy; and at best is, in every age and period of human life, extremely liable to error and mistake." (EHU, 5.2.22) This is the closest thing possible during his (pre-Darwinian) time to an evolutionary account of our inductive tendencies, and Hume here has lit on a central feature in any properly atheistic Science of Man, placing him firmly in the naturalist tradition of great thinkers.
[edit] The bundle theory of the self
Hume pointed out that we tend to think that we are the same person we were five years ago. Though we‘ve changed in many respects, the same person appears present as was present then. We might start thinking about which features can be changed without changing the underlying self. Hume, however, denies that there is a distinction between the various features of a person and the mysterious self that supposedly bears those features. When we start introspecting, "we are never intimately conscious of anything but a particular perception; man is a bundle or collection of different perceptions which succeed one another with an inconceivable rapidity and are in perpetual flux and movement".[17]
It is plain, that in the course of our thinking, and in the constant revolution of our ideas, our imagination runs easily from one idea to any other that resembles it, and that this quality alone is to the fancy a sufficient bond and association. It is likewise evident that as the senses, in changing their objects, are necessitated to change them regularly, and take them as they lie contiguous to each other, the imagination must by long custom acquire the same method of thinking, and run along the parts of space and time in conceiving its objects.[18]
Note in particular that, in Hume‘s view, these perceptions do not belong to anything. Rather, Hume compares the soul to a commonwealth, which retains its identity not by virtue of some enduring core substance, but by being composed of many different, related, and yet constantly changing elements. The question of personal identity then becomes a matter of characterizing the loose cohesion of one‘s personal experience. (Note that in the Appendix to the Treatise, Hume said mysteriously that he was dissatisfied with his account of the self, yet he never returned to the issue.)
In short, what matters for Hume is not that ‘identity‘ exist but that the relations of causation, contiguity, and resemblances obtain among the perceptions.
[edit] Practical reason: instrumentalism and nihilism
Most of us find some behaviors more reasonable than others. Eating aluminum foil, for example, seems to have something unreasonable about it. But Hume denied that reason has any important role in motivating or discouraging behavior. After all, reason is just a sort of calculator of concepts and experience. What ultimately matters, Hume said, is how we feel about the behavior. His work is now associated with the doctrine ofinstrumentalism, which states that an action is reasonable if and only if it serves the agent‘s goals and desires, whatever they be. Reason can enter the picture only as a lackey, informing the agent of useful facts concerning which actions will serve his goals and desires, but never deigning to tell the agent which goals and desires he should have. So, if you want to eat aluminum foil, reason will tell you where to find the stuff, and there‘s nothing unreasonable about eating it or even wanting to do so (unless, of course, one has a stronger desire for health or the appearance of sensibility). Today, however, many commentators argue that Hume actually went a step further tonihilism and said there‘s nothing unreasonable about deliberately frustrating your own goals and desires ("I want to eat aluminum foil, so let me wire my mouth shut"). Such behavior would surely be highly irregular, granting reason no role at all, but it would not be contrary to reason, which is important to make judgments in this domain.
[edit] Sentiment-based ethical theory
Hume first discusses ethics inA Treatise of Human Nature. He later extracts and expounds upon the ideas he proposed there in a shorter essay entitledAn Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Hume‘s approach in the Enquiry is fundamentally an empirical one. Instead of telling us how morality ought to operate, he purports to tell us how we actually do make moral judgments. After providing us with various examples, he comes to the conclusion that most, though not all, of the behaviors we approve of increase public utility. Does this then mean that we make moral judgments on self-interest alone? Unlike his fellow empiricistThomas Hobbes, Hume argues that this is not in fact the case, abandoning Hobbes‘s attachment to psychologicalegoism. In addition to considerations of self-interest, Hume maintains that we can be moved by our sympathy for others, which can provide a person with thoroughly non-selfish concerns and motivations, indeed, what contemporary theorists would call, altruistic concern. Hume defends his sympathy-based, moral sentimentalism by claiming that we could never make moral judgments based on reason alone. Our reason deals with facts and draws conclusions from them, but, all else being equal, it could not lead us to choose one option over the other; only our sentiments can do this. And our sympathy-based sentiments can motivate us towards the pursuit of non-selfish ends, like the utility of others. For Hume, and for fellow sympathy-theoristAdam Smith, the term "sympathy" is meant to capture much more than concern for the suffering of others. Sympathy, for Hume, is a principle for the communication and sharing of sentiments, both positive and negative. In this sense, it is akin to what contemporary psychologists and philosophers callempathy. In developing this sympathy-based moral sentimentalism, Hume surpasses the divinely implanted moral sense theory of his predecessor,Francis Hutcheson, by elaborating a naturalistic, moral psychological basis for the moral sense, in terms of the operation of sympathy. Hume‘s arguments against founding morality on reason are often now included in the arsenal of moralanti-realist arguments. As Humean-inspired philosopherJohn Mackie suggests, for there to exist moral facts about the world, recognizable by reason and intrinsically motivating, they would have to be very queer facts. Still, there is considerable debate among scholars as to Hume‘s status as arealist versusanti-realist.
[edit] Free will versus determinism
Just about everyone has noticed the apparent conflict betweenfree will anddeterminism – if your actions were determined to happen billions of years ago, then how can they be up to you? But Hume noted another conflict, one that turned the problem of free will into a full-fledged dilemma: free will is incompatible with indeterminism. Imagine that your actions are not determined by what events came before. Then your actions are, it seems, completely random. Moreover, and most importantly for Hume, they are not determined by your character – your desires, your preferences, your values, etc. How can we hold someone responsible for an action that did not result from his character? How can we hold someone responsible for an action that randomly occurred? Free will seems to require determinism, because otherwise, the agent and the action wouldn‘t be connected in the way required of freely chosen actions. So now, nearly everyone believes in free will, free will seems inconsistent with indeterminism, and free will seems to require determinism. Hume‘s view is that human behavior, like everything else, is caused, and therefore holding people responsible for their actions should focus on rewarding them or punishing them in such a way that they will try to do what is morally desirable and will try to avoid doing what is morally reprehensible. (See alsoCompatibilism.)
[edit] The is-ought problem
Hume noted that many writers talk about what ought to be on the basis of statements about what is (is-ought problem). But there seems to be a big difference between descriptive statements (what is) and prescriptive statements (what ought to be). Hume calls for writers to be on their guard against changing the subject in this way without giving an explanation of how the ought-statements are supposed to follow from the is-statements. But how exactly can you derive an "ought" from an "is"? That question, prompted by Hume‘s small paragraph, has become one of the central questions of ethical theory, and Hume is usually assigned the position that such a derivation is impossible. (Others interpret Hume as saying not that one cannot go from a factual statement to an ethical statement, but that one cannot do so without going through human nature, that is, without paying attention to human sentiments.) Hume is probably one of the first writers to make the distinction between normative (what ought to be) and positive (what is) statements, which is so prevalent in social science and moral philosophy.G. E. Moore defended a similar position with his "open question argument", intending to refute any identification of moral properties with natural properties ("naturalistic fallacy").
[edit] Utilitarianism
It was probably Hume who, along with his fellow members of theScottish Enlightenment, first advanced the idea that the explanation of moral principles is to be sought in theutility they tend to promote. Hume‘s role is not to be overstated, of course; it was the Irish-bornFrancis Hutcheson who coined theutilitarian slogan "greatest happiness for the greatest number". But it was from reading Hume‘s Treatise thatJeremy Bentham first felt the force of a utilitarian system: he "felt as if scales had fallen from [his] eyes". Nevertheless, Hume‘s proto-utilitarianism is a peculiar one from our perspective. He doesn‘t think that the aggregation of cardinal units of utility provides a formula for arriving at moral truth. On the contrary, Hume was a moral sentimentalist and, as such, thought that moral principles could not be intellectually justified. Some principles simply appeal to us and others don‘t; and the reason utilitarian moral principles do appeal to us is that they promote our interests and those of our fellows, with whom we sympathize. Humans are hard-wired to approve of things that help society – public utility. Hume used this insight to explain how we evaluate a wide array of phenomena, ranging from social institutions and government policies to character traits and talents.
[edit] The problem of miracles
For Hume, the only way to support theistic religion beyond strictfideism is by an appeal tomiracles saying, in On Miracles "...we may conclude, that the Christian religion not only was first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: and whoever is moved by faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.”
Hume argued that, at minimum,miracles could never give religion much support. There are several arguments suggested by Hume‘s essay, all of which turn on his conception of a miracle: namely, a violation ofthe laws of nature. His very definition of miracles from hisAn Enquiry concerning Human Understanding states that miracles are violations of the laws of nature and consequently have a very low probability of occurring. In a slogan, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But far from that, Hume observes, "The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder."
Critics have argued that Hume‘s position assumes the character of miracles and natural laws prior to any specific examination of miracle claims, and thus it amounts to a subtle form of begging the question. They have also noted that it requires an appeal to inductive inference, as none have observed every part of nature or examined every possible miracle claim (e.g., those yet future to the observer), which in Hume‘s philosophy was especially problematic (see above). Another claim is his argument that human testimony could never be reliable enough to countermand the evidence we have for the laws of nature. This point on miracles has mostly been applied to the question of theresurrection of Jesus, where Hume would no doubt ask, "Which is more likely – that a man rose from the dead or that this testimony is mistaken in some way?"
[edit] The design argument
One of the oldest and most populararguments for the existence of God isthe design argument – that all the order and ‘purpose‘ in the world bespeaks a divine origin. A modern manifestation of this belief iscreationism. Hume gave the classic criticism of the design argument inDialogues concerning Natural Religion andAn Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Here are some of his points:
For the design argument to be feasible, it must be true that order and purpose are observed only when they result from design. But order is observed regularly, resulting from presumably mindless processes like snowflake or crystal generation. Design accounts for only a tiny part of our experience with order and "purpose". Furthermore, the design argument is based on an incomplete analogy: because of our experience with objects, we can recognise human-designed ones, comparing for example a pile of stones and a brick wall. But in order to point to a designed Universe, we would need to have an experience of a range of different universes. As we only experience one, the analogy cannot be applied. We must ask therefore if it is right to why we ought to compare the world to a machine - as in Paley‘s watchmaker argument - when perhaps it would be better described as a giant inert animal. Even if the design argument is completely successful, it could not (in and of itself) establish a robust theism; one could easily reach the conclusion that the universe‘s configuration is the result of some morally ambiguous, possibly unintelligent agent or agents whose method bears only a remote similarity to human design. In this way it could be asked if the designer was God, or further still, who designed the designer? If a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then God‘s mind (being so well-ordered) also requires a special designer. And then this designer would likewise need a designer, and so on ad infinitum. We could respond by resting content with an inexplicably self-orderedDivine Mind; but then why not rest content with an inexplicably self-ordered natural world? Often, what appears to be purpose, where it looks like object X has feature F in order to secure some outcome O, is better explained by a filtering process: that is, object X wouldn‘t be around did it not possess feature F, and outcome O is only interesting to us as a human projection of goals onto nature. This mechanical explanation ofteleology anticipatednatural selection. (see alsoAnthropic principle) The design argument does not explain pain, suffering, and natural disasters.
[edit] Political theory
Many regard David Hume as a politicalconservative, sometimes calling him the first conservative philosopher. This is not strictly speaking accurate, if the term conservative is understood in any modern sense. His thought contains elements that are, in modern terms, both conservative andliberal, as well as ones that are bothcontractarian andutilitarian, though these terms are all anachronistic. His central concern is to show the importance of the rule of law, and stresses throughout his political Essays the importance of moderation in politics. He thinks that society is best governed by a general and impartial system of laws, based principally on the "artifice" of contract; he is less concerned about the form of government that administers these laws, so long as it does so fairly (though he thought that republics were more likely to do so than monarchies).
Hume expressed suspicion of attempts to reform society in ways that departed from long-established custom, and he counselled people not to resist their governments except in cases of the most egregioustyranny. However, he resisted aligning himself with either of Britain‘s two political parties, theWhigs and theTories, and he believed that we should try to balance our demands for liberty with the need for strong authority, without sacrificing either. He supportedliberty of the press, and was sympathetic todemocracy, when suitably constrained. It has been argued that he was a major inspiration forJames Madison‘s writings, and theFederalist No. 10 in particular. He was also, in general, an optimist about social progress, believing that, thanks to the economic development that comes with the expansion of trade, societies progress from a state of "barbarism" to one of "civilisation". Civilised societies are open, peaceful and sociable, and theircitizens are as a result much happier. It is therefore not fair to characterise him, asLeslie Stephen did, as favouring "that stagnation which is the natural ideal of askeptic". (Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1876), vol. 2, 185.)
Though it has been suggested Hume had no positive vision of the best society, he in fact produced an essay titledIdea of a Perfect Commonwealth, which lays out what he thought was the best form of government. His pragmatism shone through, however, in his caveat that we should only seek to implement such a system should an opportunity present itself which would not upset established structures. He defended a strictseparation of powers,decentralisation, extending thefranchise to anyone who held property of value and limiting the power of theclergy. TheSwissmilitia system was proposed as the best form of protection. Elections were to take place on an annual basis and representatives were to be unpaid.
[edit] Contributions to economic thought
Through his discussions on politics, Hume developed many ideas that are prevalent in the field of economics. This includes ideas on private property, inflation, and foreign trade.
Hume does not believe, as Locke does, thatprivate property is a natural right, but he argues that it is justified since resources are limited. If all goods were unlimited and available freely, then private property would not be justified, but instead becomes an "idle ceremonial". Hume also believed in unequal distribution of property, since perfect equality would destroy the ideas of thrift and industry, which leads to impoverishment.
Hume did not believe that foreign trade produced specie, but considered trade a stimulus for a country’s economic growth. He did not consider the volume of world trade as fixed because countries can feed off their neighbors‘ wealth, being part of a "prosperous community". The fall in foreign demand is not that fatal, because in the long run, a country cannot preserve a leading trading position.
Hume was among the first to develop automatic price-specie flow, an idea that contrasts with themercantile system. Simply put, when a country increases its in-flow of gold, this in-flow of gold will result in price inflation, and then price inflation will force out countries from trading that would have traded before the inflation. This results in a decrease of the in-flow of gold in the long run.
Hume also proposed a theory of beneficial inflation. He believed that increasing the money supply would raise production in the short run. This phenomenon was caused by a gap between the increase in the money supply and that of the price level. The result is that prices will not rise at first and may not rise at all. This theory was later developed byJohn Maynard Keynes.
[edit] Human species
A footnote appears in the original version of Hume‘s essay "Of National Characters":
I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negroe slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho‘ low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but ‘tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.
This should be understood in its historical context, of course, such views were all but ubiquitous in the intellectual establishment (as elsewhere) of the time, and indeed would continue to be for a century after his death. Unlike many others of his day and much in advance of his time, in 1758, Hume condemned slavery at great length.[19]
[edit] Perspectives on Hume
Because he had real doubts about whether Hume was expressing only his "surface opinions" and not making a genuine expression of his whole personality,Taylor (1927) doubted whether Hume was really a great philosopher but concluded that "perhaps he was only a very clever man".[citation needed]
A.J. Ayer (1936) introducing his classic exposition of logical positivism, claimed: "the views which are put forward in this treatise derive from the logical outcome of theempiricism of Berkeley and Hume".[20]
BothBertrand Russell (1946) andLeszek Ko?akowski (1968) saw Hume as apositivist holding the view that true knowledge derives only from the experience of events, from "impressions on the senses" or (later) from "sense data", and that knowledge otherwise obtained was "meaningless".Albert Einstein (1915) wrote that he was inspired by Hume‘s positivism when formulating hisSpecial Theory of Relativity.
Anderson (1966), in discussing Hume‘s First Principles, which are that all governments are founded on, and all authority of the few over the many is derived from, the public interest, the right to power, and the right to property, concluded that Hume was amaterialist.[citation needed]
Karl Popper (1970) pointed out that although Hume’sidealism appeared to him to be a strict refutation of commonsenserealism, and although he felt rationally obliged to regard commonsense realism as a mistake, he admitted that he was, in practice, quite unable to disbelieve in it for more than an hour: that, at heart, Hume was a commonsense realist.
Edmund Husserl (1970), saw thephenomenologist in Hume when he showed that someperceptions are interrelated or associated to form other perceptions which are then projected onto a world putatively outside the mind.
Barry Stroud (1977) claimed for Hume the title of "naturalist", saying that he saw every aspect of human life as naturalistically explicable. He placed man squarely in the scientifically intelligible world of nature, in conflict with the traditional conception of man as a detached rational subject.
Anthony Flew, (1986) draws attention to Hume‘s moral and logical scepticism about the senses, and calls him aPyrrhonian sceptic.
Hume was called "the prophet of theWittgensteinian revolution" by Phillipson (1989), referring to his view that mathematics and logic are closed systems, disguised tautologies, and have no relation to the world of experience.[citation needed]
In dubbing Hume "neo-Hellenist",Terence Penelhum (1993) saw him as following theStoics,Epicureans, andSceptics in maintaining that we should avoid anxiety by following nature. Before embarking on any philosophical venture, Hume, as those before him, contended that we must first come to understand our own nature.
Norton (1993) asserted that Hume was "the first post-sceptical philosopher of the early modern period".[citation needed] Hume challenged the certainty of the Cartesians and other rationalists who attempted to refute philosophical scepticism, and yet himself undertook the project of articulating a new science of human nature that would provide a defensible foundation for all other sciences, including the moral and political.
Robert J. Fogelin (1993) concluded that Hume was a "radicalperspectivalist",[citation needed] perhaps as inProtagoras and certainly inSextus Empiricus. He referred to Hume’s own words that his writings exhibit: "a propensity, which inclines us to be positive and certain in particular points, according to the light in which we survey them at any particular instant". (Treatise 1.4.7, 273)
Hume called himself a "mitigated" sceptic (Enquiry into Human Understanding 162).
[edit] Works
A Kind of History of My Life (1734) Mss 23159 National Library of Scotland.
A letter to an unnamed physician, asking for advice about "the Disease of the Learned" that then afflicted him. Here he reports that at the age of eighteen "there seem‘d to be open‘d up to me a new Scene of Thought... " which made him "throw up every other Pleasure or Business" and turned him to scholarship.
A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. (1739–40)
Hume intended to see whether the Treatise met with success, and if so to complete it with books devoted to Politics and Criticism. However, it did not meet with success (as Hume himself said, "It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots"), and so was not completed.
An Abstract of a Book lately Published: Entitled A Treatise of Human Nature etc. (1740)
until recently attributed to Adam Smith but now generally believed to be an attempt by Hume to popularise his Treatise.
Essays Moral and Political (first ed. 1741–2)
A collection of pieces written over many years and published in a series of volumes before being gathered together into one near the end of Hume‘s life. The essays are dizzying and even bewildering in the breadth of topics they address. They range freely over questions of aesthetic judgement, the nature of the British government, love, marriage and polygamy, and the demographics of ancient Greece and Rome, to name just a few of the topics considered. However, certain important topics and themes recur, especially the question of what constitutes "refinement" in matters oftaste, manners, and morals. The Essays are written in clear imitation ofAddison‘s Tatler andThe Spectator, which Hume read avidly in his youth.
A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh: Containing Some Observations on a Specimen of the Principles concerning Religion and Morality, said to be maintain‘d in a Book lately publish‘d, intituled A Treatise of Human Nature etc. Edinburgh (1745).
An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748)
Contains reworking of the main points of the Treatise, Book 1, with the addition of material on free will, miracles, and the argument from design.Of Miracles
section X of the Enquiry, often published separately
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751)
Another reworking of material from the Treatise for more popular appeal. Hume regarded this as the best of all his philosophical works, both in its philosophical ideas and in its literary style.
Political Discourses Edinburgh (1752).
Included in Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (1753-6) reprinted 1758 - 77.
Four Dissertations London (1757).
Included in reprints of Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (above).
The History of England (Originally titled The History of Great Britain) (1754–62) Freely available in six vols. from the On Line Library of Liberty.[7]
More a category of books than a single work, Hume‘s history spanned "from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688" and went through over 100 editions. Many considered it the standard history of England untilThomas Macaulay‘s History of England.
The Natural History of Religion (1757)ISBN 0-8047-0333-7 "My Own Life" (1776)
Penned in April, shortly before his death, this autobiography was intended for inclusion in a new edition of "Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects". It was first published byAdam Smith who claimed that by doing so he had incurred "ten times more abuse than the very violent attack I had made upon the whole commercial system of Great Britain". (Ernest Campbell Mossner, The Life of David Hume)
Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779)
Published posthumously by his nephew, David Hume the Younger. Being a discussion among three fictional characters concerning arguments for the existence of God, most importantly the argument from design. Despite some controversy, most scholars agree that the view of Philo, the most skeptical of the three, comes closest to Hume‘s own.
L A Selby-Bigge provides, by means of an introduction to Hume‘s Enquiries, a fascinating (and sometimes quite scathing) discussion of the various differences in the content and tone of Hume‘s Treatise and Enquiries.
[edit] See also
Hume‘s principleHume‘s LawLiberalismContributions to liberal theoryHume‘s forkScientific skepticismAge of reason
[edit] Further reading
Ernest Campbell Mossner. The Life of David Hume. Oxford University Press, 1980. (The standard biography.) Peter Millican. Critical Survey of the Literature on Hume and his First Enquiry. (Surveys around 250 books and articles on Hume and related topics.)[8] David Fate Norton. David Hume: Commonsense Moralist, Skeptical Metaphysician. Princeton University Press, 1978. J.C.A. Gaskin. Hume‘s Philosophy of Religion. Humanities Press International, 1978. Norman Kemp Smith.The Philosophy of David Hume. Macmillan, 1941. (Still enormously valuable.) Frederick Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill (Routledge Studies in Ethics & Moral Theory), 2003.ISBN 0415220947 Russell, Paul, Freedom and Moral Sentiment: Hume‘s Way of Naturalizing Responsibility Oxford University Press: New York & Oxford, 1995. Stroud, B. (1977). Hume, Routledge, London & New York. (Complete study of Hume‘s work parting from the interpretation of Hume‘s naturalistic philosophical programme). Ampleforth College‘s ‘an introductionto religion and science‘ by Mr. Fogg
[edit] Footnotes and references
Footnotes
^ab Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, 2nd edition, pg. 710^ April 26 is Hume‘s birthdate in theOld StyleJulian calendar, it is May 7 in New Style (Gregorian).^ 6 vols., (London: Andrew Millar, 1754-1762).^ Thomas Babington Macaulay,The History of England from the Accession of James II, 5 vols. (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1849-1861)[1],[2],[3],[4],[5] ; David F. Norton, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hume (Cambridge: 1993), p. 211.^ In the Introduction to his "A Treatise of Human Nature", Hume mentions "Mr Locke,Lord Shaftesbury,Dr Mandeville,Mr Hutcheson,Dr Butler, etc." as philosophers "who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing, and have engaged the attention, and excited the curiosity of the public".^ Hume, D. My Own Life Nat. Lib. Scot., mss 23159, p23.^ Hume, D. (1774) A Kind of History of My Life^ Hume, D. 1777 My Own Life: The Life of David Hume, Esq, Written by Himself, London ,1777^ Hume, D., (1740) An Abstract Of A book lately published; Entituled, A Treatise Of human nature, &c. Wherein The chief argument of that Book is farther illustrated and Explained, London^ My Own Life^ "Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther."[6]^ Grant (1883) Old and New Edinburgh in the 18th Century p.7 Glasgow^ Hume, D. (1754 -56) London. The History of Great Britain^ Maitland Club, Caldwell Papers II, p.177n.^ Boswell, J. Boswell in Extremes, 1776-1778^Online edition^ THN, I, IV, vi^ A Treatise of Human Nature, 4.1, 2.^ Hume, D. (1758) Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations^ Ayer, A. J. (1936). Language, Truth and Logic. London.
References
Anderson, R. F. (1966). Hume’s First Principles, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Ayer, A. J. (1936). Language, Truth and Logic. London. Bongie, L. L. (1998) David Hume - Prophet of the Counter-Revolution. Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, Broackes, Justin (1995). Hume, David, in Ted Honderich (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, New York, Oxford University Press, Daiches D., Jones P., Jones J. (eds )The Scottish Enlightenment: 1730 - 1790 A Hotbed of Genius The University of Edinburgh, 1986. In paperback, The Saltire Society, 1996ISBN 0-85411-069-0 Einstein, A. (1915) Letter toMoritz Schlick, Schwarzschild, B. (trans. & ed.) in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, vol. 8A, R. Schulmann, A. J. Fox, J. Illy, (eds.) Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (1998), p. 220. Flew, A. (1986). David Hume: Philosopher of Moral Science, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Fogelin, R. J. (1993). Hume’s scepticism. In Norton, D. F. (ed.) (1993). The Cambridge Companion to Hume, Cambridge University Press, pp. 90-116. Garfield, Jay L. (1995) The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way Oxford University Press Graham, R. (2004). The Great Infidel - A Life of David Hume. John Donald, Edinburgh. Harwood, Sterling (1996). "Moral Sensibility Theories," in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Supplement) (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.). Hume, D. (EHU) (1777). An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Nidditch, P. N. (ed.), 3rd. ed. (1975), Clarendon Press, Oxford. Hume, D. (1740). A Treatise of Human Nature (1967, edition). Oxford University Press, Oxford. Husserl, E. (1970). The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Carr, D. (trans.), Northwestern University Press, Evanston. Kolakowski, L. (1968). The Alienation of Reason: A History of Positivist Thought, Doubleday, Garden City. Morris, William Edward, David Hume,Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Norton, D. F. (1993). Introduction to Hume’s thought. In Norton, D. F. (ed.), (1993). The Cambridge Companion to Hume, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-32. Penelhum, T. (1993). Hume’s moral philosophy. In Norton, D. F. (ed.), (1993). The Cambridge Companion to Hume, Cambridge University Press, pp. 117-147. Phillipson, N. (1989). Hume, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. Popkin, Richard H. (1993) "Sources of Knowledge of Sextus Empiricus in Hume‘s Time" Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 54, No. 1. (Jan., 1993), pp. 137-141. Popkin, R. & Stroll, A. (1993) Philosophy. Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Ltd, Oxford. Popper. K. (1960). Knowledge without authority. In Miller D. (ed.), (1983). Popper, Oxford, Fontana, pp. 46-57. Robinson, Dave & Groves, Judy (2003). Introducing Political Philosophy. Icon Books.ISBN 1-84046-450-X. Russell, B. (1946). A History of Western Philosophy. London, Allen and Unwin. Spiegel, Henry William,(1991). The Growth of Economic Thought, 3rd Ed., Durham: Duke University Press. Stroud, B. (1977). Hume, Routledge, London & New York. Taylor, A. E. (1927). David Hume and the Miraculous, Leslie Stephen Lecture. Cambridge, pp. 53-4.
[edit] External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about:David Hume

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Online editions of Hume‘s work:David Hume atThe Online Library of LibertyWorks by David Hume atProject GutenbergA Treatise of Human Nature, available atProject Gutenberg.The History of England, Volume I, available atProject Gutenberg.An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, available atProject Gutenberg.An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, available atProject Gutenberg.Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, available atProject Gutenberg.e-texts of some of David Hume‘s works
Essays by David Hume at Quotidiana.orgEnglish Men of Letters: Hume, available atProject Gutenberg., biography and discussion of Hume byT.H. HuxleyDavid Hume: Resources on Hume, including books, articles, and encyclopedia entries.Hume Society: An international scholarly society. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:David HumeHume‘s AestheticsHume‘s Moral PhilosophyHume on Religion
David Hume at James Boswell - a GuideEasier-to-read versions of Treatise Book 1, First Enquiry, Dialogues on Natural Religion, and four EssaysDavid Hume BibliographyA Bibliography of Hume‘s Early Writings and Early ResponsesHume‘s Problem of Induction"A play reading at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe regarding Humes life and legacy"
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NAME Hume, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Scottish philosopher, economist and historian
DATE OF BIRTHApril 26,1711
PLACE OF BIRTHEdinburgh,Scotland
DATE OF DEATHAugust 25,1776
PLACE OF DEATHEdinburgh,Scotland
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Categories:Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 |All articles with unsourced statements |1711 births |1776 deaths |18th century philosophers |Atheist philosophers |Deist thinkers |Early modern philosophers |People from Edinburgh |Empiricists |Enlightenment philosophers |Philosophes |Scottish atheists |Scottish economists |Scottish Enlightenment |Scottish essayists |Scottish historians |Scottish philosophers |Skepticism |Utilitarians |Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
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