David Hume’s Followers (1,583)

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

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David Hume’s books

Average rating: 3.93 · 57,087 ratings · 2,122 reviews · 2,869 distinct works • Similar authors

	An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 3.94 avg rating — 21,456 ratings — published 1748 — 799 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 — 12,419 ratings — published 1739 — 664 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) 3.99 avg rating — 6,189 ratings — published 1751 — 343 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) 3.97 avg rating — 5,872 ratings — published 1779 — 995 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 — 1,067 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 4.02 avg rating — 943 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 3.57 avg rating — 992 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) 3.80 avg rating — 861 ratings — 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
	Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals 4.09 avg rating — 680 ratings — published 1751 — 75 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 3.55 avg rating — 597 ratings — published 1757 — 25 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

3.79 avg rating — 680 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

635 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

436 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

399 likes

See all David Hume's quotes »

Polls

Which one is your favorite philosopher?

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Friedrich Nietzsche

79 votes, 11.2%

Albert Camus

54 votes, 7.7%

Soren Kierkegaard

34 votes, 4.8%

Aristotle

32 votes, 4.6%

Ludwig Wittgenstein

32 votes, 4.6%

Plato

31 votes, 4.4%

Karl Marx

29 votes, 4.1%

Immanuel Kant

25 votes, 3.6%

cumdump (write-in)

25 votes, 3.6%

Marcus Aurelius

24 votes, 3.4%

Jean-Paul Sartre

23 votes, 3.3%

Simone de Beauvoir

23 votes, 3.3%

Gilles Deleuze (write-in)

23 votes, 3.3%

Thomas Aquinas

19 votes, 2.7%

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

19 votes, 2.7%

yes (write-in)

18 votes, 2.6%

Arthur Schopenhauer (write-in)

17 votes, 2.4%

Augustine of Hippo

15 votes, 2.1%

spinoza (write-in)

15 votes, 2.1%

René Descartes

14 votes, 2.0%

Jordan Peterson (write-in)

13 votes, 1.8%

Fyodor dostoevsky (write-in)

11 votes, 1.6%

David Hume

10 votes, 1.4%

José Ortega y Gasset

10 votes, 1.4%

Martin Heidegger

10 votes, 1.4%

Epictetus (write-in)

10 votes, 1.4%

Socrates (write-in)

9 votes, 1.3%

Hannah Arendt

8 votes, 1.1%

Julius Evola (write-in)

8 votes, 1.1%

Olavo de Carvalho

7 votes, 1.0%

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

6 votes, 0.9%

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (write-in)

5 votes, 0.7%

Ibn Sina (write-in)

5 votes, 0.7%

Mário Ferreira dos Santos

4 votes, 0.6%

Simone Weil (write-in)

4 votes, 0.6%

Jesus of Nazareth (write-in)

4 votes, 0.6%

Roger Scruton

3 votes, 0.4%

Nicholas Sparks (write-in)

3 votes, 0.4%

Kosov (write-in)

3 votes, 0.4%

Eric Voegelin

2 votes, 0.3%

Serb (write-in)

2 votes, 0.3%

wine (write-in)

2 votes, 0.3%

Bertrand Russell (write-in)

2 votes, 0.3%

Carl Jung (write-in)

2 votes, 0.3%

Michael Oakeshott

1 vote, 0.1%

Hypatia

1 vote, 0.1%

John Dewey (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Henri Bergson (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Maimonides (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Rene Guenon (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Albert Einstein (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Charles Darwin (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

Francis Bacon (write-in)

1 vote, 0.1%

George Berkeley (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Heraclitus (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

William James (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Joseph Campbell (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Teilhard de Chardin (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Buddha (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Gottfried Leibniz (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Parmenides (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Euclid (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Democritus (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Thomas Hobbes (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

George Santayana (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Sigmund Freud (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Voltaire (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Alfred Whitehead (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Jeremy Bentham (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Rudolf Carnap (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Lucretius (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

B. F. Skinner (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Ayn Rand (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Alan Watts (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Slavoj Zizek (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Edmund Husserl (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

Judith Butler (write-in)

0 votes, 0.0%

703 total votes

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David Hume’s Followers (1,583)

David Hume

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Series by David Hume

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Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
David Hume’s books