David Hume

Key ideas

Hume argued that we never observe causation itself, only one event regularly followed by another. Our belief that the future will resemble the past is a habit of mind, not a conclusion of reason, since any argument for it would assume what it sets out to prove. This is the problem of induction, still unsolved in the eyes of many.

Looking inward for the self, he found only a stream of particular perceptions, never a self that has them. The mind is 'a bundle or collection of different perceptions' in constant flux. This bundle theory is the Western classic of the no-self view view.

In ethics he observed that writers move without warning from what is to what ought to be, and that the step needs justifying. This is-ought gap is central to moral realism. He held that morality rests ultimately on feeling, and that reason is the slave of the passions. On free will he was a compatibilist, and the entry on compatibilism owes him a great deal.

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 2.3.3 (1739)

Life, briefly

Hume wrote his Treatise of Human Nature in his twenties; it 'fell dead-born from the press', as he put it. He later became famous as a historian and essayist, and worked as a librarian and diplomat. His reputation for religious scepticism cost him university posts in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Friends recorded that he faced death calmly and cheerfully, which unsettled visitors who expected an unbeliever to be afraid. His Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion were published after his death.

Major works

• A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40)
• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
• An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751)
• Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)

Schools of thought

Skepticism · Empiricism

Further reading

• EncyclopediaStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: David Hume
• WikipediaDavid Hume