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Hume


David Hume
(1711-1776)

Life and Works
. . Ideas
. . Belief
. . Cause & Effect
. . The Self
. . Skepticism
. . Morality
. . Religion
Bibliography
Internet Sources

Soon after completing his studies at Edinburgh, Scottish philosopher David Hume began writing his comprehensive statement of the views he believed would contribute to philosophy no less than Newton's had to science. But the public reception for the three books of his magisterial Treatise of Human Nature (1739) was less than cordial, and Hume abandoned his hopes of a philosophical career in order to support his family as a librarian, historian, diplomat, and political essayist, a course of action he described in the autobiographical My Own Life (1776). Hume's Essays Moral and Political (1741-1742) found some success, and the multi-volume History of England (1754-1762) finally secured the modest livelihood for which he had hoped. Although he spent most of his life trying to produce more effective statements of his philosophical views, he did not live to see the firm establishment of his reputation by the criticisms of Kant and much later appreciation of the logical positivists.

The central themes of Book I of the Treatise receive a somewhat more accessible treatment in An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748), a more popular summary of Hume's empiricism. Hume According to Hume, little human knowledge can be derived from the deductively certain relations of ideas. Since the causal interactions of physical objects are known to us only as inherently uncertain matters of fact, Hume argued, our belief that they exhibit any necessary connection (however explicable) can never be rationally justified, but must be acknowledged to rest only upon our acquired habits. In similar fashion, Hume argued that we cannot justify our natural beliefs in the reality of the self or the existence of an external world. Hume's grave From all of this, he concluded that a severe (if mitigated) skepticism is the only defensible view of the world.

Hume recast the moral philosophy of the Treatise's Book III in An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). In both texts Hume clearly maintained that human agency and moral obligation are best considered as functions of human passions rather than as the dictates of reason. In the posthumously published Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1780), Hume discussed the possibility of arriving at certain knowledge of god through the application of reason and considered defense of a fideistic alternative.



Recommended Reading:

Primary sources:

  • David Hume, Philosophical Works, ed. by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose (Longmans, Green, 1874-1875)
  • David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by Ernest C. Mossner (Viking, 1986) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. by Anthony Flew (0812690540) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Free Press, 1966) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. by Martin Bell (Penguin, 1990) {Order from Amazon.com}

Secondary sources:

  • The Cambridge Companion to Hume, ed. by David Fate Norton (Cambridge, 1993) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • Feminist Interpretations of David Hume, ed. by Anne Jaap Jacobson (Penn. State, 2000) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • Jonathan Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Oxford, 1971) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • The New Hume Debate, ed. by Rupert Read and Kenneth Richman (Routledge, 2000) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • Anthony Quinton, Hume (Routledge, 1999) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • Donald W. Livingston, Hume's Philosophy of Common Life (Chicago, 1984)
  • Barry Stroud, Hume (Routledge, 1981) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • Terence Penelhum, David Hume: An Introduction to His Philosophical System (Purdue, 1992) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • George Dicker, Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction (Routledge, 1998) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • H. O. Mounce, Hume's Naturalism (Routledge, 1999) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • Louis E. Loeb, Stability and Justification in Hume's Treatise (Oxford, 2002) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • Harold W. Noonan, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hume on Knowledge (Routledge, 1999) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • Hume's Moral and Political Philosophy, ed. by Henry David Aiken (Free Press, 1975) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • James Baillie, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hume on Morality (Routledge, 2000) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • Dabney Townsend, Hume's Aesthetic Theory: Sentiment and Taste in the History of Aesthetics (Routledge, 2001) {Order from Amazon.com}
  • David O'Connor, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hume on Religion (Routledge, 2001) {Order from Amazon.com}

Additional on-line information about Hume includes:


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Last modified 9 August 2006.
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