David Hume
Neither causation nor induction can be proved: custom guides us.
David Hume (1711 – 1776, Scotland) : empiricism and modern skepticism. All our ideas come from experience. Yet experience never proves that the future will resemble the past: we believe it out of habit, not reasoning. On AskPhilosophy: 11 reconstructed arguments, 4 quotes checked word for word against the original texts, and 3 common beliefs examined; every text carries an authenticity badge (written by the author, posthumous, student notes, reported, apocryphal).
Why he matters
His "problem of induction" is still open in philosophy of science today. Kant said Hume woke him from his "dogmatic slumber". His critique of miracles and of the design argument remains a reference on both sides of the God debate.
His times
A figure of the Scottish Enlightenment and a friend of Adam Smith. His first book "fell dead-born from the press". Considered too sceptical, he never obtained a chair of philosophy and became famous as a historian of England.
His positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe never called himself an atheist. His Dialogues reduce natural theology to a very weak claim: the cause of order in the universe "probably bears some remote analogy" to human intelligence. A sceptical agnostic for most readers.
All our ideas are copies of our impressions: nothing in the mind that does not come from experience.
A "mitigated" scepticism: limit our enquiries to what the understanding can reach. Radical doubt cannot be lived, because nature is always stronger.
When I look within, I find only perceptions: the self is nothing but a "bundle of perceptions", not a thinking substance.
Compatibilist: liberty is the power to act according to one's will, which is compatible with causal necessity. The dispute is mostly verbal.
Moral judgement rests on an internal feeling shared by the whole species, not on reason alone.
Belief must follow the evidence. His conclusion about Christianity (it would take a miracle to believe it reasonably) is usually read as ironic.
He does not address the question directly. His ideal is a balanced, sociable and moderate life.
Benevolence and sympathy are natural in humans; morality rests on this shared feeling.
A cautious political essayist. In "Of the Original Contract" (1748) he shows that almost all governments arose from usurpation or conquest: the social contract is a historical fiction. Allegiance rests on utility and habit, not on a promise.
An ethics of sentiment: virtue is what arouses approval as useful or agreeable to oneself or others. In some ways close to later utilitarianism.