David Hume Philosopher

David Hume (/ˈhjuːm/; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) 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 best-seller, 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, Adam Smith (who acknowledged Hume's influence on his economics and political philosophy), also with James Boswell. Immanuel Kant credited Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumbers".

Personal facts

Birth date	April 26, 1711
Birth place	Edinburgh
Date of death	August 25, 1776
Place of death	Edinburgh
Era	Age of Enlightenment
Main interest	Aesthetics Epistemology Ethics Metaphysics Philosophy of religion Political philosophy Philosophy of mind Classical economics

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Philosopher

influenced	A. J. Ayer Adam Smith Albert Einstein Arthur Schopenhauer Bertrand Russell Edmund Husserl Gilles Deleuze Immanuel Kant James Madison John Stuart Mill Karl Popper Thomas Reid Jerry Fodor Simon Blackburn William James J. L. Mackie Baron d'Holbach
influenced by	Cicero Adam Smith George Berkeley Isaac Newton Jean-Jacques Rousseau John Locke René Descartes Thomas Hobbes Francis Hutcheson (philosopher)
notable idea	Bundle theory Inductive reasoning Science of man Causality Utility Association of Ideas Is–ought problem
philosophical school	Classical liberalism Empiricism Utilitarianism Scottish Enlightenment Philosophical skepticism Naturalism (philosophy)
region	Western philosophy