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{{PhilPsy}}
{{Infobox_Philosopher |
 
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region = Western Philosophy |
 
era = [[18th-century philosophy]], |
 
color = #B0C4DE |
 
   
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image_name = DavidHume.jpg |
 
image_caption = David Hume |
 
   
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name = David Hume |
 
birth = [[April 26]], [[1711]] ([[Edinburgh]], [[Scotland]]) |
 
death = [[August 25]], [[1776]] ([[Edinburgh]], [[Scotland]]) |
 
school_tradition = [[Empiricism]],<br>[[Scottish Enlightenment]] |
 
main_interests = [[Metaphysics]], [[Epistemology]], [[Mind]], [[Ethics]], [[Political philosophy|Politics]], [[Aesthetics]], [[Philosophy of religion|Religion]] |
 
influences = [[John Locke|Locke]], [[George Berkeley|Berkeley]], [[Francis Hutcheson (philosopher)|Hutcheson]], [[Isaac Newton|Newton]] |
 
influenced = [[Adam Smith]], [[Adam Ferguson]], [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]], [[Jeremy Bentham|Bentham]], [[James Madison]], [[Alexander Hamilton]], [[Auguste Comte|Comte]], [[William James]], [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]], [[Bertrand Russell|Russell]], [[T. H. Huxley]], [[J. S. Mill]], [[Einstein]], [[Alfred Jules Ayer|Ayer]], [[J. L. Mackie]] |
 
notable_ideas = [[Causality|Problem of causation]], [[Inductive reasoning|Induction]], [[Is-ought problem]] |
 
}}
 
'''David Hume''' ([[April 26]], [[1711]] &ndash; [[August 25]], [[1776]])<ref>April 26 is Hume's birthdate in the [[Old Style and New Style dates|Old Style]] [[Julian calendar]], it is May 7 in New Style ([[Gregorian calendar|Gregorian]]).</ref> was a [[Scotland|Scottish]] [[philosopher]], [[economist]], and [[historian]] who is one of the most important figures of Western philosophy and of the [[Scottish Enlightenment]].
 
   
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'''David Hume''' (7 May 1711 [26 April – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish [[philosopher]], [[economist]], [[historian]] and an important figure in the history of [[Western philosophy]] and the [[Scottish Enlightenment]]. Hume is often grouped with [[John Locke]], [[George Berkeley]], and a handful of others as a [[British Empiricism|British Empiricist]].<ref>''The Empiricists: Critical Essays on Locke, Berkeley, and Hume'', Margaret Atherton</ref>
Historians most famously see Humean philosophy as a thoroughgoing form of [[skepticism]], but many commentators have argued that the element of [[naturalism (philosophy)|naturalism]] has no less importance in Hume's philosophy. Hume scholarship has tended to oscillate over time between those who emphasize the skeptical side of Hume (such as the [[logical positivists]]), and those who emphasize the naturalist side (such as Don Garrett, [[Norman Kemp Smith]], Kerri Skinner, Barry Stroud, and [[Galen Strawson]]).
 
   
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During his lifetime, Hume was more famous as a historian; his six-volume ''History of England'' was a bestseller well into the nineteenth century and the standard work on English history for many years, while his works in philosophy to which he owes his current reputation were less widely read during his day.
Hume was heavily influenced by [[empiricist]]s [[John Locke]] and [[George Berkeley]], along with various [[French language|Francophone]] writers such as [[Pierre Bayle]], and various figures on the [[English language|Anglophone]] intellectual landscape such as [[Isaac Newton]], [[Samuel Clarke]], [[Francis Hutcheson (philosopher)|Francis Hutcheson]], and [[Joseph Butler]].
 
   
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Hume was heavily influenced by [[empiricists]] [[John Locke]] and [[George Berkeley]], along with various French-speaking writers such as [[Pierre Bayle]], and various figures on the English-speaking intellectual landscape such as [[Isaac Newton]], [[Samuel Clarke]], [[Francis Hutcheson (philosopher)|Francis Hutcheson]], and [[Joseph Butler]] (to whom he sent his first work for feedback).<ref>In the Introduction to his ''A Treatise of Human Nature'', (New York: Dover, 2003 edition), p.xi.fn., Hume mentions "[[John Locke|Mr Locke]], [[Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury|Lord Shaftesbury]], [[Bernard de Mandeville|Dr Mandeville]], [[Francis Hutcheson (philosopher)|Mr Hutcheson]], [[Joseph Butler|Dr Butler]], etc". as philosophers "who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing, and have engaged the attention, and excited the curiosity of the public"</ref>
==Life==
 
Hume was born on [[26 April]] 1711 ([[Old style]]) in [[Edinburgh]]. From time to time throughout his life, he was to spend time at his family home at Ninewells by [[Chirnside]], [[Berwickshire]]. He was sent by his family to the [[University of Edinburgh]] at the unusually early age of twelve (fourteen would have been more normal). At first he considered a career in [[Scots law|law]], but came to have, in his words, ''"an insurmountable aversion to everything but the pursuits of [[Philosophy]] and general Learning; and while (my family) fanceyed I was poring over Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Vergil were the Authors which I was secretly devouring."'' He had little respect for professors, telling a friend in [[1735]] "''there is nothing to be learned from a [[Professor]], which is not to be met with in Books."''
 
   
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In the twentieth century, Hume has increasingly become a source of inspiration for those in political philosophy and [[economics]] as an early and subtle thinker in the [[liberalism|liberal]] tradition, as well as an early innovator in the [[genre]] of the [[essay]] in his ''Essays Moral, Political, and Literary''.<ref>Published in various editions, under several titles, between 1741 and 1777 in London and Edinburgh</ref>
At the age of eighteen, in [[1729]], Hume made a philosophical discovery that opened up to him "''a new scene of thought"''. He did not recount what this was, but it seems likely to have been his theory of [[causality]] - that our beliefs about cause and effect depend on sentiment, custom and habit, and not upon [[reason]] or abstract, timeless, general [[Laws of Nature]].
 
   
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== Life ==
In [[1734]], after a few months in commerce in Bristol, he retreated to do [[self-study]] and conduct [[thought experiments]] on himself at [[La Fleche]] in [[Anjou]], [[France]]. During his four years there, he laid out his life plan, as he wrote in ''[[My Own Life]]'', resolving "''to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvements of my talents in literature."'' While there, he completed ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'' at the age of twenty-six. Although many scholars today consider the ''Treatise'' to be Hume's most important work and one of the most important books in the history of philosophy, the public in [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] did not at first agree. Hume himself described the (lack of) public reaction to the publication of the ''Treatise'' in 1739&ndash;40 by writing that it ''"fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I soon recovered from the blow and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country"''.There he wrote ''An Abstract Of A book lately published; Entituled, A Treatise Of human nature, &c. Wherein The chief argument of that Book is farther illustrated and Explained''. Without revealing his authorship, he aimed to make his larger work more intelligible by shortening it. Even this advertisement failed to enliven interest in the ''Treatise''.
 
   
After the publication of ''[[Essays Moral and Political]]'', in [[1744]] he applied for the Chair of Ethics and Pneumatics (psychology) at [[Edinburgh University]] but was rejected. During the [[Jacobite Rebellion]] of [[1745]] he tutored the Marquise of Annandale. It was then that he started his great historical work ''[[The History of Great Britain]]'' which would take fifteen years and run to over a million words, to be published in six volumes in the period [[1754]] to [[1762]]. In [[1748]] he served, in uniform, for three years as Secretary to [[General St Clair]] writing his ''Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding'' later published as ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]''.This did not prove much more successful than the ''Treatise''.
 
   
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David Hume, originally David Home, son of Joseph Home of [[Chirnside]], advocate, and Katherine Falconer, was born on 26 April 1711 ([[Old Style and New Style dates|Old Style]]) in a [[tenement]] on the north side of the Lawnmarket in [[Edinburgh]]. He changed his name in 1734 because the [[English people|English]] had difficulty pronouncing 'Home' in the Scottish manner. Throughout his life Hume, who never married, spent time occasionally at his family home at Ninewells by [[Chirnside]], [[Berwickshire]]. Hume was politically a [[Whig (British political faction)|Whig]].<ref>Mossner, E. C. (2001). ''The life of David Hume''. Oxford University Press. p. 179</ref>
Hume was charged with [[heresy]] but he was defended by his young clerical friends who argued that as an [[atheist]] he lay outside the jurisdiction of the [[Church of Scotland|Church]]. Despite his acquittal, and, possibly, due to the opposition of [[Thomas Reid]] of [[Aberdeen]] who, that year, launched a telling Christian critique of his metaphysics, Hume failed to gain the Chair of Philosophy at [[University of Glasgow|Glasgow]]. It was in [[1752]], as he wrote in ''My Own Life'', that ''"the Faculty of Advocates chose me their Librarian, an office from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the command of a large library."'' It was this resource that enabled him to continue his historical research for his ''History''.
 
   
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=== Education ===
Hume achieved great literary fame as an essayist and historian. His enormous ''[[History of Great Britain]]'' from the [[Saxon]] kingdoms to the [[Glorious Revolution]] was a best-seller in its day. In it, Hume presented political man as a creature of habit, with a disposition to submit quietly to established government unless confronted by uncertain circumstances. In his view, only religious difference could deflect men from their everyday lives to think about political matters.
 
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[[File:David Hume 1754.jpeg|thumb|left|An engraving of Hume from his ''The History of England Vol. I'' (1754)]]
   
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Hume attended the [[University of Edinburgh]] at the unusually early age of twelve (possibly as young as ten) at a time when fourteen was normal. At first he considered a career in [[Scots law|law]], but came to have, in his words, "an insurmountable aversion to everything but the pursuits of [[Philosophy]] and general Learning; and while [my family] fanceyed I was poring over [[Johannes Voet (jurist)|Voet]] and [[Arnold Vinnius|Vinnius]], [[Cicero]] and [[Virgil]] were the Authors which I was secretly devouring".<ref>David Hume, ''My Own Life'', in ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', op.cit., p.351</ref> He had little respect for the professors of his time, telling a friend in 1735, "there is nothing to be learnt from a [[Professor]], which is not to be met with in Books".<ref> In a letter to 'Jemmy' Birch, quoted in Mossner, E. C. (2001). ''The life of David Hume''. Oxford University Press. p. 626 </ref>
Hume's early essay ''[[Of Superstition and Religion]]'' laid the foundations for nearly all secular thinking about the history of religion. Critics of religion during Hume's time needed to express themselves cautiously. Less than 15 years before Hume was born, 18-year-old college student [[Thomas Aikenhead]] was put on trial for saying openly that he thought Christianity was nonsense, was convicted and hanged for [[blasphemy]]. Hume followed the common practice of expressing his views obliquely, through characters in dialogues. Hume did not acknowledge authorship of ''Treatise'' until the year of his death, in 1776. His essays ''[[Of Suicide]]'', and ''[[Of the Immortality of the Soul]]'' and his ''[[Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion]]'' were held from publication until after his death (published 1778 and 1779, respectively), and they still bore neither author's nor publisher's name. So masterful was Hume in disguising his own views that debate continues to this day over whether Hume was actually a [[deism|deist]] or an [[atheism|atheist]]. Regardless, in his own time Hume's alleged atheism caused him to be passed over for many positions.
 
   
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Hume made a philosophical discovery that opened up to him "a new Scene of Thought", which inspired him "to throw up every other Pleasure or Business to apply entirely to it".<ref>David Hume, ''A Kind of History of My Life'', in ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', ibid., p.346</ref> He did not recount what this "Scene" was, and commentators have offered a variety of speculations.<ref>See Oliver A. Johnson, ''The Mind of David Hume'', (University of Illinois Press, 1995), pp.8–9, for a useful presentation of varying interpretations of Hume's "scene of thought" remark</ref> Due to this inspiration, Hume set out to spend a minimum of ten years reading and writing. He came to the verge of [[nervous breakdown]], after which he decided to have a more active life to better continue his learning.<ref name = "ogcpkr">Mossner, 193</ref>
There is an old (and probably false) story about David Hume and his supposed atheism. In the story, Hume falls off his horse into a pool of mud and is slipping in it, when an old and pious lady walks past. When she sees the renowned atheist flapping about for his life, she walks to the edge and looks at him. Hume urges the lady to pass him a stick to pull him out, but she refuses unless he declare his devotion to [[God]] Almighty. Hume accedes and the lady helps him out.
 
   
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=== Career ===
From [[1763]] to [[1765]] Hume was Secretary to [[Lord Hertford]] in [[Paris]], where he was admired by Voltaire and lionised by the ladies in society. He made friends with and, later, fell out with [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]]. He wrote of his Paris life ''"I really wish often for the plain roughness of the [[The Poker Club]] of Edinburgh . . . to correct and qualify so much luciousness."'' For a year from [[1767]], Hume held the appointment of Under Secretary of State for the Northern Department. In [[1768]] he settled in [[Edinburgh]]. Attention to Hume's philosophical works grew after the [[Germany|German]] philosopher [[Immanuel Kant]] credited Hume with awakening him from ''"dogmatic slumbers"'' (''circa'' 1770) and from then onwards he gained the recognition that he had craved all his life.
 
   
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As Hume's options lay between a traveling tutorship and a stool in a merchant's office, he chose the latter. In 1734, after a few months occupied with commerce in [[Bristol]], he went to [[La Flèche]] in [[Anjou]], France. There he had frequent discourse with the [[Jesuits]] of the [[College of La Flèche]]. As he had spent most of his savings during his four years there while writing ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'',<ref name = "ogcpkr"/> he resolved "to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvements of my talents in literature".<ref>''A Kind of History of My Life'', op. cit., p.352</ref> He completed the ''Treatise'' at the age of 26.
[[James Boswell]] visited Hume a few weeks before his death. Hume told him that he sincerely believed it a "most unreasonable fancy" that there might be life after death. Hume wrote his own epitaph:''"Born 1711, Died [----]. Leaving it to posterity to add the rest."'' It is engraved with the year of his death [[1776]] on the ''"simple Roman tomb"'' which he prescribed, and which stands, as he wished it, on the Eastern slope of the [[Calton Hill, Edinburgh|Calton Hill]] overlooking his home in the [[New Town, Edinburgh|New Town]] of Edinburgh at No. 1 St David Street.
 
   
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Although many scholars today consider the ''Treatise'' to be Hume's most important work and one of the most important books in Western philosophy, the critics in [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] at the time did not agree, describing it as "abstract and unintelligible".<ref>Mossner, 195</ref>
==Legacy==
 
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Despite the disappointment, Hume later wrote, "Being naturally of a cheerful and [[Humorism|sanguine]] temper, I soon recovered from the blow and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country".<ref>Ibid., p.352</ref> There, he wrote the ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature (Abstract)|Abstract]]''<ref>''An Abstract of a Book lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is farther Illustrated and Explained'', (London, 1740)</ref> Without revealing his authorship, he aimed to make his larger work more intelligible.
Though Hume wrote in the [[18th century]], his work seems still uncommonly relevant in the philosophical disputes of today compared to that of his contemporaries. A summary of some of Hume's most influential work in philosophy might include the following:
 
   
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After the publication of ''Essays Moral and Political'' in 1744, Hume applied for the Chair of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy at the [[University of Edinburgh]]. However, the position was given to [[William Cleghorn]], after Edinburgh ministers petitioned the town council not to appoint Hume because he was seen as an [[atheism|atheist]].<ref>Douglas Nobbs, 'The Political Ideas of William Cleghorn, Hume's Academic Rival', in ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', (1965), Vol. 26, No. 4: 575–586</ref>
===Ideas and impressions===
 
Hume believes that all human knowledge comes to us through our senses. Our perceptions, as he called them, can be divided into two categories: ideas and impressions. He defines these terms thus in his ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]'': "By the term impression, then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. And impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions, of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above mentioned." He further specifies ideas, saying, "It seems a proposition, which will not admit of much dispute, that all our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions, or, in other words, that it is impossible for us to think of anything, which we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or internal senses." This forms an important aspect of Hume's [[Philosophical skepticism|skepticism]], for he says that we cannot be certain a thing, such as [[God]], a [[soul]], or a [[self]], exists unless we can point out the impression from which the idea of the thing is derived.
 
   
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During the 1745 [[Jacobite Rebellion]], Hume tutored the [[George Vanden-Bempde, 3rd Marquess of Annandale|Marquis of Annandale]] (1720–92), who was officially described as a "lunatic".<ref>Grant, ''Old and New Edinburgh in the 18th Century'', (Glasgow, 1883), p.7</ref> This engagement ended in disarray after about a year. But it was then that Hume started his great historical work ''[[The History of Great Britain]]'', which would take fifteen years and run to over a million words, to be published in six volumes in the period between 1754 and 1762, while also involved with the Canongate Theatre. In this context, he associated with [[Lord Monboddo]] and other [[Scottish Enlightenment]] luminaries in Edinburgh. From 1746, Hume served for three years as Secretary to [[James St Clair|Lieutenant-General St Clair]], and wrote ''Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding'', later published as ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]''. The ''Enquiry'' proved little more successful than the ''Treatise''.
===The problem of causation===
 
When one event continually follows after another, most people think that a connection between the two events ''makes'' the second event follow from the first (post hoc ergo propter hoc). Hume challenged this belief in the first book of his ''Treatise on Human Nature'' and later in his ''Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding''. He noted that although we do perceive the one event following the other, we do not perceive any [[necessary and sufficient conditions|necessary]] connection between the two. And according to his skeptical epistemology, we can only trust the knowledge that we acquire from our perceptions. Hume asserted that our idea of [[Causality|causation]] consists of little more than expectation for certain events to result after other events that precede them. "We have no other notion of cause and
 
effect, but that of certain objects, which have been always conjoin'd [sic] together, and
 
which in all past instances have been found inseparable. We cannot penetrate into the
 
reason of the conjunction. We only observe the thing itself, and always find that from
 
the constant conjunction the objects acquire an union in the imagination." (Hume,
 
1740: 93). We cannot actually say that one event caused another. All we know for
 
sure is that one event is correlated to another. For this Hume coined the term
 
'constant conjunction'. That is, when we see that one event always 'causes' another,
 
what we are really seeing is that one event has always been 'constantly conjoined' to
 
the other. As a consequence, we have no reason to believe that one caused the
 
other, or that they will continue to be 'constantly conjoined' in the future (Popkin &
 
Stroll, 1993: 268). The reason we do believe in cause and effect is not because
 
cause and effect are the actual way of nature; we believe because of the
 
psychological habits of human nature (Popkin & Stroll, 1993: 272).
 
   
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Hume was charged with [[Christian heresy|heresy]], but he was defended by his young clerical friends, who argued that—as an [[atheist]]—he was outside the [[Church of Scotland|Church's]] jurisdiction. Despite his acquittal, Hume failed to gain the [[Professor of Moral Philosophy, Glasgow|Chair of Philosophy]] at the [[University of Glasgow]].
Such a lean conception robs causation of all its force, and some later Humeans like [[Bertrand Russell]] have dismissed the notion of causation altogether as something akin to [[superstition]]. But this defies common sense, thereby creating the problem of causation &ndash; what justifies our belief in a causal connection and what kind of connection can we have knowledge of? &ndash; a problem which has no accepted solution. Hume held that we (and other animals) have an [[instinct|instinctive]] belief in causation based on the development of habits in our [[nervous system]], a belief that we cannot eliminate, but which we cannot prove true through any argument, [[Deductive reasoning|deductive]] or [[Induction (philosophy)|inductive]], just as is the case with regard to our belief in the reality of the external world.
 
   
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It was after returning to Edinburgh in 1752, as he wrote in ''My Own Life'', that "the Faculty of Advocates chose me their Librarian, an office from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the command of a large library".<ref>Op. cit., p.353</ref> This resource enabled him to continue historical research for ''The History of Great Britain''.
===The problem of induction===
 
{{main|Problem of induction}}
 
   
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Hume achieved great literary fame as a historian. His enormous ''[[The History of Great Britain]]'', tracing events from the [[Saxons|Saxon]] kingdoms to the [[Glorious Revolution]], was a best-seller in its day. In it, Hume presented political man as a creature of habit, with a disposition to submit quietly to established government unless confronted by uncertain circumstances. In his view, only religious difference could deflect men from their everyday lives to think about political matters.
In ''Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'' (EHU), §4.1.20-27, §4.2.28-33.<ref name="ehu1">[http://www.etext.leeds.ac.uk/hume/ehu/ehupbsb.htm#index-div3-N785031167 Online edition]</ref>, Hume articulated his view that all human reasoning is of two kinds, ''Relation of Ideas'' and ''Matters of Fact''. While the former involves abstract concepts like mathematics where [[deductive]] certitude presides, the latter involves empirical experience about which all thought is [[Inductive reasoning|inductive]]. Now, since according to Hume we can know nothing about nature prior to its experience, even a rational man with no experience "could not have inferred from the fluidity and transparency of water that it would suffocate him, or from the light and warmth of fire that it would consume him." (EHU, 4.1.6) Thus, all we can say, think, or predict about nature must come from prior experience, which lays the foundation for the necessity of induction.
 
   
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However, Hume's volume of ''Political Discourses'' (published by Kincaid & [[Alexander Donaldson (bookseller)|Donaldson]], 1752)<ref name="Sher">{{cite book|last=Sher|first=Richard B. |title=The Enlightenment & the book: Scottish authors & their publishers in eighteenth-century Britain, Ireland, & America|publisher=University of Chicago Press|date=2006 |series=Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology Series|pages=313|isbn=0226752526|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=gB9liJb5o7UC&pg=PA312&dq=%22alexander+donaldson%22+bookstore&hl=en&ei=YBvTS5SPNY-cswOI8KSbCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref> was the only work he considered successful on first publication.<ref>David Hume (1776). ''My Own Life''</ref>
An inductive inference assumes that the past acts as a reliable guide to the future. For example, if in the past it has rained 60% of the time there arose a given conjunction of atmospheric conditions, then in the future it will probably rain 60% of the time a similar conjunction arises. But how can we justify such an inference, known as the principle of [[induction (philosophy)|induction]]? Hume suggested two possible justifications, but rejected both:
 
   
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=== Religion ===
# The first justification states that, as a matter of [[logical necessity]], the future must resemble the past. But, Hume pointed out, we can conceive of a chaotic, erratic world where the future has nothing to do with the past &ndash; or, more tamely, a world just like ours right up until the present, at which point things change completely. So nothing makes the principle of induction logically necessary.
 
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[[file:Humetomb.jpg|thumb|Tomb of David Hume in [[Edinburgh]]]]
# The second justification, more modestly, appeals to the past success of induction &ndash; it has worked most often in the past, so it will probably continue to work most often in the future. But, as Hume notes, this justification uses [[circular reasoning]] in attempting to justify induction by merely reiterating it, bringing us back where we started.
 
   
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Hume wrote on religion. However, the question of what were Hume's personal views on religion is a difficult one.<ref>Russell, 2008, O'Connor, 2001, and Norton, 1993</ref> The [[Church of Scotland]] seriously considered bringing charges of infidelity against him.<ref> Mossner, E. C. (2001). The life of David Hume. Oxford University Press. p. 206 </ref> He never declared himself to be an atheist, but if he had been hostile to religion, Hume's writings would have had to be constrained to being ambiguous about his own views. He did not acknowledge his authorship of many of his works in this area until close to his death, and some were not even published until afterwards.
The noted 20th century theoretician and philosopher, [[Bertrand Russell]], confirmed and elaborated Hume's analysis of the problem in his work, ''[[The Problems of Philosophy]]'', chapter 6.<ref name="russell">[http://www.ditext.com/russell/rus6.html Online edition]</ref>
 
   
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There are several places in his works{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}} where Hume specifically seems to support the standard religious views of his time and place. This still meant that he could be very critical of the Roman Church, referring to it as superstition and idolatry, as well as dismissing what his compatriots would see as more uncivilised beliefs.{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}} He also considered extreme Protestant sects to be corrupters of religion. Yet he also put forward arguments that suggested that polytheism had much to commend it in preference to monotheism.
Despite Hume's critique of induction, he held that it was superior to deduction in its realm of empirical thought. As he states: "this operation of the mind, by which we infer like effects from like causes, and ''vice versa'', is so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures, it is not probable, that it could be trusted to the fallacious deductions of our reason, which is slow in its operations; appears not, in any degree, during the first years of infancy; and at best is, in every age and period of human life, extremely liable to error and mistake." (EHU, 5.2.22)
 
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In his works, he attacked many of the basic assumptions of religion and Christian belief, and his arguments have become the foundation of much of the succeeding secular thinking about religion. In his [[Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion]], one of his protagonists demolished what was the main intellectual argument for the belief in God or one god (especially in the [[Age of Enlightenment]]): the [[Argument from Design]]. Also, in his [[Of Miracles]], he carried out a thoroughgoing condemnation of the idea that religion (specifically Christianity) is supported by [[revelation]].
   
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Nevertheless, he was capable of writing in the introduction to his [[The Natural History of Religion]] "The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author". In spite of that, he writes at the end of the essay: "Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they are anything but sick men's dreams", and "Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgement appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject".
===The bundle theory of the self===
 
We tend to think that we are the same person we were five years ago. Though we've changed in many respects, the same person appears present as was present then. We might start thinking about which features can be changed without changing the underlying self. Hume, however, denies that there is a distinction between the various features of a person and the mysterious self that supposedly bears those features. After all, Hume pointed out, when you start introspecting, you notice a bunch of thoughts and feelings and perceptions and such, but you never perceive any substance you could call "the self". So as far as we can tell, Hume concludes, there is nothing to the self over and above a big, fleeting [[Bundle theory|bundle]] of perceptions.
 
   
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It is likely that Hume was sceptical both about religious belief (at least as demanded by the religious organisations of his time) and of the complete atheism promoted by such contemporaries as [[Baron d'Holbach]]. Russell (2008) suggests that perhaps Hume's position is best characterised by the term "irreligion". O'Connor (2001, p19) writes that Hume "did not believe in the God of standard theism. ... but he did not rule out all concepts of deity". Also, "ambiguity suited his purposes, and this creates difficulty in definitively pinning down his final position on religion".
:Were ideas entirely loose and unconnected, chance alone would join them; and it is impossible the same simple ideas should fall regularly into complex ones (as they commonly do) without some bond of union among them, some associating quality, by which one idea naturally introduces another. [. . .] It is plain, that in the course of our thinking, and in the constant revolution of our ideas, our imagination runs easily from one idea to any other that resembles it, and that this quality alone is to the fancy a sufficient bond and association. It is likewise evident that as the senses, in changing their objects, are necessitated to change them regularly, and take them as they lie contiguous to each other, the imagination must by long custom acquire the same method of thinking, and run along the parts of space and time in conceiving its objects.<ref name="bond-of-union">''A Treatise of Human Nature'', 4.1, 2.</ref>
 
   
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=== Later life ===
Note in particular that, on Hume's view, these perceptions do not ''belong to'' anything. Rather, Hume compares the soul to a commonwealth, which retains its identity not by virtue of some enduring core substance, but by being composed of many different, related, and yet constantly changing elements. The question of personal identity then becomes a matter of characterizing the loose cohesion of one's personal experience. (Note that in the Appendix to the ''Treatise'', Hume said mysteriously that he was dissatisfied with his account of the self, and yet he never returned to the issue!)
 
   
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From 1763 to 1765, Hume was Secretary to Lord Hertford in Paris. He met and later fell out with [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]]. He wrote of his Paris life, "I really wish often for the plain roughness of [[The Poker Club]] of Edinburgh ... to correct and qualify so much lusciousness".<ref>Mossner, p. 265</ref> For a year from 1767, Hume held the appointment of Under Secretary of State for the Northern Department. In 1768, he settled in [[Edinburgh]].
===Practical reason: instrumentalism and nihilism===
 
Most of us find some behaviors more reasonable than others. Eating aluminum foil, for example, seems to have something unreasonable about it. But Hume denied that reason has any important role in motivating or discouraging behavior. After all, reason is just a sort of calculator of concepts and experience. What ultimately matters, Hume said, is how we feel about the behavior. His work is now associated with the doctrine of [[instrumental rationality|instrumentalism]], which states that an action is reasonable if and only if it serves the agent's goals and desires, whatever they be. Reason can enter the picture only as a lackey, informing the agent of useful facts concerning which actions will serve his goals and desires, but never deigning to tell the agent which goals and desires he should have. So, if you want to eat aluminum foil, reason will tell you where to find the stuff, and there's nothing unreasonable about eating it or even wanting to do so (unless, of course, one has a stronger desire for health or the appearance of sensibility). Today, however, many commentators argue that Hume actually went a step further to [[nihilism]] and said there's nothing unreasonable about deliberately frustrating your own goals and desires ("I want to eat aluminum foil, so let me wire my mouth shut"). Such behavior would surely be highly irregular, granting reason no role at all, but it would not be contrary to reason, which is important to make judgments in this domain.
 
   
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[[James Boswell]] visited Hume a few weeks before his death (most likely of either bowel or liver [[cancer]]). Hume told him he sincerely believed it a "most unreasonable fancy" that there might be life after death.<ref>Boswell, J. ''Boswell in Extremes'', 1776–1778</ref> This meeting was dramatized in semi-fictional form for the [[BBC]] by [[Michael Ignatieff]] as ''Dialogue in the Dark''. Hume wrote his own epitaph: "Born 1711, Died [—]. Leaving it to posterity to add the rest". It is engraved with the year of his death 1776 on the "simple Roman tomb" he prescribed, and which stands, as he wished it, on the Eastern slope of the [[Calton Hill, Edinburgh|Calton Hill]] overlooking his home in the [[New Town, Edinburgh|New Town]] of Edinburgh at No. 1 St. David Street.
===Sentiment based ethical theory===
 
Hume first discusses ethics in [[A Treatise of Human Nature]]. He later extracts and expounds upon the ideas he proposed there in a shorter essay entitled [[An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals]]. Hume's approach in the Enquiry is fundamentally an empirical one. Instead of telling us how morality ought to operate, he proports to tell us how we do actually make moral judgments. After providing us with various examples, he comes to the conclusion that most if not all of the behaviors we approve of increase public utility. Does this then mean that we make moral judgments on self-interest alone? Unlike his fellow empiricist [[Thomas Hobbes]], Hume argues that this is not in fact the case. In addition to considerations of self-interest, he asserts, we are swayed by our sympathies for our fellow men. Hume also defends this sentiment based theory of morality by claiming that we could never make moral judgments based on reason alone. Our reason deals with facts and draws conclusions from them, but, all else being equal, it could not lead us to choose one option over the other; only our natural sentiments can do this. This argument against founding morality on reason is now one in the stable of moral [[anti-realism|anti-realist]] arguments. As Humean philosopher [[J. L. Mackie|John Mackie]] put it, for sheer facts about the world to be intrinsically motivating as far as morality goes, they would have to be very weird facts. Thus we have every reason not to believe in them.
 
   
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== Science of man ==
===Free will versus determinism===
 
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[[file:David hume statue.jpg|thumb|left|Statue of David Hume in Edinburgh, Scotland]]
Just about everyone has noticed the apparent conflict between [[free will]] and [[determinism]] &ndash; if your actions were determined to happen billions of years ago, then how can they be up to you? But Hume noted another conflict, one that turned the problem of free will into a full-fledged dilemma: free will is incompatible with indeterminism. Imagine that your actions are not determined by what events came before. Then your actions are, it seems, completely random. Moreover, and most importantly for Hume, they are not determined by your character &ndash; your desires, your preferences, your values, etc. How can we hold someone responsible for an action that did not result from his character? How can we hold someone responsible for an action that randomly occurred? Free will seems to require determinism, because otherwise, the agent and the action wouldn't be connected in the way required of freely chosen actions. So now, nearly everyone believes in free will, free will seems inconsistent with determinism, and free will seems to require determinism. Hume's view is that human behavior, like everything else, is caused, and therefore holding people responsible for their actions should focus on rewarding them or punishing them in such a way that they will try to do what is morally desirable and will try to avoid doing what is morally reprehensible. (See also [[Compatibilism]].)
 
   
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In the introduction to ''A Treatise of Human Nature'', Hume writes "'Tis evident, that all the sciences have a relation, more or less, to human nature ... Even ''Mathematics'', ''Natural Philosophy'', and ''Natural Religion'', are in some measure dependent on the science of Man". Also, "the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences", and the method for this science assumes "experience and observation" as the foundations of a logical argument.<ref>''Treatise'', op.cit., p.7</ref> Because "Hume's plan is to extend to philosophy in general the methodological limitations of [[Newtonian physics]]"<ref>Copplestone, F., ''A history of Philosophy'', v. 6, 2003</ref>, Hume is characterised as an [[empiricism|empiricist]].
===The is-ought problem===
 
Hume noted that many writers talk about ''what ought to be'' on the basis of statements about ''what is'' ([[is-ought problem]]). But there seems to be a big difference between descriptive statements (what is) and prescriptive statements (what ought to be). Hume calls for writers to be on their guard against changing the subject in this way without giving an explanation of how the ought-statements are supposed to follow from the is-statements. But how exactly can you derive an 'ought' from an 'is'? That question, prompted by Hume's small paragraph, has become one of the central questions of ethical theory, and Hume is usually assigned the position that such a derivation is impossible. (Others interpret Hume as saying not that one cannot go from a factual statement to an ethical statement, but that one cannot do so without going through human nature, that is, without paying attention to human sentiments.) Hume is probably one of the first writers to make the distinction between normative (what ought to be) and positive (what is) statements, which is so prevalent in social science and moral philosophy. [[G. E. Moore]] defended a similar position with his "open question argument", intending to refute any identification of moral properties with natural properties&mdash;the so-called "[[naturalistic fallacy]]".
 
   
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Until recently, Hume was seen as a forerunner of the [[logical positivism|logical positivist]] movement; a form of anti-metaphysical empiricism. According to the logical positivists, unless a statement could be verified by experience, or else was true or false by definition (i.e. either [[tautology (logic)|tautological]] or [[contradiction|contradictory]]), then it was meaningless (this is a summary statement of their [[verificationism|verification principle]]). Hume, on this view, was a proto-positivist, who, in his philosophical writings, attempted to demonstrate how ordinary propositions about objects, causal relations, the self, and so on, are [[logical equivalence|semantically equivalent]] to propositions about one's experiences.<ref>A. J. Ayer, ''Language, Truth and Logic'', (Penguin, 2001 edition), pp.40.ff</ref>
===Utilitarianism===
 
It was probably Hume who, along with his fellow members of the [[Scottish Enlightenment]], first advanced the idea that the explanation of moral principles is to be sought in the [[utility]] they tend to promote. Hume's role is not to be overstated, of course; it was his countryman [[Francis Hutcheson]] who coined the [[utilitarian]] slogan "greatest happiness for the greatest numbers". But it was from reading Hume's ''Treatise'' that [[Jeremy Bentham]] first felt the force of a utilitarian system: he "felt as if scales had fallen from [his] eyes". Nevertheless, Hume's proto-utilitarianism is a peculiar one from our perspective. He doesn't think that the aggregation of cardinal units of utility provides a formula for arriving at moral truth. On the contrary, Hume was a moral sentimentalist and, as such, thought that moral principles could not be intellectually justified. Some principles simply appeal to us and others don't; and the reason why utilitarian moral principles do appeal to us is that they promote our interests and those of our fellows, with whom we sympathize. Humans are hard-wired to approve of things that help society &ndash; public utility. Hume used this insight to explain how we evaluate a wide array of phenomena, ranging from social institutions and government policies to character traits and talents.
 
   
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Many commentators have since rejected this understanding of Humean empiricism, stressing an [[epistemology|epistemological]], rather than a [[semantics|semantic]] reading of his project.<ref>See, e.g., Edward Craig, The Mind of God and the Works of Man, Ch.2; or Galen Strawson, ''The Secret Connexion'', (Oxford: OUP, 1989); John Wright, ''The Sceptical Realism of David Hume'', (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983)</ref> According to this view, Hume's empiricism consisted in the idea that it is our knowledge, and not our ability to conceive, that is restricted to what can be experienced. To be sure, Hume thought that we can form beliefs about that which extends beyond any possible experience, through the operation of faculties such as custom and the imagination, but he was skeptical about claims to ''knowledge'' on this basis.
===The problem of miracles===
 
For Hume, the only way to support theistic religion beyond strict [[fideism]] is by an appeal to [[miracle]]s.{{Citation needed}} But Hume argued that, at minimum, [[miracle]]s could never give religion much support. There are several arguments suggested by Hume's essay, all of which turn on his conception of a miracle: namely, a violation of [[physics|the laws of nature]]. His very definition of miracles from his ''[[Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]'' states that miracles are violations of the laws of nature and consequently have a very low probability of occuring. In a slogan, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Critics have argued that such a dictum assumes the character of miracles and natural laws prior to any specific examination of miracle claims, and thus amounts to a subtle form of begging the question. They have also noted that it requires an appeal to inductive inference, as none have observed every part of nature or examined every possible miracle claim (e.g., those yet future to the observer), which in Hume's philosophy was especially problematic (see above). Another claim is his argument that human testimony could never be reliable enough to countermand the evidence we have for the laws of nature. This point on miracles has been most applied to the question of the [[resurrection of Jesus]], where Hume would no doubt ask, ''"Which is more likely &ndash; that a man rose from the dead or that this testimony is mistaken in some way?"'' Or, in a more contemporary setting, ''"Which is more likely &ndash; that [[Uri Geller]] can really bend spoons with his mind or that there is some trick going on?"'' This is somewhat similar to [[Occam's Razor]]. This argument is the backbone of the skeptic's movement and a live issue for historians of religion.
 
   
===The design argument===
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=== Induction ===
One of the oldest and most popular [[existence of God|arguments for the existence of God]] is [[teleological argument|the design argument]] &ndash; that all the order and 'purpose' in the world bespeaks a divine origin. Hume gave the classic criticism of the design argument in ''[[Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion]]'' and ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]'' and though the issue is far from dead, many are convinced that Hume killed the argument for good. Here are some of his points:
 
#For the design argument to be feasible, it must be true that order and purpose are observed only when they result from design. But order is observed regularly, resulting from presumably mindless processes like snowflake or crystal generation. Design accounts for only a tiny part of our experience with order and 'purpose'.
 
#Furthermore, the design argument is based on an incomplete analogy: because of our experience with objects, we can recognise human-designed ones, comparing for example a pile of stones and a brick wall. But in order to point to a designed Universe, we would need to have an experience of a range of different universes. As we only experience one, the analogy cannot be applied.
 
#Even if the design argument is completely successful, it could not (in and of itself) establish a robust theism; one could easily reach the conclusion that the universe's configuration is the result of some morally ambiguous, possibly unintelligent agent or agents whose method bears only a remote similarity to human design.
 
#If a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then God's mind (being so well-ordered) ''also'' requires a special designer. And then this designer would likewise need a designer, and so on ''ad infinitum''. We could respond by resting content with an inexplicably self-ordered divine mind; but then why not rest content with an inexplicably self-ordered natural world? <!-- Is it possible to form a ''reductio ad absurdum'' by assuming that God's mental state is inexplicable? I think that would make this point clearer. How does Hume proceed? [[User:MrJones|Mr. Jones]] 19:19, [[13 July]] [[2004]] (UTC) -->
 
#Often, what appears to be purpose, where it looks like object X has feature F in order to secure some outcome O, is better explained by a filtering process: that is, object X wouldn't be around did it not possess feature F, and outcome O is only interesting to us as a human projection of goals onto nature. This mechanical explanation of [[teleology]] anticipated [[natural selection]]. (see also [[Anthropic principle]])
 
   
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The cornerstone of Hume's epistemology is the so-called [[problem of induction|Problem of Induction]]. It has been argued that it is in this area of Hume's thought that his skepticism about human powers of reason is the most pronounced.<ref>John D. Kenyon, 'Doubts about the Concept of Reason', in ''Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume'', Vol. 59, (1985), 249–267</ref> Understanding the problem of induction, then, is central to grasping Hume's general philosophical system.
===Conservatism and political theory===
 
Many regard David Hume as a political [[conservative]], sometimes calling him the first conservative philosopher. He expressed suspicion of attempts to reform society in ways that departed from long-established custom, and he counselled people not to resist their governments except in cases of the most egregious [[tyranny]]. However, he resisted aligning himself with either of Britain's two political parties, the [[British Whig Party|Whigs]] and the [[Tories]], and he believed that we should try to balance our demands for liberty with the need for strong authority, without sacrificing either. He supported [[liberty of the press]], and was sympathetic to [[democracy]], when suitably constrained. It has been argued that he was a major inspiration for [[James Madison]]'s writings, and the ''[[Federalist No. 10]]'' in particular. He was also, in general, an optimist about social progress, believing that, thanks to the economic development that comes with the expansion of trade, societies progress from a state of "barbarism" to one of "civilisation". Civilised societies are open, peaceful and sociable, and their [[citizen]]s are as a result much happier. It is therefore not fair to characterise him, as [[Leslie Stephen]] did, as favouring "that stagnation which is the natural ideal of a [[skeptic]]". (Leslie Stephen, ''History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century'', 2 vols. (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1876), vol. 2, 185.)
 
   
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The problem concerns the explanation of how we are able to make [[inductive reasoning|inductive inferences]]. Inductive inference is reasoning from the observed behavior of objects to their behavior when unobserved; as Hume says, it is a question of how things behave when they go "beyond the present testimony of the senses, and the records of our memory".<ref>''Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'', op.cit., p.108</ref> Hume notices that we tend to believe that things behave in a regular manner; i.e., that patterns in the behavior of objects will persist into the future, and throughout the unobserved present (this persistence of regularities is sometimes called the [[principle of uniformity|Principle of the Uniformity of Nature]]).
Although strongly pragmatic, Hume produced an essay titled [http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL39.html|''Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth''], where he detailed what any reforms should seek to achieve. Strong features for the time included a strict [[separation of powers]], [[decentralisation]], extending the [[Suffrage|franchise]] to anyone who held property of value and limiting the power of the [[clergy]]. The [[Switzerland|Swiss]] [[militia]] system was proposed as the best form of protection. Elections were to take place on an annual basis and representatives were to be unpaid, which was aimed at keeping the interests of [[constituent]]s in the minds of politicians.
 
   
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Hume's argument is that we cannot rationally justify the claim that nature will continue to be uniform, as justification comes in only two varieties, and both of these are inadequate. The two sorts are: (1) demonstrative reasoning, and (2) probable reasoning.<ref>These are Hume's terms. It has been argued that, in modern parlance, demonstration is deductive reasoning, and probability is inductive reasoning: see Dr. Peter J. R. Millican's D.Phil thesis, ''Hume, Induction and Probability''[http://www.davidhume.org/documents/1996PhD.pdf]</ref> With regard to (1), Hume argues that the uniformity principle cannot be demonstrated, as it is "consistent and conceivable" that nature might stop being regular.<ref>See ''Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'', op.cit., p.111</ref> Turning to (2), Hume argues that we cannot hold that nature will continue to be uniform because it has been in the past, as this is using the very sort of reasoning (induction) that is under question: it would be [[circular reasoning]].<ref>See ibid., p.115</ref> Thus no form of justification will rationally warrant our inductive inferences.
===Contributions to economic thought===
 
Through his discussions on politics, Hume developed many ideas that are prevalent in the field of economics. This includes ideas on private property, inflation, and foreign trade.
 
   
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Hume's solution to this skeptical problem is to argue that, rather than reason, it is natural instinct that explains our ability to make inductive inferences. He asserts that "Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable {{sic}} necessity has determin'd us to judge as well as to breathe and feel". Although many modern commentators have demurred from Hume's solution, some have concurred with it, seeing his analysis of our epistemic predicament as a major contribution to the theory of knowledge: here, for example, is the Oxford Professor John D. Kenyon: "Reason might manage to raise a doubt about the truth of a conclusion of natural inductive inference just for a moment in the study, but the forces of nature will soon overcome that artificial skepticism, and the sheer agreeableness of animal faith will protect us from excessive caution and sterile suspension of belief".<ref>Doubts about the Concept of Reason, op.cit., p.254</ref>
Hume's idea on private property is special—[[private property]] was not a natural right, but is justified since it is a limited good. If all goods were unlimited and available freely, then private property would not be justified, but instead becomes an “idle ceremonial”. Hume also believed in unequal distribution of property, since perfect equality would destroy the ideas of thrift and industry, which leads to impoverishment.
 
   
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=== Causation ===
Hume did not believe that foreign trade produced specie, but considered trade a stimulus for a country’s economic growth. He did not consider the volume of world trade as fixed because countries can feed off their neighbor’s wealth, being part of a “prosperous community”. The fall in foreign demand is not that fatal, because in the long run, a country cannot preserve a leading trading position.
 
   
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The notion of [[causation]] is closely linked to the problem of induction. According to Hume, we reason inductively by associating constantly conjoined events, and it is the mental act of association that is the basis of our concept of causation. There are three main interpretations of Hume's theory of causation represented in the literature: (1) the logical positivist; (2) the skeptical realist; and (3) the quasi-realist.
Hume was among the first to develop automatic price-specie flow, an idea that contrasts with the [[mercantile system]]. Simply put, when a country increases its in-flow of gold, this in-flow of gold will result in price inflation, and then price inflation will force out countries from trading that would have traded before the inflation. This results in a decrease of the in-flow of gold in the long-run.
 
   
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The logical positivist interpretation is that Hume analyses causal propositions, such as "A caused B", in terms of regularities in perception: "A caused B" is equivalent to "Whenever A-type events happen, B-type ones follow", where "whenever" refers to all possible perceptions.<ref> For this account of Hume's views on causation, see Ayer, ''Language, Truth and Logic'', op.cit., p.40–42</ref>
Hume also proposed a theory of beneficial inflation. He believed that increasing the money supply would raise production in the short run. This phenomenon was caused by a gap between the increase in the money supply and that of the price level. The result is that prices will not rise at first and may not rise at all. This theory was later developed by [[John Maynard Keynes]]. <!--Is Hume's theory really that similar to Keynesian economics?-->
 
   
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<blockquote>
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power and necessity... are... qualities of perceptions, not of objects... felt by the soul and not perceived externally in bodies<ref> ''Treatise'', op.cit., p.168</ref>
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</blockquote>
   
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This view is rejected by [[skepticism|skeptical]] [[Philosophical realism|realists]], who argue that Hume thought that causation amounts to more than just the regular succession of events.<ref>See Edward Craig, op. cit.; Galen Strawson, op. cit.; and John Wright, op. cit</ref> When two events are causally conjoined, there is a necessary connection which underpins the conjunction:
===Racism===
 
A controversional footnote appears in the original version of Hume's essay "Of National Characters":
 
   
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<blockquote>
:I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negroe slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho’ low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but ‘tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.
 
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Shall we rest contented with these two relations of contiguity and succession, as affording a complete idea of causation? By no means ... there is a ''necessary connexion'' to be taken into consideration.<ref> ''Treatise'', op.cit., p.56</ref>
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</blockquote>
   
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Hume held that we have no perceptual access to the necessary connection (hence ''skepticism''), but we are naturally compelled to believe in its objective existence (hence ''realism'').
The blatant racism of Hume's statement is striking. It should be noted that sort of racist thinking was a widespead feature of European culture in Hume's time.
 
   
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It has been argued that, whilst Hume did not think causation is reducible to pure regularity, he was not a fully fledged realist either: Simon Blackburn calls this a [[quasi-realism|quasi-realist]] reading.<ref>See S. Blackburn, ‘Hume and Thick Connexions', in ''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research'', Vol. 50, Supplement. (Autumn, 1990), pp. 237–250</ref> On this view, talk about causal necessity is an expression of a functional change in the human mind, whereby certain events are predicted or anticipated on the basis of prior experience. The expression of causal necessity is a [[projectivism|"projection"]] of the functional change onto the objects involved in the causal connection: in Hume's words, "nothing is more usual than to apply to external bodies every internal sensation which they occasion". <ref>''Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding''. op.cit., p.147, fn.17</ref>
==Footnotes==
 
<references/>
 
   
==Works==
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=== The self ===
* ''[[A Kind of History of My Life]]'' (1734) Ms National Library of Scotland.
 
:A letter to an unnamed physician, asking for advice about "the Disease of the Learned" that then afflicted him. Here he reports that at the age of eighteen "there seem'd to be open'd up to me a new Scene of Thought... " which made him "throw up every other Pleasure or Business" and turned him to scholarship.
 
* ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects.'' (1739&ndash;40)
 
**Book 1: "Of the Understanding" His treatment of everything from the origin of our ideas to how they are to be divided. Important statements of Scepticism.
 
**Book 2: "Of the Passions" Treatment of emotions.
 
**Book 3: "Of Morals" Moral ideas, justice, obligations, benevolence.
 
:Hume intended to see whether the ''Treatise'' met with success, and if so to complete it with books devoted to Politics and Criticism. However, it did not meet with success (as Hume himself said, "It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots"), and so was not completed.
 
* ''[[An Abstract]] of a Book lately Published: Entituled A Treatise of Human Nature etc.'' (1740)
 
:Sometimes attributed to Adam Smith but now generally believed to be an attempt by Hume to popularise his ''Treatise''.
 
* ''[[Essays Moral and Political]]'' (first ed. 1741&ndash;2)
 
:A collection of pieces written over many years and published in a series of volumes before being gathered together into one near the end of Hume's life. The essays are dizzying and even bewildering in the breadth of topics they address. They range freely over questions of aesthetic judgement, the nature of the British government, love, marriage and polygamy, and the demographics of ancient Greece and Rome, to name just a few of the topics considered. However, certain important topics and themes recur, especially the question of what constitutes "refinement" in matters of [[taste (aesthetics)|taste]], manners, and morals. The Essays are written in clear imitation of [[Joseph Addison|Addison]]'s ''Tatler'' and ''[[The Spectator (1711)|The Spectator]]'', which Hume read avidly in his youth.
 
* ''[[A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh]]: Containing Some Observations on a Specimen of the Principles concerning Religion and Morality, said to be maintain'd in a Book lately publish'd, intituled A Treatise of Human Naure etc.'' Edinburgh (1745).
 
* ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]'' (1748)
 
:Contains reworking of the main points of the ''Treatise'', Book 1, with the addition of material on free will, miracles, and the argument from design.
 
* ''[[An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals]]'' (1751)
 
:Another reworking of material from the ''Treatise'' for more popular appeal. Hume regarded this as the best of all his philosophical works, both in its philosophical ideas and in its literary style.
 
* ''[[Political Discourses]]'' Edinburgh (1752).
 
:Included in ''Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects'' (1753-6) reprinted 1758 - 77.
 
* ''[[Four Dissertations]]'' London (1757).
 
:Included in reprints of ''Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects'' (above).
 
* ''[[The History of England]]'' (1754&ndash;62)
 
:This forms more a category of books than a single work, a monumental history spanning "from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688". This work brought Hume the most fame during his own lifetime, going through over 100 editions. Many considered it ''the'' standard history of England until the publication of [[Thomas Macaulay]]'s own monumental ''History of England''.
 
* "[[My Own Life]]" (1776)
 
:Penned in April, shortly before his death, this autobiography was intended for inclusion in a new edition of "Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects".
 
* ''[[Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion]]'' (1779)
 
:Published posthumously by his nephew, David Hume, the Younger. Being a discussion among three fictional characters concerning arguments for the existence of God, most importantly the argument from design. Despite some controversy, most scholars agree that the view of Philo, the most skeptical of the three, comes closest to Hume's own.
 
L A Selby-Bigge provides, by means of an introduction to Hume's ''Enquiries'', a fascinating (and sometimes quite scathing) discussion of the various differences in the content and tone of Hume's ''Treatise'' and ''Enquiries''.
 
   
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According to the standard interpretation of Hume on [[personal identity]], he was a [[bundle theory|Bundle Theorist]], who held that the self is nothing but a bundle of interconnected perceptions linked by relations of similarity and causality; or, more accurately, that our idea of the self is just the idea of such a bundle. This view is forwarded by, for example, positivist interpreters, who saw Hume as suggesting that terms such as "self", "person", or "mind" referred to collections of "sense-contents".<ref>See, e.g., [[A. J. Ayer]]'s account of Hume on the self, in ''[[Language, Truth and Logic]]'', op.cit., p.135–6</ref> A modern-day version of the bundle theory of the mind has been advanced by [[Derek Parfit]] in his [[Reasons and Persons]] (1986).
==See also==
 
*[[Hume's principle]]
 
*[[Liberalism]]
 
*[[Contributions to liberal theory]]
 
*[[Hume's fork]]
 
   
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However, some philosophers have criticised the bundle-theory interpretation of Hume on personal identity. It is argued that distinct selves can have perceptions which stand in relations of similarity and causality with one another. Thus perceptions must already come parcelled into distinct "bundles" before they can be associated according to the relations of similarity and causality: in other words, the mind must already possess a unity that cannot be generated, or constituted, by these relations alone. Since the bundle-theory interpretation attributes Hume with answering an ontological or conceptual question, philosophers who see Hume as not very concerned with such questions have queried whether the view is really Hume's, or "only a decoy".<ref>See E. J. Craig, op.cit, Ch.2., for this criticism</ref> Instead, it is suggested, Hume might have been answering an epistemological question, about the causal origin of our concept of the self.
==Further reading==
 
*Johnson, David ''Hume, Holism and Miracles.'' Cornell University Press: Ithaca, 1999. ISBN 0-8014-3663-X
 
*Siebert, Donald T. ''The Moral Animus of David Hume.'' University of Delaware Press: Newark, 1990.
 
*Russell, Paul, ''Freedom and Moral Sentiment: Hume's Way of Naturalizing Responsibility'' Oxford University Press: New York & Oxford, 1995.
 
*Braham, Ernest G. ''The Life of David Hume - the terrible David.'' J. Martin Stafford, Altringham, 1987.
 
   
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=== Practical reason ===
==Perspectives of Hume==
 
Because he had real doubts about whether Hume was expressing only his ‘surface opinions’ and not making a genuine expression of his whole personality, [[A E Taylor|Taylor]] (1927) doubted whether Hume was really a great philosopher but concluded that ''perhaps he was only a very clever man''.
 
   
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Hume's anti-rationalism informed much of his theory of belief and knowledge, in his treatment of the notions of induction, causation, and the external world. But it was not confined to this sphere, and permeated just as strongly his theories of motivation, action, and morality. In a famous sentence in the ''Treatise'', Hume circumscribes reason's role in the production of action:
[[Ayer]] (1936) introducing his classic exposition of logical positivism, claimed that ‘the views which are put forward in this treatise derive from … the logical outcome of the ''[[empiricism]]'' of [[Berkeley]] and Hume”.
 
   
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<blockquote>
Both [[Russell]] (1946) and [[Leszek Kołakowski|Kolakowski]], (1968) saw Hume as a ''[[positivist]]'' holding the view that true knowledge derives only from the experience of events, from ‘impressions on the senses’ or (later) from ‘[[sense data]]’ and that knowledge otherwise obtained was ‘meaningless’. [[Albert Einstein|Einstein]] (1915) wrote that he was inspired by Hume's ''positivism'' when formulating his [[Special Theory of Relativity]].
 
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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.<ref>''Treatise'', p. 295</ref>
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</blockquote>
   
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It has been suggested that this position can be lucidly brought out through the metaphor of "[[direction of fit]]": beliefs—the paradigmatic products of reason—are propositional attitudes that aim to have their content fit the world; conversely, desires—or what Hume calls passions, or sentiments—are states that aim to fit the world to their contents.<ref>The metaphor of direction of fit in this sense has been traced back to Elizabeth Anscombe's work on intention: ''Intention'' (2nd Edition), (1963, Oxford: Basil Blackwell)</ref> Though a metaphor, it has been argued that this intuitive way of understanding Hume's theory that desires are necessary for motivation "captures something quite deep in our thought about their nature".<ref>M. Smith, 'The Humean Theory of Motivation', ''Mind'', New Series, Vol. 96, No. 381 (Jan., 1987), pp. 36–61</ref>
[[Anderson]] (1966), in discussing Hume’s First Principles, which are that all governments are founded on, and all authority of the few over the many is derived from, the public interest, the right to power, and the right to property, concluded that Hume was a ''[[materialist]]''.
 
   
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Hume's anti-rationalism has been very influential, and defended in contemporary philosophy of action by neo-Humeans such as [[Michael A. Smith (philosopher)|Michael Smith]]<ref>M. Smith, ibid</ref> and [[Simon Blackburn]]<ref>S. Blackburn, 'Practical Tortoise Raising', ''Mind'', New Series, Vol. 104, No. 416 (Oct., 1995), pp. 695–711</ref> The major opponents of the Humean view are cognitivists about what it is to act for a reason, such as [[John McDowell]],<ref>J. McDowell, 'Non-Cognitivism and Rule-Following', in S. Holtzman and C. Leich, ''Wittgenstein: To Follow A Rule'', (1981, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul)</ref> and Kantians, such as [[Christine Korsgaard]].<ref>C. Korsgaard, 'Scepticism about Practical Reason', ''The Journal of Philosophy'', Vol. 83, No. 1 (Jan., 1986), pp. 5–25</ref>
[[Popper]] (1970) pointed out that although Hume’s [[idealism]] appeared to him to be a strict refutation of commonsense [[realism]], and although he felt rationally obliged to regard commonsense realism as a mistake, he admitted that he was, in practice, quite unable to disbelieve in it for more than an hour: that, at heart, Hume was a ''commonsense realist''.
 
   
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=== Ethics ===
[[Husserl]] (1970), saw the ''[[Philosophy#Phenomenology and hermeneutics|phenomenologist]]'' in Hume when he showed that some [[perceptions]] are interrelated or associated to form other perceptions which are then projected onto a world putatively outside the mind.
 
   
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Hume's views on human motivation and action formed the cornerstone of his ethical theory: he conceived moral or ethical sentiments to be intrinsically motivating, or the providers of reasons for action. Given that one cannot be motivated by reason alone, requiring the input of the passions, Hume argued that reason cannot be behind morality
Stroud (1977) claimed for Hume the title of ''[[naturalism (philosophy)|naturalist]]'', saying that he saw every aspect of human life as naturalistically explicable. He placed man squarely in the scientifically intelligible world of nature, in conflict with the traditional conception of man as a detached rational subject.
 
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<blockquote>
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Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.<ref>''Treatise'', op. cit., p. 325</ref>
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</blockquote>
   
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Hume's [[Moral sense theory|sentimentalism]] about morality was shared by his close friend [[Adam Smith]],<ref>Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), ed. K. Haakonssen, (Cambridge: CUP, 2002)</ref> and Hume and Smith were mutually influenced by the moral reflections of [[Francis Hutcheson]].<ref>For Hutcheson's influence on Hume, see footnote 7. For his influence on Smith, see William L. Taylor, ''Francis Hutcheson and David Hume as Predecessors of Adam Smith'', (Durham: Duke University Press, 1965)</ref>
To Hume’s scepticism about the senses, [[Flew]], (1986) draws attention his moral and logical scepticism and calls him a ''[[Pyrrho|Pyrrhonian]] sceptic''.
 
   
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Hume's theory of ethics has been influential in modern day ethical theory, helping to inspire various forms of [[emotivism]],<ref>A. J. Ayer. ''Language, Truth and Logic'', ch.6</ref><ref>C. L. Stevenson. ''Ethics and Language'' (1944), (Yale: Yale UP, 1960)</ref> [[error theory]]<ref>[[John Mackie]]. ''Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong'' (1977), (Penguin, 1990)</ref> and ethical [[expressivism]] and [[non-cognitivism]]<ref>[[Simon Blackburn]]. ''Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning'', (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)</ref> and [[Alan Gibbard]].<ref>''Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment'', (Harvard: Harvard UP, 1990)</ref>
Hume was called ''the prophet of the [[Ludwig Wittgenstein|Wittgensteinian]] revolution'' by [[Phillipson]] (1989), referring to his view that mathematics and logic are closed systems, disguised tautologies, and have no relation to the world of experience.
 
   
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{{see also|is-ought problem}}
In dubbing Hume ''neo-[[Hellenist]]'', [[Penelhum]] (1993) saw him as following the [[Stoics]], [[Epicureans]] and [[Skeptics|Sceptics]] in maintaining that we should avoid anxiety by following nature. Before embarking on any philosophical venture, Hume, as those before him, contended that we must first come to understand our own nature.
 
   
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=== Free will, determinism, and responsibility ===
[[Norton]] (1993) asserted that Hume was ''the first post-sceptical philosopher of the early modern period''. Hume challenged the certainty of the Cartesians and other rationalists who attempted to refute philosophical scepticism, and yet himself undertook the project of articulating a new science of human nature that would provide a defensible foundation for all other sciences, including the moral and political.
 
   
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Hume, along with [[Thomas Hobbes]], is cited as a classical [[compatibilist]] about the notions of [[free will|freedom]] and [[determinism]].<ref>See the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/#3 Compatibilism.]</ref> The thesis of compatibilism seeks to reconcile human freedom with the mechanist belief that human beings are part of a deterministic universe, whose happenings are governed by the [[laws of physics]].
[[Fogelin]] (1993) concluded that Hume was a ''radical [[Epistemic theories of truth|perspectivalist]]'', perhaps as in [[Protagoras]] and certainly in [[Sextus Empiricus]]. He referred to Hume’s own words that his writings exhibit “a propensity, which inclines us to be positive and certain in particular points, according to the light in which we survey them at any particular instant” (T 1.4.7, 273).
 
   
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Hume argued that the dispute about the compatibility of freedom and determinism has been kept afloat by ambiguous terminology:
Hume called himself a ''mitigated'' sceptic (EHU, 162, his own emphasis).
 
   
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<blockquote>
==References==
 
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From this circumstance alone, that a controversy has been long kept on foot... we may presume, that there is some ambiguity in the expression.<ref>''Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'', op. cit., p. 148</ref>
*Anderson, R. F. (1966). ''Hume’s First Principles'', University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
 
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</blockquote>
*Ayer, A. J. (1936). ''Language, Truth and Logic''. London.
 
*Broackes, Justin (1995). ''Hume, David'', in Ted Hoderich (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', New York, Oxford University Press,
 
*Daiches D., Jones P., Jones J. (eds )''The Scottish Enlightenment: 1730 - 1790 A Hotbed of Genius'' The University of Edinburgh, 1986. In paperback, The Saltire Society, 1996 ISBN 0854110690
 
*Einstein, A. (1915) ''Letter to [[Moriz Schlick]]'', Schwarzschild, B. (trans. & ed.) in ''The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein'', vol. 8A, R. Schulmann, A. J. Fox, J. Illy, (eds.) Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (1998), p. 220.
 
*Flew, A. (1986). ''David Hume: Philosopher of Moral Science'', Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
 
*Fogelin, R. J. (1993). ''Hume’s scepticism''. In Norton, D. F. (ed.) (1993). ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', Cambridge University Press, pp. 90-116.
 
*Hume, D. (EHU) (1777). ''An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding''. Nidditch, P. N. (ed.), 3rd. ed. (1975), Clarendon Press, Oxford.
 
*Hume, D. (1740). ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' (1967, edition). Oxford University Press, Oxford.
 
*Husserl, E. (1970). ''The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology'', Carr, D. (trans.), Northwestern University Press, Evanston.
 
*Kolakowski, L. (1968). ''The Alienation of Reason: A History of Positivist Thought'', Doubleday, Garden City.
 
*Morris, William Edward, ''David Hume'', [http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2001/entries/hume/The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)]
 
*Norton, D. F. (1993). ''Introduction to Hume’s thought''. In Norton, D. F. (ed.), (1993). ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-32.
 
*Penelhum, T. (1993). ''Hume’s moral philosophy''. In Norton, D. F. (ed.), (1993). ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', Cambridge University Press, pp. 117-147.
 
*Phillipson, N. (1989). ''Hume'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.
 
*Popkin, R. & Stroll, A. (1993) ''Philosophy''. Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Ltd, Oxford.
 
*Popper. K. (1960). ''Knowledge without authority''. In Miller D. (ed.), (1983). ''Popper'', Oxford, Fontana, pp. 46-57.
 
*Robinson, Dave & Groves, Judy (2003). ''Introducing Political Philosophy''. Icon Books. ISBN 1-84046-450-X.
 
*Russell, B. (1946). ''A History of Western Philosophy''. London, Allen and Unwin.
 
*Spiegel, Henry William,(1991). ''The Growth of Economic Thought'', 3rd Ed., Durham: Duke University Press.
 
*Stroud, B. (1977). ''Hume'', Routledge, London & New York.
 
*Taylor, A. E. (1927). ''David Hume and the Miraculous'', Leslie Stephen Lecture. Cambridge, pp. 53-4.
 
   
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Hume defines the concepts of "necessity" and "liberty" as follows:
==External links==
 
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Necessity: "the uniformity, observable in the operations of nature; where similar objects are constantly conjoined together..".<ref>Ibid., p. 149</ref>
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Liberty: "''a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will''..".<ref>Ibid., p.159</ref>
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Hume then argues that, according to these definitions, not only are the two compatible, but Liberty ''requires'' Necessity. For if our actions were not necessitated in the above sense, they would "have so little in connexion [sic] with motives, inclinations and circumstances, that one does not follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the other". But if our actions are not thus hooked up to the will, then our actions can never be free: they would be matters of "chance; which is universally allowed not to exist".<ref>Ibid., p.159</ref>
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Moreover, Hume goes on to argue that in order to be held morally responsible, it is required that our behaviour be caused, i.e. necessitated, for
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<blockquote>
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Actions are, by their very nature, temporary and perishing; and where they proceed not from some ''cause'' in the character and disposition of the person who performed them, they can neither redound to his honour, if good; nor infamy, if evil".<ref>Ibid., p. 161</ref>
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</blockquote>
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This argument has inspired modern day commentators.<ref>See, e.g., R. E. Hobart, ‘Free Will as Involving Determination and Inconceivable Without It', ''Mind'' 43 (1934), pp. 1–27</ref> However, it has been argued that the issue of whether or not we hold one another morally responsible does not ultimately depend on the truth or falsity of a metaphysical thesis such as determinism, for our so holding one another is a non-rational human sentiment that is not predicated on such theses. For this influential argument, which is still made in a Humean vein, see [[P. F. Strawson]]'s essay, ''Freedom and Resentment''.<ref>First published in 1962 and reprinted in Gary Watson, ed., Free Will
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(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 59–80; second edition 2003</ref>
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=== Problem of miracles ===
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In his discussion of [[miracle]]s in ''[[An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding]]'' (Section 10) Hume defines a miracle as "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent". Given that Hume argues that it is impossible to deduce the existence of a Deity from the existence of the world (for he says that causes cannot be determined from effects), miracles (including prophesy) are the only possible support he would conceivably allow for theistic religions.
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Hume discusses everyday belief as often resulted from probability, where we believe an event that has occurred most often as being most likely, but that we also subtract the weighting of the less common event from that of the more common event. In the context of miracles, this means that a miraculous event should be labelled a miracle only where it would be even more unbelievable (by principles of probability) for it not to be. Hume mostly discusses miracles as testimony, of which he writes that when a person reports a miraculous event we [need to] balance our belief in their veracity against our belief that such events do not occur. Following this rule, only where it is considered, as a result of experience, less likely that the testimony is false than that a miracle occur should we believe in miracles.
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Although Hume leaves open the possibility for miracles to occur and be reported, he offers various arguments against this ever having happened in history:<ref>Hume, D (1748), 'Of miracles‘, in ''Enquiry concerning human understanding'', LA Selby-Bigge (ed.), 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, (1902), Section X, pp.116-122</ref>
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* People often lie, and they have good reasons to lie about miracles occurring either because they believe they are doing so for the benefit of their religion or because of the fame that results.
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* People by nature enjoy relating miracles they have heard without caring for their veracity and thus miracles are easily transmitted even where false.
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* Hume notes that miracles seem to ''occur'' mostly in "ignorant" and "barbarous" nations and times, and the reason they don't occur in the "civilized" societies is such societies aren't awed by what they know to be natural events.
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* The miracles of each religion argue against all other religions and their miracles, and so even if a proportion of all reported miracles across the world fit Hume's requirement for belief, the miracles of each religion make the other less likely.
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Despite all this Hume observes that belief in miracles is popular, and that "The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder".{{Citation needed|date=May 2009}}
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Critics have argued that Hume's position assumes the character of miracles and natural laws prior to any specific examination of miracle claims, and thus it amounts to a subtle form of begging the question. They have also noted that it requires an appeal to inductive inference, as none have observed every part of nature or examined every possible miracle claim (e.g., those yet future to the observer), which in Hume's philosophy was especially problematic.
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Hume's main argument concerning miracles is the following. Miracles by definition are singular events which differ from the established Laws of Nature. The Laws of Nature are codified at as a result of past experiences. Therefore a miracle is a violation of all prior experience. However the probability that something has occurred in contradiction of all may past experience should always be judged to be less than the probability that either my senses have deceived me or the person recounting the miraculous occurence is lying or mistaken, all of which I have past experience of. For Hume this refusal to grant credence does not garauntee correctness - he offers the example of an Indian Prince, who having grown up in a hot country refuses to believe that water has frozen. By Hume's lights this refusal is not wrong and the Prince is thinking correctly; it is presumably only when he has had extensive experience of the freezing of water that he has warrent to believe that the event could occur. So for Hume, either the miraculous event will become a recurr event or else it will never be rational to believe it occured. The connection to religious belief is left inexplicit throughout save for the close of his discussion wherein Hume notes the reliance of Christianity upon testimony of miraculous occurences and makes an ironic <ref>Mackie, JL ''The Miracle of Theism'' (Oxford: Oxford: University Press, 1982), 29</ref> <ref>Buckle, Stephen, ''Hume's Enlightenment Tract: The Unity and Purpose of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001),269–74</ref> remark that anyone who "is moved by faith to assent" to revealed testimony "is aware of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience."
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=== Design argument ===
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{{Prose|date=December 2008}}
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One of the oldest and most popular [[existence of God|arguments for the existence of God]] is [[teleological argument|the design argument]]: that order and "purpose" in the world bespeaks a divine origin. Hume gave the classic criticism of the design argument in ''[[Dialogues concerning Natural Religion]]'' and ''[[An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding]]''. However, Hume argued that for the design argument to be feasible, it must be true that order and purpose are observed only when they result from design. But order is often observed to result from presumably mindless processes like the generation of snowflakes and crystals. Design can account for only a tiny part of our experience of order. Furthermore, the design argument is based on an incomplete analogy. Because of our experience with objects, we can recognise human-designed ones, as when we compare a pile of stones with a constructed wall, but to deduce that the Universe is designed, we would need to have an experience of a range of different universes. As we only experience one, the analogy cannot be applied. We must ask therefore if it is right to compare the world to a machine—as in [[William Paley|Paley]]'s [[watchmaker analogy]]—when perhaps it could be better described as a giant inert animal. Even if the design argument is completely successful, it could not (in and of itself) establish a robust theism. One could easily reach the conclusion that the universe's configuration is the result of some morally ambiguous, possibly unintelligent agent or agents whose method bears only a remote similarity to human design. In this way it could be asked, if the Universe is designed, is the designer God? It could also be asked, if there is a designer god, who designed the designer? If a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then God's mind (being so well-ordered) ''also'' requires a special designer. Then this designer would need a designer, and so on ''ad infinitum''. Furthermore, if we could be happy with an inexplicably self-ordered divine mind, why should we not rest content with an inexplicably self-ordered natural world? Often, what appears to be purpose, where it looks like object X has feature F in order to secure outcome O, is better explained by a filtering process: that is, object X wouldn't be around did it not possess feature F, and outcome O is only interesting to us as a human projection of goals onto nature. This mechanical explanation of [[teleology]] anticipated [[natural selection]]. The design argument doesn't explain pain, suffering, and natural disasters.
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{{see also|anthropic principle|problem of evil}}
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=== Political theory ===
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{{Utilitarianism}}
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It is difficult to categorize Hume's political affiliations. His thought contains elements that are, in modern terms, both [[conservative]] and [[Liberalism|liberal]], as well as ones that are both [[contractarian]] and [[utilitarian]], though these terms are all anachronistic. His central concern is to show the importance of the rule of law, and stresses throughout his political ''Essays'' the importance of moderation in politics. This outlook needs to be seen within the historical context of eighteenth century Scotland, where the legacy of religious civil war, combined with the relatively recent memory of the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite risings, fostered in a historian such as Hume a distaste for enthusiasm and factionalism that appeared to threaten the fragile and nascent political and social stability of a country that was deeply politically and religiously divided. He thinks that society is best governed by a general and impartial system of laws, based principally on the "artifice" of contract; he is less concerned about the form of government that administers these laws, so long as it does so fairly (though he thought that republics were more likely to do so than monarchies).
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Hume expressed suspicion of attempts to reform society in ways that departed from long-established custom, and he counselled peoples not to resist their governments except in cases of the most egregious [[tyranny]]<ref>Hume, D. (1740). A Treatise of Human Nature (1817 edition, p. 286) </ref>. However, he resisted aligning himself with either of Britain's two political parties, the [[British Whig Party|Whigs]] and the [[Tories]], and he believed that we should try to balance our demands for liberty with the need for strong authority, without sacrificing either. Neil McArthur (2007, p.&nbsp;124) characterizes Hume as a 'precautionary conservative': whose actions would have been "determined by prudential concerns about the consequences of change, which often demand we ignore our own principles about what is ideal or even legitimate" <ref> Neil McArthur, ''David Hume's political theory''. University of Toronto, 2007</ref> , He supported [[liberty of the press]], and was sympathetic to [[democracy]], when suitably constrained. It has been argued that he was a major inspiration for [[James Madison]]'s writings, and the ''[[Federalist No. 10]]'' in particular. He was also, in general, an optimist about social progress, believing that, thanks to the economic development that comes with the expansion of trade, societies progress from a state of "barbarism" to one of "civilisation". Civilised societies are open, peaceful and sociable, and their [[citizen]]s are as a result much happier. It is therefore not fair to characterise him, as [[Leslie Stephen]] did, as favouring "that stagnation which is the natural ideal of a [[skeptic]]".<ref>Leslie Stephen, ''History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century'', 2 vols. (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1876), vol. 2, 185</ref>
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Though it has been suggested Hume had no positive vision of the best society, he in fact produced an essay titled ''[[Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth]]'',<ref>http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL39.html</ref> which lays out what he thought was the best form of government. His pragmatism shone through, however, in his caveat that we should only seek to implement such a system should an opportunity present itself, which would not upset established structures. He defended a strict [[separation of powers]], [[decentralisation]], extending the [[Suffrage|franchise]] to anyone who held property of value and limiting the power of the [[clergy]]. The [[Switzerland|Swiss]] [[militia]] system was proposed as the best form of protection. Elections were to take place on an annual basis and representatives were to be unpaid. It is also important to note that the ideal commonwealth laid out by Hume was held to be ideal only for the British Isles in the 18th century. Hume was a relativist, and realized that such a form of government would not be ideal for all cultures, nor would it necessarily be permanent as historical conditions change.{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
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=== Contributions to economic thought ===
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Through his discussions on politics, Hume developed many ideas that are prevalent in the field of economics. This includes ideas on private property, inflation, and foreign trade.<ref>Robbins, Lionel ''A History of Economic Thought: The LSE Lectures'' edited by Medema and Samuels. Ch 11 and 12</ref>
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Hume does not believe, as Locke does, that [[private property]] is a natural right, but he argues that it is justified since resources are limited. If all goods were unlimited and available freely, then private property would not be justified, but instead becomes an "idle ceremonial". Hume also believed in unequal distribution of property, since perfect equality would destroy the ideas of thrift and industry. Perfect equality would thus lead to impoverishment.<ref>Hume, David ''An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals'' (1751)</ref>
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Hume did not believe that foreign trade produced specie, but considered trade a stimulus for a country's economic growth. He did not consider the volume of world trade as fixed because countries can feed off their neighbors' wealth, being part of a "prosperous community". The fall in foreign demand is not that fatal, because in the long run, a country cannot preserve a leading trading position.
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Hume was among the first to develop automatic [[Price specie flow mechanism|price-specie flow]], an idea that contrasts with the [[mercantile system]]. Simply put, when a country increases its in-flow of gold, this in-flow of gold will result in price inflation, and then price inflation will force out countries from trading that would have traded before the inflation. This results in a decrease of the in-flow of gold in the long run.
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Hume also proposed a theory of beneficial inflation. He believed that increasing the money supply would raise production in the short run. This phenomenon would be caused by a gap between the increase in the money supply and that of the price level. The result is that prices will not rise at first and may not rise at all. This theory was later developed by [[John Maynard Keynes]]. <!--Is Hume's theory really that similar to Keynesian economics?-->
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== As historian of England ==
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Between Hume's death and 1894, there were at least 50 editions of his 6-volume ''[[History of England]]'', a work of immense sweep. The subtitle tells us as much, "From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688".
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There was also an often-reprinted abridgement, The Student's Hume (1859).
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Hume's history was that of a [[Tories (political faction)|Tory]], in sharp contrast to the [[Whig history|Whiggish]] works then prevailing.
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Another remarkable feature of the series was that it widened the focus of history, away from merely Kings, Parliaments, and armies, including literature and science as well.{{POV-statement|date=May 2009}}
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== Works ==
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* ''A Kind of History of My Life'' (1734) Mss 23159 [[National Library of Scotland]]. A letter to an unnamed physician, asking for advice about "the Disease of the Learned" that then afflicted him. Here he reports that at the age of eighteen "there seem'd to be open'd up to me a new Scene of Thought... " which made him "throw up every other Pleasure or Business" and turned him to scholarship.{{Citation needed|date=May 2009}}
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* ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects''. (1739–40) Hume intended to see whether the ''Treatise'' met with success, and if so to complete it with books devoted to Politics and Criticism. However, it did not meet with success. As Hume himself said, "It fell ''dead-born from the press'', without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots"<ref>David Hume, ''A Kind of History of My Life'', in ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', ibid., p.352</ref> and so was not completed.
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* ''An Abstract of a Book lately Published: Entitled A Treatise of Human Nature etc''. (1740) Anonymously published, but almost certainly written by Hume<ref>For this see the introduction by J. M. Keynes and P. Sraffa in: Hume, David (1965). ''An abstract of A treatise of Human Nature 1740. Connecticut: Archon Books</ref> in an attempt to popularise his ''Treatise''. Of considerable philosophical interest, because it spells out what he considered "The Chief Argument" of the ''Treatise'', in a way that seems to anticipate the structure of the ''Enquiry concerning Human Understanding''.
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* ''Essays Moral and Political'' (first ed. 1741–2) A collection of pieces written and published over many years, though most were collected together in 1753–4. Many of the essays are focused on topics in politics and economics, though they also range over questions of aesthetic judgement, love, marriage and polygamy, and the demographics of ancient Greece and Rome, to name just a few of the topics considered. The Essays show some influence from [[Joseph Addison|Addison]]'s ''Tatler'' and ''[[The Spectator (1711)|The Spectator]]'', which Hume read avidly in his youth.
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* ''A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh: Containing Some Observations on a Specimen of the Principles concerning Religion and Morality, said to be maintain'd in a Book lately publish'd, intituled A Treatise of Human Nature etc''. Edinburgh (1745). Contains a letter written by Hume to defend himself against charges of atheism and scepticism, while applying for a Chair at Edinburgh University.
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* ''[[An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding]]'' (1748) Contains reworking of the main points of the ''Treatise'', Book 1, with the addition of material on free will (adapted from Book 2), miracles, the Design Argument, and mitigated scepticism. ''[[Of Miracles]]'', section X of the ''Enquiry'', was often published separately,
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* ''[[An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals]]'' (1751) A reworking of material from Book 3 of the ''Treatise'', on morality, but with a significantly different emphasis. Hume regarded this as the best of all his philosophical works{{Citation needed|date=May 2009}}, both in its philosophical ideas and in its literary style.
  +
* ''Political Discourses'', (part II of ''[[Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary]]'' within vol. 1 of the larger ''Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects'') Edinburgh (1752). Included in ''Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects'' (1753–6) reprinted 1758–77.
  +
* ''Political Discourses''/''Discours politiques'' (1752-1758), ''My ovn life'' (1776), ''Of Essay writing'', 1742. Bilingual English-French (translated by Fabien Grandjean). Mauvezin, France, Trans-Europ-Repress, 1993, 22&nbsp;cm, V-260 p. Bibliographic notes, index.
  +
* ''[[Four Dissertations]]'' London (1757). Included in reprints of ''Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects'' (above).
  +
* ''The History of England'' (Originally titled ''The History of Great Britain'') (1754–62) Freely available in six vols. from the On Line Library of Liberty.<ref>http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0011.php</ref> More a category of books than a single work, Hume's history spanned "from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688" and went through over 100 editions. Many considered it ''the'' standard history of England until [[Thomas Macaulay]]'s ''History of England''.
  +
* ''[[The Natural History of Religion]]'' (1757)
  +
* "My Own Life" (1776) Penned in April, shortly before his death, this autobiography was intended for inclusion in a new edition of "Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects". It was first published by [[Adam Smith]] who claimed that by doing so he had incurred "ten times more abuse than the very violent attack I had made upon the whole commercial system of Great Britain".{{Citation needed|date=May 2009}} ([[Ernest Campbell Mossner]], The Life of David Hume)
  +
* ''[[Dialogues concerning Natural Religion]]'' (1779) Published posthumously by his nephew, David Hume the Younger. Being a discussion among three fictional characters concerning the nature of God, and is an important portrayal of the argument from design. Despite some controversy, most scholars agree that the view of Philo, the most sceptical of the three, comes closest to Hume's own.<ref>[http://www.onphilosophy.co.uk/natural_religion.html William Crouch, "Which character is Hume in the "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion"?"]</ref>
  +
  +
==Hume's influence==
  +
Attention to Hume's philosophical works grew after the [[German people|German]] philosopher [[Immanuel Kant]] credited Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumbers" (''circa'' 1770).<ref>''Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics'', Kant, 'Preface'</ref>
  +
  +
According to [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]], "there is more to be learned from each page of David Hume than from the collected philosophical works of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]], [[Johann Friedrich Herbart|Herbart]] and [[Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher|Schleiermacher]] taken together".<ref>''The World as Will and Representation'', Vol. 2, Ch. 46</ref>
  +
  +
[[Alfred Ayer|A. J. Ayer]] (1936), introducing his classic exposition of logical positivism, claimed: "the views which are put forward in this treatise derive from the logical outcome of the [[empiricism]] of Berkeley and Hume".<ref>A. J. Ayer (1936). ''[[Language, Truth and Logic]]''. London</ref> [[Albert Einstein]] (1915) wrote that he was inspired by Hume's positivism when formulating his [[Special Theory of Relativity]]<ref> in a letter of December 14, 1915, to Moritz Schlick (Papers, A, Vol. 8A, Doc.165)</ref>.
  +
Hume was called "the prophet of the [[Ludwig Wittgenstein|Wittgensteinian]] revolution" by N. Phillipson, referring to his view that mathematics and logic are closed systems, disguised tautologies, and have no relation to the world of experience.<ref>Phillipson, N. (1989). Hume, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London</ref> David Fate Norton (1993) asserted that Hume was "the first post-sceptical philosopher of the early modern period".<ref>Norton, D. F. (ed.) (1993). ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', Cambridge University Press, pp. 90–116</ref>
  +
  +
Hume's [[Problem of Induction]] was also of fundamental importance to the philosophy of [[Karl Popper]]. In his autobiography, ''Unended Quest''<ref>Karl Popper: ''Unended Quest; An Intellectual Autobiography'', 1976, ISBN 0415285909 </ref>, he wrote: "'Knowledge' ... is ''objective''; and it is hypothetical or conjectural. This way of looking at the problem made it possible for me to reformulate Hume's ''problem of induction''". This insight resulted in Popper's major work [[The Logic of Scientific Discovery]]<ref>Karl Popper: The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1934 (as Logik der Forschung, English translation 1959), ISBN 0415278449 </ref>. In his [[Conjectures and Refutations]], p 55, he writes:
  +
<blockquote>"I approached the problem of induction through Hume. Hume, I felt, was perfectly right in pointing out that induction cannot be logically justified".</blockquote>
  +
  +
== See also ==
  +
  +
* [[Age of reason]]
  +
* [[Contributions to liberal theory]]
  +
* [[Human science]]
  +
* [[Hume's fork]]
  +
* [[Hume's Law]]
  +
* [[Hume's principle]]
  +
* [[Liberalism]]
  +
* [[The Missing Shade of Blue]]
  +
* [[Scientific skepticism|Scientific scepticism]]
  +
  +
== Footnotes ==
  +
  +
{{reflist|2}}
  +
  +
== References ==
  +
  +
{{refbegin|2}}
  +
* Anderson, R. F. (1966). ''Hume's First Principles'', [[University of Nebraska Press]], Lincoln.
  +
* Ayer, A. J. (1936). ''Language, Truth and Logic''. London.
  +
* Bongie, L. L. (1998) ''David Hume&nbsp;— Prophet of the Counter-Revolution''. Liberty Fund, Indianapolis,
  +
* Broackes, Justin (1995). ''Hume, David'', in Ted Honderich (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', New York, Oxford University Press,
  +
* Daiches D., Jones P., Jones J. (eds )''The Scottish Enlightenment: 1730–1790 A Hotbed of Genius'' The University of Edinburgh, 1986. In paperback, The Saltire Society, 1996 ISBN 0-85411-069-0
  +
* Einstein, A. (1915) ''Letter to [[Moritz Schlick]]'', Schwarzschild, B. (trans. & ed.) in ''The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein'', vol. 8A, R. Schulmann, A. J. Fox, J. Illy, (eds.) Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ (1998), p.&nbsp;220.
  +
* Flew, A. (1986). ''David Hume: Philosopher of Moral Science'', Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
  +
* Fogelin, R. J. (1993). ''Hume's scepticism''. In Norton, D. F. (ed.) (1993). ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', Cambridge University Press, pp.&nbsp;90–116.
  +
* Garfield, Jay L. (1995) ''The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way'' Oxford University Press
  +
* Graham, R. (2004). ''The Great Infidel&nbsp;— A Life of David Hume''. John Donald, Edinburgh.
  +
* Harwood, Sterling (1996). "Moral Sensibility Theories", in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Supplement) (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.).
  +
* Hume, D. (EHU) (1777). ''An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding''. Nidditch, P. N. (ed.), 3rd. ed. (1975), Clarendon Press, Oxford.
  +
* Hume, D. (1751). ''An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals''. David Hume, ''Essays Moral, Political, and Literary'' edited with preliminary dissertations and notes by T.H. Green and T.H. Grose, 1:1-8. London: Longmans, Green 1907.
  +
* Hume, D. (1740). ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' (1967, edition). Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  +
* Hume, D. (1752-1758). ''Political Discourses''
  +
:Bilingual English-French (translated by Fabien Grandjean). Mauvezin, France, Trans-Europ-Repress, 1993, 22 cm, V-260 p. Bibliographic notes, index.
  +
* Husserl, E. (1970). ''The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology'', Carr, D. (trans.), [[Northwestern University Press]], Evanston.
  +
* Kolakowski, L. (1968). ''The Alienation of Reason: A History of Positivist Thought'', Doubleday, Garden City.
  +
* Morris, William Edward, ''David Hume'', [http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2001/entries/hume/ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)]
  +
* {{ cite journal | url = http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108%28195004%2959%3A2%3C184%3APABTCO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N | title = Philosophy and Biography: The Case of David Hume | author = Mossner, Ernest Campbell | journal = The Philosophical Review | volume = 59 | issue = 2 | pages = 184–201 | month = April | accessdate = 2008-03-10 | year = 1950 | doi = 10.2307/2181501 }}
  +
* Norton, D. F. (1993). ''Introduction to Hume's thought''. In Norton, D. F. (ed.), (1993). ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', Cambridge University Press, pp.&nbsp;1–32.
  +
* O'Connor, D. (2001). ''Routledge philosophy guidebook to Hume and religion'', Routledge, London.
  +
* Penelhum, T. (1993). ''Hume's moral philosophy''. In Norton, D. F. (ed.), (1993). ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', Cambridge University Press, pp.&nbsp;117–147.
  +
* Phillipson, N. (1989). ''Hume'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.
  +
* Popkin, Richard H. (1993) "Sources of Knowledge of Sextus Empiricus in Hume's Time" Journal ''of the History of Ideas'', Vol. 54, No. 1. (Jan., 1993), pp.&nbsp;137–141.
  +
* Popkin, R. & Stroll, A. (1993) ''Philosophy''. Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Ltd, Oxford.
  +
* Popper. K. (1960). ''Knowledge without authority''. In Miller D. (ed.), (1983). ''Popper'', Oxford, Fontana, pp.&nbsp;46–57.
  +
* Robinson, Dave & Groves, Judy (2003). ''Introducing Political Philosophy''. Icon Books. ISBN 1-84046-450-X.
  +
* Russell, B. (1946). ''A History of Western Philosophy''. London, Allen and Unwin.
  +
* Robbins, Lionel (1998). ''A History of Economic Thought: The LSE Lectures''. Edited by Steven G. Medema and Warren J. Samuels. [[Princeton University Press]], Princeton, NJ.
  +
* Spiegel, Henry William,(1991). ''The Growth of Economic Thought'', 3rd Ed., Durham: [[Duke University Press]].
  +
* Stroud, B. (1977). ''Hume'', Routledge, London & New York.
  +
* Taylor, A. E. (1927). ''David Hume and the Miraculous'', Leslie Stephen Lecture. Cambridge, pp.&nbsp;53–4.
  +
{{refend}}
  +
  +
== Further reading ==
  +
  +
* Ardal, Pall (1966). Passion and Value in Hume's Treatise. Edinburgh, [[Edinburgh University Press]].
  +
* Beauchamp, Tom and Rosenberg, Alexander, ''[[Hume and the Problem of Causation]]'' New York, Oxford University Press, 1981.
  +
* Ernest Campbell Mossner. ''The Life of David Hume''. Oxford University Press, 1980. (The standard biography.)
  +
* Peter Millican. ''Critical Survey of the Literature on Hume and his First Enquiry''. (Surveys around 250 books and articles on Hume and related topics.) [http://www.davidhume.org/bibliographies.htm]
  +
* David Fate Norton. ''David Hume: Commonsense Moralist, Skeptical Metaphysician''. Princeton University Press, 1978.
  +
* Garrett, Don (1996). Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy. New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  +
* J.C.A. Gaskin. ''Hume's Philosophy of Religion''. Humanities Press International, 1978.
  +
* Norman Kemp Smith''.The Philosophy of David Hume''. Macmillan, 1941. (Still enormously valuable.)
  +
* Frederick Rosen, ''Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill'' ([[Routledge]] Studies in Ethics & Moral Theory), 2003. ISBN 0415220947
  +
* Russell, Paul (1995). Freedom and Moral Sentiment: Hume's Way of Naturalizing Responsibility. New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  +
* Russell, Paul (2008). The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism and Irreligion New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  +
* Stroud, B. (1977). Hume, Routledge, London & New York. (Complete study of Hume's work parting from the interpretation of Hume's naturalistic philosophical programme).
  +
* Hesselberg, A. Kenneth (1961). Hume, Natural Law and Justice. Duquesne Review
  +
* [[Gilles Deleuze]], ''Empirisme et subjectivité. Essai sur la Nature Humaine selon Hume'' (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953) trans. ''Empiricism and Subjectivity'' (New York: [[Columbia University Press]], 1991)
  +
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== External links ==
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{{commonscat}}
 
{{wikisource author}}
 
{{wikisource author}}
 
{{wikiquote}}
 
{{wikiquote}}
*Online editions of Hume's work:
 
** {{gutenberg author| id=David+Hume | name=David Hume}}
 
**{{gutenberg|no=4705|name=A Treatise of Human Nature}}
 
**{{gutenberg|no=10574|name=The History of England, Volume I}}
 
**{{gutenberg|no=4320|name=An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals}}
 
**{{gutenberg|no=9662|name=An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding}}
 
**{{gutenberg|no=4583|name=Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion}}
 
**[http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?amode=start&author=Hume%2c%20David e-texts of some of David Hume's works]
 
*[http://utilitarian.net/hume David Hume]: Resources on Hume, including books, articles, and encyclopedia entries.
 
*[http://humesociety.org Hume Society]: An international scholarly society.
 
*Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
 
**[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/ David Hume]
 
**[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-aesthetics/ Hume's Aesthetics]
 
**[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/ Hume's Moral Philosophy]
 
**[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-religion/ Hume on Religion]
 
* [http://www.jamesboswell.info/People/biography-59.php David Hume] at James Boswell - a Guide
 
* [http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/f_hume.html Easier-to-read versions of Treatise Book 1, First Enquiry, and Dialogues on Natural Religion]
 
   
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* [http://oll.libertyfund.org/Intros/Hume.php David Hume] at the Online Library of Liberty
[[uk :Г'юм Девід]]
 
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* {{gutenberg author|id=David+Hume | name=David Hume}}
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* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?amode=start&author=Hume%2c%20David Books by David Hume] at the [[Online Books Page]]
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* [http://utilitarian.net/hume David Hume] resources including books, articles, and encyclopedia entries
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* {{sep|hume|David Hume}}
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* [http://www.rrbltd.co.uk/bibliographies/hume_web_bibiog_2e.pdf A Bibliography of Hume's Early Writings and Early Responses]
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David Hume (7 May 1711 [26 April – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, economist, historian and an important figure in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume is often grouped with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others as a British Empiricist.[1]

During his lifetime, Hume was more famous as a historian; his six-volume History of England was a bestseller well into the nineteenth century and the standard work on English history for many years, while his works in philosophy to which he owes his current reputation were less widely read during his day.

Hume was heavily influenced by empiricists John Locke and George Berkeley, along with various French-speaking writers such as Pierre Bayle, and various figures on the English-speaking intellectual landscape such as Isaac Newton, Samuel Clarke, Francis Hutcheson, and Joseph Butler (to whom he sent his first work for feedback).[2]

In the twentieth century, Hume has increasingly become a source of inspiration for those in political philosophy and economics as an early and subtle thinker in the liberal tradition, as well as an early innovator in the genre of the essay in his Essays Moral, Political, and Literary.[3]

Life

David Hume, originally David Home, son of Joseph Home of Chirnside, advocate, and Katherine Falconer, was born on 26 April 1711 (Old Style) in a tenement on the north side of the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh. He changed his name in 1734 because the English had difficulty pronouncing 'Home' in the Scottish manner. Throughout his life Hume, who never married, spent time occasionally at his family home at Ninewells by Chirnside, Berwickshire. Hume was politically a Whig.[4]

Education

File:David Hume 1754.jpeg

An engraving of Hume from his The History of England Vol. I (1754)

Hume attended the University of Edinburgh at the unusually early age of twelve (possibly as young as ten) at a time when fourteen was normal. At first he considered a career in law, but came to have, in his words, "an insurmountable aversion to everything but the pursuits of Philosophy and general Learning; and while [my family] fanceyed I was poring over Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the Authors which I was secretly devouring".[5] He had little respect for the professors of his time, telling a friend in 1735, "there is nothing to be learnt from a Professor, which is not to be met with in Books".[6]

Hume made a philosophical discovery that opened up to him "a new Scene of Thought", which inspired him "to throw up every other Pleasure or Business to apply entirely to it".[7] He did not recount what this "Scene" was, and commentators have offered a variety of speculations.[8] Due to this inspiration, Hume set out to spend a minimum of ten years reading and writing. He came to the verge of nervous breakdown, after which he decided to have a more active life to better continue his learning.[9]

Career

As Hume's options lay between a traveling tutorship and a stool in a merchant's office, he chose the latter. In 1734, after a few months occupied with commerce in Bristol, he went to La Flèche in Anjou, France. There he had frequent discourse with the Jesuits of the College of La Flèche. As he had spent most of his savings during his four years there while writing A Treatise of Human Nature,[9] he resolved "to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvements of my talents in literature".[10] He completed the Treatise at the age of 26.

Although many scholars today consider the Treatise to be Hume's most important work and one of the most important books in Western philosophy, the critics in Great Britain at the time did not agree, describing it as "abstract and unintelligible".[11] Despite the disappointment, Hume later wrote, "Being naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I soon recovered from the blow and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country".[12] There, he wrote the Abstract[13] Without revealing his authorship, he aimed to make his larger work more intelligible.

After the publication of Essays Moral and Political in 1744, Hume applied for the Chair of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. However, the position was given to William Cleghorn, after Edinburgh ministers petitioned the town council not to appoint Hume because he was seen as an atheist.[14]

During the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, Hume tutored the Marquis of Annandale (1720–92), who was officially described as a "lunatic".[15] This engagement ended in disarray after about a year. But it was then that Hume started his great historical work The History of Great Britain, which would take fifteen years and run to over a million words, to be published in six volumes in the period between 1754 and 1762, while also involved with the Canongate Theatre. In this context, he associated with Lord Monboddo and other Scottish Enlightenment luminaries in Edinburgh. From 1746, Hume served for three years as Secretary to Lieutenant-General St Clair, and wrote Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, later published as An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. The Enquiry proved little more successful than the Treatise.

Hume was charged with heresy, but he was defended by his young clerical friends, who argued that—as an atheist—he was outside the Church's jurisdiction. Despite his acquittal, Hume failed to gain the Chair of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.

It was after returning to Edinburgh in 1752, as he wrote in My Own Life, that "the Faculty of Advocates chose me their Librarian, an office from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the command of a large library".[16] This resource enabled him to continue historical research for The History of Great Britain.

Hume achieved great literary fame as a historian. His enormous The History of Great Britain, tracing events from the Saxon kingdoms to the Glorious Revolution, was a best-seller in its day. In it, Hume presented political man as a creature of habit, with a disposition to submit quietly to established government unless confronted by uncertain circumstances. In his view, only religious difference could deflect men from their everyday lives to think about political matters.

However, Hume's volume of Political Discourses (published by Kincaid & Donaldson, 1752)[17] was the only work he considered successful on first publication.[18]

Religion

File:Humetomb.jpg

Tomb of David Hume in Edinburgh

Hume wrote on religion. However, the question of what were Hume's personal views on religion is a difficult one.[19] The Church of Scotland seriously considered bringing charges of infidelity against him.[20] He never declared himself to be an atheist, but if he had been hostile to religion, Hume's writings would have had to be constrained to being ambiguous about his own views. He did not acknowledge his authorship of many of his works in this area until close to his death, and some were not even published until afterwards.

There are several places in his works[citation needed] where Hume specifically seems to support the standard religious views of his time and place. This still meant that he could be very critical of the Roman Church, referring to it as superstition and idolatry, as well as dismissing what his compatriots would see as more uncivilised beliefs.[citation needed] He also considered extreme Protestant sects to be corrupters of religion. Yet he also put forward arguments that suggested that polytheism had much to commend it in preference to monotheism. In his works, he attacked many of the basic assumptions of religion and Christian belief, and his arguments have become the foundation of much of the succeeding secular thinking about religion. In his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, one of his protagonists demolished what was the main intellectual argument for the belief in God or one god (especially in the Age of Enlightenment): the Argument from Design. Also, in his Of Miracles, he carried out a thoroughgoing condemnation of the idea that religion (specifically Christianity) is supported by revelation.

Nevertheless, he was capable of writing in the introduction to his The Natural History of Religion "The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author". In spite of that, he writes at the end of the essay: "Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they are anything but sick men's dreams", and "Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgement appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject".

It is likely that Hume was sceptical both about religious belief (at least as demanded by the religious organisations of his time) and of the complete atheism promoted by such contemporaries as Baron d'Holbach. Russell (2008) suggests that perhaps Hume's position is best characterised by the term "irreligion". O'Connor (2001, p19) writes that Hume "did not believe in the God of standard theism. ... but he did not rule out all concepts of deity". Also, "ambiguity suited his purposes, and this creates difficulty in definitively pinning down his final position on religion".

Later life

From 1763 to 1765, Hume was Secretary to Lord Hertford in Paris. He met and later fell out with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He wrote of his Paris life, "I really wish often for the plain roughness of The Poker Club of Edinburgh ... to correct and qualify so much lusciousness".[21] For a year from 1767, Hume held the appointment of Under Secretary of State for the Northern Department. In 1768, he settled in Edinburgh.

James Boswell visited Hume a few weeks before his death (most likely of either bowel or liver cancer). Hume told him he sincerely believed it a "most unreasonable fancy" that there might be life after death.[22] This meeting was dramatized in semi-fictional form for the BBC by Michael Ignatieff as Dialogue in the Dark. Hume wrote his own epitaph: "Born 1711, Died [—]. Leaving it to posterity to add the rest". It is engraved with the year of his death 1776 on the "simple Roman tomb" he prescribed, and which stands, as he wished it, on the Eastern slope of the Calton Hill overlooking his home in the New Town of Edinburgh at No. 1 St. David Street.

Science of man

File:David hume statue.jpg

Statue of David Hume in Edinburgh, Scotland

In the introduction to A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume writes "'Tis evident, that all the sciences have a relation, more or less, to human nature ... Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of Man". Also, "the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences", and the method for this science assumes "experience and observation" as the foundations of a logical argument.[23] Because "Hume's plan is to extend to philosophy in general the methodological limitations of Newtonian physics"[24], Hume is characterised as an empiricist.

Until recently, Hume was seen as a forerunner of the logical positivist movement; a form of anti-metaphysical empiricism. According to the logical positivists, unless a statement could be verified by experience, or else was true or false by definition (i.e. either tautological or contradictory), then it was meaningless (this is a summary statement of their verification principle). Hume, on this view, was a proto-positivist, who, in his philosophical writings, attempted to demonstrate how ordinary propositions about objects, causal relations, the self, and so on, are semantically equivalent to propositions about one's experiences.[25]

Many commentators have since rejected this understanding of Humean empiricism, stressing an epistemological, rather than a semantic reading of his project.[26] According to this view, Hume's empiricism consisted in the idea that it is our knowledge, and not our ability to conceive, that is restricted to what can be experienced. To be sure, Hume thought that we can form beliefs about that which extends beyond any possible experience, through the operation of faculties such as custom and the imagination, but he was skeptical about claims to knowledge on this basis.

Induction

The cornerstone of Hume's epistemology is the so-called Problem of Induction. It has been argued that it is in this area of Hume's thought that his skepticism about human powers of reason is the most pronounced.[27] Understanding the problem of induction, then, is central to grasping Hume's general philosophical system.

The problem concerns the explanation of how we are able to make inductive inferences. Inductive inference is reasoning from the observed behavior of objects to their behavior when unobserved; as Hume says, it is a question of how things behave when they go "beyond the present testimony of the senses, and the records of our memory".[28] Hume notices that we tend to believe that things behave in a regular manner; i.e., that patterns in the behavior of objects will persist into the future, and throughout the unobserved present (this persistence of regularities is sometimes called the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature).

Hume's argument is that we cannot rationally justify the claim that nature will continue to be uniform, as justification comes in only two varieties, and both of these are inadequate. The two sorts are: (1) demonstrative reasoning, and (2) probable reasoning.[29] With regard to (1), Hume argues that the uniformity principle cannot be demonstrated, as it is "consistent and conceivable" that nature might stop being regular.[30] Turning to (2), Hume argues that we cannot hold that nature will continue to be uniform because it has been in the past, as this is using the very sort of reasoning (induction) that is under question: it would be circular reasoning.[31] Thus no form of justification will rationally warrant our inductive inferences.

Hume's solution to this skeptical problem is to argue that, rather than reason, it is natural instinct that explains our ability to make inductive inferences. He asserts that "Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable [sic]

necessity has determin'd us to judge as well as to breathe and feel". Although many modern commentators have demurred from Hume's solution, some have concurred with it, seeing his analysis of our epistemic predicament as a major contribution to the theory of knowledge: here, for example, is the Oxford Professor John D. Kenyon: "Reason might manage to raise a doubt about the truth of a conclusion of natural inductive inference just for a moment in the study, but the forces of nature will soon overcome that artificial skepticism, and the sheer agreeableness of animal faith will protect us from excessive caution and sterile suspension of belief".[32]

Causation

The notion of causation is closely linked to the problem of induction. According to Hume, we reason inductively by associating constantly conjoined events, and it is the mental act of association that is the basis of our concept of causation. There are three main interpretations of Hume's theory of causation represented in the literature: (1) the logical positivist; (2) the skeptical realist; and (3) the quasi-realist.

The logical positivist interpretation is that Hume analyses causal propositions, such as "A caused B", in terms of regularities in perception: "A caused B" is equivalent to "Whenever A-type events happen, B-type ones follow", where "whenever" refers to all possible perceptions.[33]

power and necessity... are... qualities of perceptions, not of objects... felt by the soul and not perceived externally in bodies[34]

This view is rejected by skeptical realists, who argue that Hume thought that causation amounts to more than just the regular succession of events.[35] When two events are causally conjoined, there is a necessary connection which underpins the conjunction:

Shall we rest contented with these two relations of contiguity and succession, as affording a complete idea of causation? By no means ... there is a necessary connexion to be taken into consideration.[36]

Hume held that we have no perceptual access to the necessary connection (hence skepticism), but we are naturally compelled to believe in its objective existence (hence realism).

It has been argued that, whilst Hume did not think causation is reducible to pure regularity, he was not a fully fledged realist either: Simon Blackburn calls this a quasi-realist reading.[37] On this view, talk about causal necessity is an expression of a functional change in the human mind, whereby certain events are predicted or anticipated on the basis of prior experience. The expression of causal necessity is a "projection" of the functional change onto the objects involved in the causal connection: in Hume's words, "nothing is more usual than to apply to external bodies every internal sensation which they occasion". [38]

The self

According to the standard interpretation of Hume on personal identity, he was a Bundle Theorist, who held that the self is nothing but a bundle of interconnected perceptions linked by relations of similarity and causality; or, more accurately, that our idea of the self is just the idea of such a bundle. This view is forwarded by, for example, positivist interpreters, who saw Hume as suggesting that terms such as "self", "person", or "mind" referred to collections of "sense-contents".[39] A modern-day version of the bundle theory of the mind has been advanced by Derek Parfit in his Reasons and Persons (1986).

However, some philosophers have criticised the bundle-theory interpretation of Hume on personal identity. It is argued that distinct selves can have perceptions which stand in relations of similarity and causality with one another. Thus perceptions must already come parcelled into distinct "bundles" before they can be associated according to the relations of similarity and causality: in other words, the mind must already possess a unity that cannot be generated, or constituted, by these relations alone. Since the bundle-theory interpretation attributes Hume with answering an ontological or conceptual question, philosophers who see Hume as not very concerned with such questions have queried whether the view is really Hume's, or "only a decoy".[40] Instead, it is suggested, Hume might have been answering an epistemological question, about the causal origin of our concept of the self.

Practical reason

Hume's anti-rationalism informed much of his theory of belief and knowledge, in his treatment of the notions of induction, causation, and the external world. But it was not confined to this sphere, and permeated just as strongly his theories of motivation, action, and morality. In a famous sentence in the Treatise, Hume circumscribes reason's role in the production of action:

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.[41]

It has been suggested that this position can be lucidly brought out through the metaphor of "direction of fit": beliefs—the paradigmatic products of reason—are propositional attitudes that aim to have their content fit the world; conversely, desires—or what Hume calls passions, or sentiments—are states that aim to fit the world to their contents.[42] Though a metaphor, it has been argued that this intuitive way of understanding Hume's theory that desires are necessary for motivation "captures something quite deep in our thought about their nature".[43]

Hume's anti-rationalism has been very influential, and defended in contemporary philosophy of action by neo-Humeans such as Michael Smith[44] and Simon Blackburn[45] The major opponents of the Humean view are cognitivists about what it is to act for a reason, such as John McDowell,[46] and Kantians, such as Christine Korsgaard.[47]

Ethics

Hume's views on human motivation and action formed the cornerstone of his ethical theory: he conceived moral or ethical sentiments to be intrinsically motivating, or the providers of reasons for action. Given that one cannot be motivated by reason alone, requiring the input of the passions, Hume argued that reason cannot be behind morality

Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.[48]

Hume's sentimentalism about morality was shared by his close friend Adam Smith,[49] and Hume and Smith were mutually influenced by the moral reflections of Francis Hutcheson.[50]

Hume's theory of ethics has been influential in modern day ethical theory, helping to inspire various forms of emotivism,[51][52] error theory[53] and ethical expressivism and non-cognitivism[54] and Alan Gibbard.[55]

See also: is-ought problem

Free will, determinism, and responsibility

Hume, along with Thomas Hobbes, is cited as a classical compatibilist about the notions of freedom and determinism.[56] The thesis of compatibilism seeks to reconcile human freedom with the mechanist belief that human beings are part of a deterministic universe, whose happenings are governed by the laws of physics.

Hume argued that the dispute about the compatibility of freedom and determinism has been kept afloat by ambiguous terminology:

From this circumstance alone, that a controversy has been long kept on foot... we may presume, that there is some ambiguity in the expression.[57]

Hume defines the concepts of "necessity" and "liberty" as follows:

Necessity: "the uniformity, observable in the operations of nature; where similar objects are constantly conjoined together..".[58]

Liberty: "a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will..".[59]

Hume then argues that, according to these definitions, not only are the two compatible, but Liberty requires Necessity. For if our actions were not necessitated in the above sense, they would "have so little in connexion [sic] with motives, inclinations and circumstances, that one does not follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the other". But if our actions are not thus hooked up to the will, then our actions can never be free: they would be matters of "chance; which is universally allowed not to exist".[60]

Moreover, Hume goes on to argue that in order to be held morally responsible, it is required that our behaviour be caused, i.e. necessitated, for

Actions are, by their very nature, temporary and perishing; and where they proceed not from some cause in the character and disposition of the person who performed them, they can neither redound to his honour, if good; nor infamy, if evil".[61]

This argument has inspired modern day commentators.[62] However, it has been argued that the issue of whether or not we hold one another morally responsible does not ultimately depend on the truth or falsity of a metaphysical thesis such as determinism, for our so holding one another is a non-rational human sentiment that is not predicated on such theses. For this influential argument, which is still made in a Humean vein, see P. F. Strawson's essay, Freedom and Resentment.[63]

Problem of miracles

In his discussion of miracles in An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (Section 10) Hume defines a miracle as "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent". Given that Hume argues that it is impossible to deduce the existence of a Deity from the existence of the world (for he says that causes cannot be determined from effects), miracles (including prophesy) are the only possible support he would conceivably allow for theistic religions.

Hume discusses everyday belief as often resulted from probability, where we believe an event that has occurred most often as being most likely, but that we also subtract the weighting of the less common event from that of the more common event. In the context of miracles, this means that a miraculous event should be labelled a miracle only where it would be even more unbelievable (by principles of probability) for it not to be. Hume mostly discusses miracles as testimony, of which he writes that when a person reports a miraculous event we [need to] balance our belief in their veracity against our belief that such events do not occur. Following this rule, only where it is considered, as a result of experience, less likely that the testimony is false than that a miracle occur should we believe in miracles.

Although Hume leaves open the possibility for miracles to occur and be reported, he offers various arguments against this ever having happened in history:[64]

  • People often lie, and they have good reasons to lie about miracles occurring either because they believe they are doing so for the benefit of their religion or because of the fame that results.
  • People by nature enjoy relating miracles they have heard without caring for their veracity and thus miracles are easily transmitted even where false.
  • Hume notes that miracles seem to occur mostly in "ignorant" and "barbarous" nations and times, and the reason they don't occur in the "civilized" societies is such societies aren't awed by what they know to be natural events.
  • The miracles of each religion argue against all other religions and their miracles, and so even if a proportion of all reported miracles across the world fit Hume's requirement for belief, the miracles of each religion make the other less likely.

Despite all this Hume observes that belief in miracles is popular, and that "The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder".[citation needed]

Critics have argued that Hume's position assumes the character of miracles and natural laws prior to any specific examination of miracle claims, and thus it amounts to a subtle form of begging the question. They have also noted that it requires an appeal to inductive inference, as none have observed every part of nature or examined every possible miracle claim (e.g., those yet future to the observer), which in Hume's philosophy was especially problematic.

Hume's main argument concerning miracles is the following. Miracles by definition are singular events which differ from the established Laws of Nature. The Laws of Nature are codified at as a result of past experiences. Therefore a miracle is a violation of all prior experience. However the probability that something has occurred in contradiction of all may past experience should always be judged to be less than the probability that either my senses have deceived me or the person recounting the miraculous occurence is lying or mistaken, all of which I have past experience of. For Hume this refusal to grant credence does not garauntee correctness - he offers the example of an Indian Prince, who having grown up in a hot country refuses to believe that water has frozen. By Hume's lights this refusal is not wrong and the Prince is thinking correctly; it is presumably only when he has had extensive experience of the freezing of water that he has warrent to believe that the event could occur. So for Hume, either the miraculous event will become a recurr event or else it will never be rational to believe it occured. The connection to religious belief is left inexplicit throughout save for the close of his discussion wherein Hume notes the reliance of Christianity upon testimony of miraculous occurences and makes an ironic [65] [66] remark that anyone who "is moved by faith to assent" to revealed testimony "is aware of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience."

Design argument

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One of the oldest and most popular arguments for the existence of God is the design argument: that order and "purpose" in the world bespeaks a divine origin. Hume gave the classic criticism of the design argument in Dialogues concerning Natural Religion and An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. However, Hume argued that for the design argument to be feasible, it must be true that order and purpose are observed only when they result from design. But order is often observed to result from presumably mindless processes like the generation of snowflakes and crystals. Design can account for only a tiny part of our experience of order. Furthermore, the design argument is based on an incomplete analogy. Because of our experience with objects, we can recognise human-designed ones, as when we compare a pile of stones with a constructed wall, but to deduce that the Universe is designed, we would need to have an experience of a range of different universes. As we only experience one, the analogy cannot be applied. We must ask therefore if it is right to compare the world to a machine—as in Paley's watchmaker analogy—when perhaps it could be better described as a giant inert animal. Even if the design argument is completely successful, it could not (in and of itself) establish a robust theism. One could easily reach the conclusion that the universe's configuration is the result of some morally ambiguous, possibly unintelligent agent or agents whose method bears only a remote similarity to human design. In this way it could be asked, if the Universe is designed, is the designer God? It could also be asked, if there is a designer god, who designed the designer? If a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then God's mind (being so well-ordered) also requires a special designer. Then this designer would need a designer, and so on ad infinitum. Furthermore, if we could be happy with an inexplicably self-ordered divine mind, why should we not rest content with an inexplicably self-ordered natural world? Often, what appears to be purpose, where it looks like object X has feature F in order to secure outcome O, is better explained by a filtering process: that is, object X wouldn't be around did it not possess feature F, and outcome O is only interesting to us as a human projection of goals onto nature. This mechanical explanation of teleology anticipated natural selection. The design argument doesn't explain pain, suffering, and natural disasters.

See also: anthropic principle and problem of evil

Political theory

Template:Utilitarianism

It is difficult to categorize Hume's political affiliations. His thought contains elements that are, in modern terms, both conservative and liberal, as well as ones that are both contractarian and utilitarian, though these terms are all anachronistic. His central concern is to show the importance of the rule of law, and stresses throughout his political Essays the importance of moderation in politics. This outlook needs to be seen within the historical context of eighteenth century Scotland, where the legacy of religious civil war, combined with the relatively recent memory of the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite risings, fostered in a historian such as Hume a distaste for enthusiasm and factionalism that appeared to threaten the fragile and nascent political and social stability of a country that was deeply politically and religiously divided. He thinks that society is best governed by a general and impartial system of laws, based principally on the "artifice" of contract; he is less concerned about the form of government that administers these laws, so long as it does so fairly (though he thought that republics were more likely to do so than monarchies).

Hume expressed suspicion of attempts to reform society in ways that departed from long-established custom, and he counselled peoples not to resist their governments except in cases of the most egregious tyranny[67]. However, he resisted aligning himself with either of Britain's two political parties, the Whigs and the Tories, and he believed that we should try to balance our demands for liberty with the need for strong authority, without sacrificing either. Neil McArthur (2007, p. 124) characterizes Hume as a 'precautionary conservative': whose actions would have been "determined by prudential concerns about the consequences of change, which often demand we ignore our own principles about what is ideal or even legitimate" [68] , He supported liberty of the press, and was sympathetic to democracy, when suitably constrained. It has been argued that he was a major inspiration for James Madison's writings, and the Federalist No. 10 in particular. He was also, in general, an optimist about social progress, believing that, thanks to the economic development that comes with the expansion of trade, societies progress from a state of "barbarism" to one of "civilisation". Civilised societies are open, peaceful and sociable, and their citizens are as a result much happier. It is therefore not fair to characterise him, as Leslie Stephen did, as favouring "that stagnation which is the natural ideal of a skeptic".[69]

Though it has been suggested Hume had no positive vision of the best society, he in fact produced an essay titled Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth,[70] which lays out what he thought was the best form of government. His pragmatism shone through, however, in his caveat that we should only seek to implement such a system should an opportunity present itself, which would not upset established structures. He defended a strict separation of powers, decentralisation, extending the franchise to anyone who held property of value and limiting the power of the clergy. The Swiss militia system was proposed as the best form of protection. Elections were to take place on an annual basis and representatives were to be unpaid. It is also important to note that the ideal commonwealth laid out by Hume was held to be ideal only for the British Isles in the 18th century. Hume was a relativist, and realized that such a form of government would not be ideal for all cultures, nor would it necessarily be permanent as historical conditions change.[citation needed]

Contributions to economic thought

Through his discussions on politics, Hume developed many ideas that are prevalent in the field of economics. This includes ideas on private property, inflation, and foreign trade.[71]

Hume does not believe, as Locke does, that private property is a natural right, but he argues that it is justified since resources are limited. If all goods were unlimited and available freely, then private property would not be justified, but instead becomes an "idle ceremonial". Hume also believed in unequal distribution of property, since perfect equality would destroy the ideas of thrift and industry. Perfect equality would thus lead to impoverishment.[72]

Hume did not believe that foreign trade produced specie, but considered trade a stimulus for a country's economic growth. He did not consider the volume of world trade as fixed because countries can feed off their neighbors' wealth, being part of a "prosperous community". The fall in foreign demand is not that fatal, because in the long run, a country cannot preserve a leading trading position.

Hume was among the first to develop automatic price-specie flow, an idea that contrasts with the mercantile system. Simply put, when a country increases its in-flow of gold, this in-flow of gold will result in price inflation, and then price inflation will force out countries from trading that would have traded before the inflation. This results in a decrease of the in-flow of gold in the long run.

Hume also proposed a theory of beneficial inflation. He believed that increasing the money supply would raise production in the short run. This phenomenon would be caused by a gap between the increase in the money supply and that of the price level. The result is that prices will not rise at first and may not rise at all. This theory was later developed by John Maynard Keynes.

As historian of England

Between Hume's death and 1894, there were at least 50 editions of his 6-volume History of England, a work of immense sweep. The subtitle tells us as much, "From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688".

There was also an often-reprinted abridgement, The Student's Hume (1859).

Hume's history was that of a Tory, in sharp contrast to the Whiggish works then prevailing.

Another remarkable feature of the series was that it widened the focus of history, away from merely Kings, Parliaments, and armies, including literature and science as well.Template:POV-statement

Works

  • A Kind of History of My Life (1734) Mss 23159 National Library of Scotland. A letter to an unnamed physician, asking for advice about "the Disease of the Learned" that then afflicted him. Here he reports that at the age of eighteen "there seem'd to be open'd up to me a new Scene of Thought... " which made him "throw up every other Pleasure or Business" and turned him to scholarship.[citation needed]
  • A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. (1739–40) Hume intended to see whether the Treatise met with success, and if so to complete it with books devoted to Politics and Criticism. However, it did not meet with success. As Hume himself said, "It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots"[73] and so was not completed.
  • An Abstract of a Book lately Published: Entitled A Treatise of Human Nature etc. (1740) Anonymously published, but almost certainly written by Hume[74] in an attempt to popularise his Treatise. Of considerable philosophical interest, because it spells out what he considered "The Chief Argument" of the Treatise, in a way that seems to anticipate the structure of the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.
  • Essays Moral and Political (first ed. 1741–2) A collection of pieces written and published over many years, though most were collected together in 1753–4. Many of the essays are focused on topics in politics and economics, though they also range over questions of aesthetic judgement, love, marriage and polygamy, and the demographics of ancient Greece and Rome, to name just a few of the topics considered. The Essays show some influence from Addison's Tatler and The Spectator, which Hume read avidly in his youth.
  • A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh: Containing Some Observations on a Specimen of the Principles concerning Religion and Morality, said to be maintain'd in a Book lately publish'd, intituled A Treatise of Human Nature etc. Edinburgh (1745). Contains a letter written by Hume to defend himself against charges of atheism and scepticism, while applying for a Chair at Edinburgh University.
  • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) Contains reworking of the main points of the Treatise, Book 1, with the addition of material on free will (adapted from Book 2), miracles, the Design Argument, and mitigated scepticism. Of Miracles, section X of the Enquiry, was often published separately,
  • An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) A reworking of material from Book 3 of the Treatise, on morality, but with a significantly different emphasis. Hume regarded this as the best of all his philosophical works[citation needed], both in its philosophical ideas and in its literary style.
  • Political Discourses, (part II of Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary within vol. 1 of the larger Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects) Edinburgh (1752). Included in Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (1753–6) reprinted 1758–77.
  • Political Discourses/Discours politiques (1752-1758), My ovn life (1776), Of Essay writing, 1742. Bilingual English-French (translated by Fabien Grandjean). Mauvezin, France, Trans-Europ-Repress, 1993, 22 cm, V-260 p. Bibliographic notes, index.
  • Four Dissertations London (1757). Included in reprints of Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (above).
  • The History of England (Originally titled The History of Great Britain) (1754–62) Freely available in six vols. from the On Line Library of Liberty.[75] More a category of books than a single work, Hume's history spanned "from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688" and went through over 100 editions. Many considered it the standard history of England until Thomas Macaulay's History of England.
  • The Natural History of Religion (1757)
  • "My Own Life" (1776) Penned in April, shortly before his death, this autobiography was intended for inclusion in a new edition of "Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects". It was first published by Adam Smith who claimed that by doing so he had incurred "ten times more abuse than the very violent attack I had made upon the whole commercial system of Great Britain".[citation needed] (Ernest Campbell Mossner, The Life of David Hume)
  • Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) Published posthumously by his nephew, David Hume the Younger. Being a discussion among three fictional characters concerning the nature of God, and is an important portrayal of the argument from design. Despite some controversy, most scholars agree that the view of Philo, the most sceptical of the three, comes closest to Hume's own.[76]

Hume's influence

Attention to Hume's philosophical works grew after the German philosopher Immanuel Kant credited Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumbers" (circa 1770).[77]

According to Schopenhauer, "there is more to be learned from each page of David Hume than from the collected philosophical works of Hegel, Herbart and Schleiermacher taken together".[78]

A. J. Ayer (1936), introducing his classic exposition of logical positivism, claimed: "the views which are put forward in this treatise derive from the logical outcome of the empiricism of Berkeley and Hume".[79] Albert Einstein (1915) wrote that he was inspired by Hume's positivism when formulating his Special Theory of Relativity[80]. Hume was called "the prophet of the Wittgensteinian revolution" by N. Phillipson, referring to his view that mathematics and logic are closed systems, disguised tautologies, and have no relation to the world of experience.[81] David Fate Norton (1993) asserted that Hume was "the first post-sceptical philosopher of the early modern period".[82]

Hume's Problem of Induction was also of fundamental importance to the philosophy of Karl Popper. In his autobiography, Unended Quest[83], he wrote: "'Knowledge' ... is objective; and it is hypothetical or conjectural. This way of looking at the problem made it possible for me to reformulate Hume's problem of induction". This insight resulted in Popper's major work The Logic of Scientific Discovery[84]. In his Conjectures and Refutations, p 55, he writes:

"I approached the problem of induction through Hume. Hume, I felt, was perfectly right in pointing out that induction cannot be logically justified".

See also

Footnotes

  1. The Empiricists: Critical Essays on Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, Margaret Atherton
  2. In the Introduction to his A Treatise of Human Nature, (New York: Dover, 2003 edition), p.xi.fn., Hume mentions "Mr Locke, Lord Shaftesbury, Dr Mandeville, Mr Hutcheson, Dr Butler, etc". as philosophers "who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing, and have engaged the attention, and excited the curiosity of the public"
  3. Published in various editions, under several titles, between 1741 and 1777 in London and Edinburgh
  4. Mossner, E. C. (2001). The life of David Hume. Oxford University Press. p. 179
  5. David Hume, My Own Life, in The Cambridge Companion to Hume, op.cit., p.351
  6. In a letter to 'Jemmy' Birch, quoted in Mossner, E. C. (2001). The life of David Hume. Oxford University Press. p. 626
  7. David Hume, A Kind of History of My Life, in The Cambridge Companion to Hume, ibid., p.346
  8. See Oliver A. Johnson, The Mind of David Hume, (University of Illinois Press, 1995), pp.8–9, for a useful presentation of varying interpretations of Hume's "scene of thought" remark
  9. 9.0 9.1 Mossner, 193
  10. A Kind of History of My Life, op. cit., p.352
  11. Mossner, 195
  12. Ibid., p.352
  13. An Abstract of a Book lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is farther Illustrated and Explained, (London, 1740)
  14. Douglas Nobbs, 'The Political Ideas of William Cleghorn, Hume's Academic Rival', in Journal of the History of Ideas, (1965), Vol. 26, No. 4: 575–586
  15. Grant, Old and New Edinburgh in the 18th Century, (Glasgow, 1883), p.7
  16. Op. cit., p.353
  17. Sher, Richard B. (2006). The Enlightenment & the book: Scottish authors & their publishers in eighteenth-century Britain, Ireland, & America, 313, University of Chicago Press.
  18. David Hume (1776). My Own Life
  19. Russell, 2008, O'Connor, 2001, and Norton, 1993
  20. Mossner, E. C. (2001). The life of David Hume. Oxford University Press. p. 206
  21. Mossner, p. 265
  22. Boswell, J. Boswell in Extremes, 1776–1778
  23. Treatise, op.cit., p.7
  24. Copplestone, F., A history of Philosophy, v. 6, 2003
  25. A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, (Penguin, 2001 edition), pp.40.ff
  26. See, e.g., Edward Craig, The Mind of God and the Works of Man, Ch.2; or Galen Strawson, The Secret Connexion, (Oxford: OUP, 1989); John Wright, The Sceptical Realism of David Hume, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983)
  27. John D. Kenyon, 'Doubts about the Concept of Reason', in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, Vol. 59, (1985), 249–267
  28. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, op.cit., p.108
  29. These are Hume's terms. It has been argued that, in modern parlance, demonstration is deductive reasoning, and probability is inductive reasoning: see Dr. Peter J. R. Millican's D.Phil thesis, Hume, Induction and Probability[1]
  30. See Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, op.cit., p.111
  31. See ibid., p.115
  32. Doubts about the Concept of Reason, op.cit., p.254
  33. For this account of Hume's views on causation, see Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, op.cit., p.40–42
  34. Treatise, op.cit., p.168
  35. See Edward Craig, op. cit.; Galen Strawson, op. cit.; and John Wright, op. cit
  36. Treatise, op.cit., p.56
  37. See S. Blackburn, ‘Hume and Thick Connexions', in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 50, Supplement. (Autumn, 1990), pp. 237–250
  38. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. op.cit., p.147, fn.17
  39. See, e.g., A. J. Ayer's account of Hume on the self, in Language, Truth and Logic, op.cit., p.135–6
  40. See E. J. Craig, op.cit, Ch.2., for this criticism
  41. Treatise, p. 295
  42. The metaphor of direction of fit in this sense has been traced back to Elizabeth Anscombe's work on intention: Intention (2nd Edition), (1963, Oxford: Basil Blackwell)
  43. M. Smith, 'The Humean Theory of Motivation', Mind, New Series, Vol. 96, No. 381 (Jan., 1987), pp. 36–61
  44. M. Smith, ibid
  45. S. Blackburn, 'Practical Tortoise Raising', Mind, New Series, Vol. 104, No. 416 (Oct., 1995), pp. 695–711
  46. J. McDowell, 'Non-Cognitivism and Rule-Following', in S. Holtzman and C. Leich, Wittgenstein: To Follow A Rule, (1981, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul)
  47. C. Korsgaard, 'Scepticism about Practical Reason', The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 83, No. 1 (Jan., 1986), pp. 5–25
  48. Treatise, op. cit., p. 325
  49. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), ed. K. Haakonssen, (Cambridge: CUP, 2002)
  50. For Hutcheson's influence on Hume, see footnote 7. For his influence on Smith, see William L. Taylor, Francis Hutcheson and David Hume as Predecessors of Adam Smith, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1965)
  51. A. J. Ayer. Language, Truth and Logic, ch.6
  52. C. L. Stevenson. Ethics and Language (1944), (Yale: Yale UP, 1960)
  53. John Mackie. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977), (Penguin, 1990)
  54. Simon Blackburn. Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)
  55. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment, (Harvard: Harvard UP, 1990)
  56. See the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Compatibilism.
  57. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, op. cit., p. 148
  58. Ibid., p. 149
  59. Ibid., p.159
  60. Ibid., p.159
  61. Ibid., p. 161
  62. See, e.g., R. E. Hobart, ‘Free Will as Involving Determination and Inconceivable Without It', Mind 43 (1934), pp. 1–27
  63. First published in 1962 and reprinted in Gary Watson, ed., Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 59–80; second edition 2003
  64. Hume, D (1748), 'Of miracles‘, in Enquiry concerning human understanding, LA Selby-Bigge (ed.), 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, (1902), Section X, pp.116-122
  65. Mackie, JL The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Oxford: University Press, 1982), 29
  66. Buckle, Stephen, Hume's Enlightenment Tract: The Unity and Purpose of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001),269–74
  67. Hume, D. (1740). A Treatise of Human Nature (1817 edition, p. 286)
  68. Neil McArthur, David Hume's political theory. University of Toronto, 2007
  69. Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1876), vol. 2, 185
  70. http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL39.html
  71. Robbins, Lionel A History of Economic Thought: The LSE Lectures edited by Medema and Samuels. Ch 11 and 12
  72. Hume, David An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751)
  73. David Hume, A Kind of History of My Life, in The Cambridge Companion to Hume, ibid., p.352
  74. For this see the introduction by J. M. Keynes and P. Sraffa in: Hume, David (1965). An abstract of A treatise of Human Nature 1740. Connecticut: Archon Books
  75. http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0011.php
  76. William Crouch, "Which character is Hume in the "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion"?"
  77. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Kant, 'Preface'
  78. The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2, Ch. 46
  79. A. J. Ayer (1936). Language, Truth and Logic. London
  80. in a letter of December 14, 1915, to Moritz Schlick (Papers, A, Vol. 8A, Doc.165)
  81. Phillipson, N. (1989). Hume, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London
  82. Norton, D. F. (ed.) (1993). The Cambridge Companion to Hume, Cambridge University Press, pp. 90–116
  83. Karl Popper: Unended Quest; An Intellectual Autobiography, 1976, ISBN 0415285909
  84. Karl Popper: The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1934 (as Logik der Forschung, English translation 1959), ISBN 0415278449

References

  • Anderson, R. F. (1966). Hume's First Principles, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
  • Ayer, A. J. (1936). Language, Truth and Logic. London.
  • Bongie, L. L. (1998) David Hume — Prophet of the Counter-Revolution. Liberty Fund, Indianapolis,
  • Broackes, Justin (1995). Hume, David, in Ted Honderich (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, New York, Oxford University Press,
  • Daiches D., Jones P., Jones J. (eds )The Scottish Enlightenment: 1730–1790 A Hotbed of Genius The University of Edinburgh, 1986. In paperback, The Saltire Society, 1996 ISBN 0-85411-069-0
  • Einstein, A. (1915) Letter to Moritz Schlick, Schwarzschild, B. (trans. & ed.) in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, vol. 8A, R. Schulmann, A. J. Fox, J. Illy, (eds.) Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ (1998), p. 220.
  • Flew, A. (1986). David Hume: Philosopher of Moral Science, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
  • Fogelin, R. J. (1993). Hume's scepticism. In Norton, D. F. (ed.) (1993). The Cambridge Companion to Hume, Cambridge University Press, pp. 90–116.
  • Garfield, Jay L. (1995) The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way Oxford University Press
  • Graham, R. (2004). The Great Infidel — A Life of David Hume. John Donald, Edinburgh.
  • Harwood, Sterling (1996). "Moral Sensibility Theories", in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Supplement) (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.).
  • Hume, D. (EHU) (1777). An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Nidditch, P. N. (ed.), 3rd. ed. (1975), Clarendon Press, Oxford.
  • Hume, D. (1751). An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary edited with preliminary dissertations and notes by T.H. Green and T.H. Grose, 1:1-8. London: Longmans, Green 1907.
  • Hume, D. (1740). A Treatise of Human Nature (1967, edition). Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  • Hume, D. (1752-1758). Political Discourses
Bilingual English-French (translated by Fabien Grandjean). Mauvezin, France, Trans-Europ-Repress, 1993, 22 cm, V-260 p. Bibliographic notes, index.
  • Husserl, E. (1970). The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Carr, D. (trans.), Northwestern University Press, Evanston.
  • Kolakowski, L. (1968). The Alienation of Reason: A History of Positivist Thought, Doubleday, Garden City.
  • Morris, William Edward, David Hume, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
  • Mossner, Ernest Campbell (April 1950). Philosophy and Biography: The Case of David Hume. The Philosophical Review 59 (2): 184–201.
  • Norton, D. F. (1993). Introduction to Hume's thought. In Norton, D. F. (ed.), (1993). The Cambridge Companion to Hume, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–32.
  • O'Connor, D. (2001). Routledge philosophy guidebook to Hume and religion, Routledge, London.
  • Penelhum, T. (1993). Hume's moral philosophy. In Norton, D. F. (ed.), (1993). The Cambridge Companion to Hume, Cambridge University Press, pp. 117–147.
  • Phillipson, N. (1989). Hume, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.
  • Popkin, Richard H. (1993) "Sources of Knowledge of Sextus Empiricus in Hume's Time" Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 54, No. 1. (Jan., 1993), pp. 137–141.
  • Popkin, R. & Stroll, A. (1993) Philosophy. Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Ltd, Oxford.
  • Popper. K. (1960). Knowledge without authority. In Miller D. (ed.), (1983). Popper, Oxford, Fontana, pp. 46–57.
  • Robinson, Dave & Groves, Judy (2003). Introducing Political Philosophy. Icon Books. ISBN 1-84046-450-X.
  • Russell, B. (1946). A History of Western Philosophy. London, Allen and Unwin.
  • Robbins, Lionel (1998). A History of Economic Thought: The LSE Lectures. Edited by Steven G. Medema and Warren J. Samuels. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
  • Spiegel, Henry William,(1991). The Growth of Economic Thought, 3rd Ed., Durham: Duke University Press.
  • Stroud, B. (1977). Hume, Routledge, London & New York.
  • Taylor, A. E. (1927). David Hume and the Miraculous, Leslie Stephen Lecture. Cambridge, pp. 53–4.


Further reading

  • Ardal, Pall (1966). Passion and Value in Hume's Treatise. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.
  • Beauchamp, Tom and Rosenberg, Alexander, Hume and the Problem of Causation New York, Oxford University Press, 1981.
  • Ernest Campbell Mossner. The Life of David Hume. Oxford University Press, 1980. (The standard biography.)
  • Peter Millican. Critical Survey of the Literature on Hume and his First Enquiry. (Surveys around 250 books and articles on Hume and related topics.) [2]
  • David Fate Norton. David Hume: Commonsense Moralist, Skeptical Metaphysician. Princeton University Press, 1978.
  • Garrett, Don (1996). Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy. New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  • J.C.A. Gaskin. Hume's Philosophy of Religion. Humanities Press International, 1978.
  • Norman Kemp Smith.The Philosophy of David Hume. Macmillan, 1941. (Still enormously valuable.)
  • Frederick Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill (Routledge Studies in Ethics & Moral Theory), 2003. ISBN 0415220947
  • Russell, Paul (1995). Freedom and Moral Sentiment: Hume's Way of Naturalizing Responsibility. New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  • Russell, Paul (2008). The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism and Irreligion New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  • Stroud, B. (1977). Hume, Routledge, London & New York. (Complete study of Hume's work parting from the interpretation of Hume's naturalistic philosophical programme).
  • Hesselberg, A. Kenneth (1961). Hume, Natural Law and Justice. Duquesne Review
  • Gilles Deleuze, Empirisme et subjectivité. Essai sur la Nature Humaine selon Hume (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953) trans. Empiricism and Subjectivity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991)

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