Hume, David (1711–76)

Abstract

David Hume, a leading figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, contributed significantly to the disciplines of psychology, history, political science and economics—as well as to more theoretical discussions in ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. He was a controversial figure in his own day, mainly because of his criticisms of both natural and revealed religion, and the political views expressed in his History of England (1983). His skeptical arguments concerning induction are still discussed by philosophers interested in probability theory, and his account of the foundations of morality enters into current disputes about the source of moral obligation. In his Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) Hume set out to found all the other sciences on the science of human nature, and stressed that this science itself must be based on experiment and observation. The basic psychological principle that he sought to establish in his Treatise was that of the association of ideas and impressions. He followed Locke in rejecting innatism and holding that the elemental building blocks of our ideas must be based on experience; however, he argued against Locke that experience cannot supply us with our common sense or scientific conceptions of reality, or the foundations of morality. Rather, the latter arise through irrational processes of the imagination.