David Hume
(1711-1776)
The Scottish philosopher, David Hume, was born in Edinburgh, studied at the University of Edinburgh, and, upon graduation in 1725, intended to practice law. However, his interest in philosophy, political theory, history, and literature soon became his focus. While in France in the mid 1730s, he wrote his A Treatise of Human Nature and throughout the late 1730s and early 1740s, he wrote on such topics as moral theory and politics. Denied an academic position at the University of Edinburgh in 1745 (due to his growing reputation as a skeptic), Hume took a position as the secretary to a British Army general, traveling throughout France, and, over the course of the next decade, published books for which he is still famous today: Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Hume held positions as a librarian and had an appointment at the British embassy in Paris, though he resigned from his government position in 1769.
Major Works
A Treatise on Human Nature (1739)
Essays, Moral and Political (1741-42; 2 vols.)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748; originally published
under the title, Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding;
2nd ed. 1750)
A Natural History of Religion (1757)
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)
Quotation
"The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no
rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a
moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism
and Religion. But the other question, concerning the origin of religion
in human nature,
is exposed to some more difficulty. The belief of invisible, intelligent
power has been generally diffused over the human race, in all places and
in all ages; but is has neither perhaps been so universal as to admit
no exception, nor has it been, in any degree, uniform in the ideas, which
it has suggested.... It would appear, therefore, that this preconception
springs not from an original instinct or primary impression of nature,...
since every instinct of this kind has been found absolutely universal
in all nations and all ages. The first religious principles must be secondary;
such as may easily be perverted by various accidents and causes, and whose
operation too, in some cases, may, by an extraordinary concurrence of
circumstances, be altogether prevented. What those principles are, which
give rise to the original belief, and what those accidents and causes
are, which direct its operation, is the subject of our present enquiry."
- from David, Hume, The Natural History of Religion (1757).
Select Web Resources on Hume
The Hume Society
The
Hume Manuscript Project
Collection
of web-based writings by David Hume
Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on David Hume
Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on David
Hume
Secondary Literature on Hume
J. Samuel Preus, Explaining Religion: Criticism from Bodin to Freud,
chapter 5. Yale University Press, 1987.
Stewart Guthrie, Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion
(1993).
Nelson Pike, "Hume, David," The Encyclopedia of Religion,
2nd ed. vol. 6 pp. 4191-4. Macmillan, 2005.