David Hume
Philosophy & Thought • Historical Archive • 🇬🇧 United Kingdom • 15 views

David Hume 🇬🇧

David Hume (Known as "The Great Scottish Skeptic")
Scottish Enlightenment Philosopher, Historian, Radical Empiricist, Essayist
Born 7 May 1711 🇬🇧 Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Passed Away 25 August 1776 Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Lifespan 65 years old
15 views
Notice / Correction
"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."

Archival Overview

Foremost thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment whose radical empiricism dismantled the rational basis of causality, personal identity, and induction, waking Kant from his 'dogmatic slumber'.

Biographical Record

David Hume (1711–1776) was the intellectual jewel of the Scottish Enlightenment. At the age of only twenty-six, living in the French countryside at La Flèche, he drafted his epochal Treatise of Human Nature, seeking to apply the experimental method of reasoning to the human mind.

Hume demonstrated that our belief in cause and effect is not a rational deduction, but a psychological habit formed by constant conjunction. In ethics, he showed that moral judgments arise from sentiment rather than abstract reason, famously concluding that 'Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions'.

Key Life Milestones

1739 CE

Publication of 'A Treatise of Human Nature'

Published his revolutionary masterpiece analyzing human understanding, passions, and moral sentiment.

1748 CE

Publication of 'An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'

Refined his skeptical epistemology and his famous essay challenging the rational credibility of miracles.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Old Calton Burial Ground (Hume Mausoleum)
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
GPS: 55.9536, -3.1872
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