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David Hume

1748 · 1748–1779

START WITH THE PUZZLE

Can we speak of knowledge in ordinary life when our grounds fall short of complete proof?

Evidence-backed moments
17
Timeline events
4
Verified places
2

This is a guided intellectual story assembled from verified claims, works, and events in which this thinker actually appears. It avoids filling gaps with a generic encyclopedia biography.

Why this thinker is worth following

Story 1What can we claim to know?

Hume — Can experience carry us into the future?

The question that opens it

Can we speak of knowledge in ordinary life when our grounds fall short of complete proof?

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  1. 1

    Hume divides the objects of human reason into relations of ideas and matters of fact.

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    • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering

      Locator: E 4.1–4.2

      Open source
  2. 2

    He argues that judgments about cause and effect are learned from experience rather than obtained by a priori reasoning alone.

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    • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering

      Locator: E 4.4–4.6

      Open source
  3. 3

    Hume argues that using experience to prove that past experience will continue into the future makes the reasoning circular.

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    • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering

      Locator: E 4.18–4.21

      Open source
  4. 4

    Hume explains the principle that leads us to expect the future after repeated experience as custom or habit.

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    • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering

      Locator: E 5.5–5.8

      Open source
  5. 5

    The final section presents mitigated scepticism as joining doubt, caution, and modesty to judgment while fitting inquiry to human capacities.

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    • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering

      Locator: E 12.24–12.26

      Open source
  6. 6

    The first edition was published by A. Millar in London in 1748 under the title Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding.

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    • Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding — first-edition catalog record

      Folger Shakespeare Library · 1748 · London: A. Millar, 1748; ESTC T4022

      Locator: London: A. Millar, 1748; ESTC T4022

      Open source
  7. 7

    Jean-Bernard Mérian's French translation, Essais philosophiques sur l'entendement humain, was published by J. H. Schneider in Amsterdam in 1758.

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    • Essais philosophiques sur l'entendement humain

      David Hume; translated by Jean-Bernard Mérian · 1758 · Amsterdam: J. H. Schneider, 1758

      Locator: Title page and volume metadata

      Open source

    • Essais philosophiques sur l'entendement humain — catalog record cb33991959k

      Bibliothèque nationale de France · 1758 · Amsterdam: J. H. Schneider, 1758; Jean-Bernard Mérian translator attribution

      Locator: Translator attribution and Amsterdam: J. H. Schneider, 1758 record

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Story 2How far can the past support the future?

Hume — Distinguishing expectation from proof

The question that opens it

Even if repetition explains expectation, does it prove that the future must resemble the past?

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  1. 1

    Past experience directly concerns the objects and periods observed; extending it to similar new objects and future periods requires a further inference.

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    • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering

      Locator: E 4.16–4.17

      Open source
  2. 2

    Because a change in the course of nature or a different effect from a similar object is not contradictory, Hume argues that future uniformity cannot be proved by demonstrative reasoning.

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    • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering

      Locator: E 4.18

      Open source
  3. 3

    He argues that using an experiential or probable argument to prove the similarity of past and future is circular because it already assumes that similarity.

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    • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering

      Locator: E 4.19–4.21

      Open source
  4. 4

    Hume explains the principle that leads us to expect the same result after repetition as `custom` or `habit`.

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    • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering

      Locator: E 5.4–5.6

      Open source
  5. 5

    The analysis does not conclude that ordinary inference and action disappear; rather, custom makes experience a guide to life.

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    • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering

      Locator: E 5.2 and E 5.6–5.8

      Open source
  6. 6

    The first edition was published in London by A. Millar in 1748 under the title `Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding`.

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    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding — first-edition catalog record

      Folger Shakespeare Library · 1748 · London: A. Millar, 1748; ESTC T4022

      Locator: London: A. Millar, 1748; ESTC T4022

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Story 3Can we be responsible if we could not have done otherwise?

Hume — Liberty compatible with necessity

The question that opens it

Does the regular dependence of action on character and desire erase responsibility, or make it possible?

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  1. 1

    Hume offers one of the most influential statements of classical compatibilism, reconciling freedom and moral responsibility with causal determination.

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    • Hume on Free Will

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: Introduction; §1 Liberty and Necessity — The Classical Reading

      Open source
  2. 2

    On this reading, a free action is not uncaused; it issues from the agent's desires and will and contrasts with action produced by constraint.

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    • Hume on Free Will

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §1 The Classical Reading; Treatise 2.3.2 and Enquiry 8

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Story 4How far can reason speak about faith?

Hume — Weighing miracle testimony and arguments from design

The question that opens it

How strong must testimony be when weighed against the chance that the report is mistaken and the chance that a regularity of nature has failed?

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  1. 1

    Enquiry X asks us to weigh evidence that testimony is false against evidence, grounded in experience, that a law of nature has been violated.

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    • Hume on Religion

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §3 Miracles

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  2. 2

    The Dialogues tests how little the analogy from worldly order to a designer can establish about the nature and number of its cause.

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    • Hume on Religion

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §4 The Design Argument

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Decisive moments in time

  1. 1748

    Section VIII of the Enquiry presents a public argument reconciling liberty and necessity.

    PerspectiveOpen in question

  2. 1748

    The first edition is published in London.

    London · Publication

    PerspectiveOpen in question

  3. 1758

    Jean-Bernard Mérian's French translation is published in Amsterdam.

    Amsterdam · Translation

    PerspectiveOpen in question

  4. 1779

    The posthumous Dialogues tests design arguments through several competing voices.

    PerspectiveOpen in question

Open the places behind the story

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