Author’s Bio and Background Information

David Hume (1711-1776) was one of the most influential British philosophers during the Eighteenth Century. He was a Scottish philosopher,historian,essayist,andeconomist.Hewasbornwiththe nameofDavidHomeinEdinburgh,Scotland,thesonofJosephHome and Katherine Falconer. Hume anglicized the spelling of his family namein1734toreduceconfusionaboutpronunciation. Hume entered the University of Edinburgh at an unusually young age. At a time when most entered the university at the age of fourteen,Humeenrolledateithertenortwelveyearsold.Initially,he hadconsidereda careerin law, buthesoon becameentrancedwith philosophyandgenerallearning.Hebegantodevourliteraturefrom poetsandphilosophersfromcenturiespast.Hume’sloveofliterature waswellknownduringhislifetime.Hewasoncequotedsayingthat there is nothing one can learn from a professor that they could not learnmorecompletelyfromabook. While studying at the University of Edinburgh, Hume had an inspiration that led him to dedicate his life fully to reading and writing. He decided to spend ten years placing the entirety of his energyintothispursuit.Humewassosingle-mindedinthistaskthat he drove himself to the brink of a nervous breakdown. After this episode, he came to the belief that leading a more active life was conducivetohislearninganddevelopment. Upon the completion of his education, Hume entered the career of merchant. He first spent some months working in the field of commerce in Bristol. In 1734, he travelled to Anjou, France to take up a post at La Fleche. Hume spent his time in Anjou writing his Treatise of Human Nature anddiscussingphilosophywiththeJesuits of the College of La Fleche. This continued for four years, during which time he spent the bulk of his savings. Hume’s dwindling resourcesforcedhimto adopta lifeof frugality;hewasdetermined to let nothing stand in the way of his pursuit of literary and philosophicalexcellence. Humecompleted A Treatise of Human Understanding intheearlypart of 1738, at the age of 26. Before he had reached thirtyyears of age, hewroteabookthatisconsideredbymodernphilosophicalscholars to be one of the most important works in Western philosophy.

Unfortunately, contemporary critics in England did not share this opinion. They found the work to be “abstract and unintelligible.” Humerecoveredquicklyfromthisblowtohisconfidence,dedicating his time to continuing his studies and writing his next piece, an Abstract on his previous work. He wrote the abstract inan attempt tomakehistreatisemoreintelligibletothepublicandtoincreaseits popularity. Despitehishistoricalrecognition, Humereceivedverylittlepositive acknowledgementfromthoseofhisownera.Heappliedforthepost ofChairofPneumaticsandPhilosophyattheUniversityofEdinburgh in 1744, however rumors of his atheism caused the ministers of Edinburghpetitionedtownhallagainsthim.Inlateryears,heapplied for chair of philosophy at the University of Glasgow and was once againdenied.Furthermore,Humewasnearlybroughtuponcharges of heresy, though his friends were able to avert the hearing. He demonstrated obstinacy about the entire matter, claiming that he could not even be forced to appear at the hearing, as he was not a memberoftheestablishedchurch.

For nearly a year in 1745, during the Jacobite Rebellion, Hume tutored the Marquis of Annandale, a man with a reputation for havingbeena lunatic.Whilethispositionwasshort-lived, itmarked the point at which he began work on The History of England. This work occupied six volumes and took fifteen years to complete. It marked the turning point in Hume’s reputation, as he began to receive acclaim for the depth and thoroughness of his work as a historian.

Humewasactiveinanumberofotherendeavorsduringthewriting of The History of England.From1746to1749,heservedassecretary to Lieutenant-General St. Clair. During this time, he wrote a collection of philosophical essays on human understanding, later published as An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. In 1752, Hume began serving as a librarian for the Faculty of Advocates, a position that gave him a huge wealth of resources to continue his historical studies. In this same year, Hume published Political Discourses, the first of his works that was successful upon first publishing.Between1754and1762,whenthesixvolumesofHume’s History of England were being published, he worked alongside his friendJohnHomeonprojectswiththeCanongateTheater. Hume’s history was significant in a number of respects. It covered the events in England from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the

Revolution of 1688. This was a broad and deep scope of time to cover. Humewasinspired by Voltaire’s view of the scope of history itself,buthefeltinnecessarytoextendtheaccountofhistorybeyond the political and military arenas. For the first time, history was expanded to include developments in literature and science, a historicalmodelthathaspersistedtothepresentday.Heviewedthe developmentofcivilizationinlightoftheexpansionofliberty,seeing England as the most developed expression of liberty in the rise of humancivilization. The History of England wasabestsellerduringits time and remained influential for the next century. By 1894, there weremorethanfiftyeditionsinprintandanabridgementtitledThe Student’s Hume, initially printed in 1852 and reprinted numerous timesafterwards.

Hume served as secretary to Lord Hertford in Paris from 1763 to 1765. He met James Jacques Rousseau during this period. Later, in 1767, he served as Undersecretary of State for the Northern Department. In the next year, he moved to Edinburgh settling once again in the same town in which he was born. He remained in Edinburghuntilhisdeathofabdominalcancerin1776. Thethemethatranthroughallof Hume’sworkwastheinfluenceof human nature on history, philosophy, and the entire scope of understanding. He recognized that all sciences were related to humannature, togreaterorlesserdegree. Thisessentiallygivesthe scienceofmanthehighestpriority,asallothersciencesdependupon it. Furthermore, he felt that observation and experience are the foundation of all logical argument and solid understanding. He is therefore classified as an empiricist. He believed that all certain knowledge is based on experience, but thatwe have thecapacity to form conceptions and beliefs that extend beyond experience. Therefore, he viewed claims to knowledge on the basis of faith or customwithskepticism. HumewasakeyfigureintheScottishEnlightenment.Hebroughtthe problem of causality to the center of philosophical debates. Since Descartes and his radical break from faith based theological philosophy,Westernphilosophershadtendedtoa rationalisticview of the human experience. This perspective emphasizes the importance of ideas in the acquisition of knowledge and understanding.Thesenseswererecognizedasflawedandcapableof error. However, Hume showed that all ideas come initially from impressionsreceivedthroughthevehicleofthesenses.Asaresultof

Hume’s influence, philosophers began to seek certain and unquestionableknowledgethroughtherealmofsenseexperience. Humerecognizedthatallknowledge andunderstandingwepossess comes first from the senses. He argued that there is no knowledge that can stand above and beyond sense experience. Because of this, any sound philosophical inquiry must be based upon experience itself. Taking this premise further, he recognized that certain ideas that we commonly possess, such as those of space and causality, cannot be proved by the senses themselves. He believed that these conceptions are illusions of thought rather than aspects of actual experience.Theseconclusionswerefirstexpressedinhis Treatise on Human Understanding,andformedthefoundationsofallofthework whichfollowed.