A short life of the author
David Hume (1711–1776) was born in Edinburgh and became the most important philosopher to write in English — an empiricist of devastating logical power whose arguments against causation, the self, miracles, and the design argument for God’s existence remain central to philosophy three centuries later. He was also a historian, essayist, diplomat, and one of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant said that Hume “awakened me from my dogmatic slumber.”
Life and Career
Hume was born into a minor gentry family in the Scottish Borders. His father died when he was two. He attended the University of Edinburgh from the age of twelve (not unusual at the time) but left without a degree, spending the next several years in a ferocious programme of self-education that brought him, at eighteen, to what he described as “a new Scene of Thought” — the philosophical system he would develop in A Treatise of Human Nature.
He wrote the Treatise in La Flèche, France, between the ages of twenty-three and twenty-six. Published in 1739–1740, it “fell dead-born from the press,” as Hume later wrote — one of the most spectacular misjudgements in the history of literary reception, since the Treatise is now regarded as perhaps the greatest work of philosophy in English.
Hume reworked the Treatise’s arguments into more accessible form in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) and the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), which he considered his best work. His philosophical fame, however, rested largely on his Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, which were widely read and admired.
He applied for professorships at Edinburgh and Glasgow but was rejected on grounds of suspected atheism — a reputation that pursued him throughout his life. He served as librarian to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, as secretary to the British Embassy in Paris (where he was celebrated by the philosophes and befriended, then quarrelled spectacularly with, Jean-Jacques Rousseau), and as an Under-Secretary of State.
His History of England (1754–1762) was his most commercially successful work, making him wealthy and famous. The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, his most devastating attack on religious belief, was published posthumously in 1779 by his nephew, in accordance with Hume’s wishes — even Hume recognized that publishing it during his lifetime would be imprudent.
He died serenely in Edinburgh in 1776, having declined to convert on his deathbed despite the attentions of James Boswell, who visited specifically to see how an atheist would face death.
Major Works and Themes
Hume’s central argument is that all human knowledge derives from experience — there are no innate ideas, no rational truths independent of observation. His analysis of causation — we never observe a causal connection, only constant conjunction — remains one of the most challenging arguments in philosophy. His moral philosophy grounds ethics in sentiment rather than reason: we approve of actions because they produce feelings of pleasure, not because reason dictates them.
The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is one of the most elegant philosophical works ever written — a dialogue among three characters that systematically dismantles the argument from design.
The Problem of Miracles
Section X of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding — “Of Miracles” — contains Hume’s most famous single argument: that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, because a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, and the evidence for the laws of nature is, by definition, as strong as evidence can be. The argument has been debated for nearly three centuries and remains the starting point for all philosophical discussion of miracles, testimony, and the extraordinary-claims principle that Carl Sagan later popularised as “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Hume’s Fork and the Is-Ought Problem
Two of Hume’s contributions have become philosophical shorthand. “Hume’s fork” divides all knowledge into relations of ideas (mathematics, logic — certain but uninformative about the world) and matters of fact (empirical knowledge — informative but uncertain). Anything that falls into neither category — metaphysics, theology — should be “committed to the flames.”
The “is-ought problem” (or “Hume’s guillotine”) observes that one cannot logically derive moral prescriptions (“ought”) from factual descriptions (“is”). This gap between fact and value remains one of the deepest problems in moral philosophy and continues to shape debates in ethics, political philosophy, and artificial intelligence.
Critical Reception and Legacy
Hume was controversial in his lifetime and has been central to philosophy ever since. Kant’s entire critical philosophy — the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) — was a response to Hume’s challenge to the foundations of knowledge. Every subsequent empiricist, positivist, and naturalist philosopher works in his shadow: A.J. Ayer, Bertrand Russell, W.V.O. Quine, and the logical positivists all acknowledged Hume as their ancestor. He is read today as much as ever — his arguments have lost none of their force, and contemporary debates about causation, personal identity, and the foundations of morality still begin where Hume left off.
Collecting Hume
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740, John Noon, London, two volumes, with volume three from Thomas Longman, 1740) is one of the most important books in the history of philosophy and a major collecting target. Complete sets of the three volumes in first edition bring $20,000–$80,000 when they appear.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748, published as Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, Andrew Millar) first edition: $3,000–$10,000.
The History of England (1754–1762, six volumes) in first editions is a significant shelf set: $2,000–$8,000 for complete sets.
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779, posthumous) first edition: $2,000–$6,000.
Hume manuscript material is almost entirely institutional. Signed books or letters occasionally appear at auction and command very high prices.