Philosopher · Early modern
David Hume
1711–1776 · Empiricist skepticism
Raised Presbyterian; a serene unbeliever whose calm death Boswell found unsettling.
Hume traced every idea to impressions, reduced causation to constant conjunction and habit, the self to a bundle of perceptions, and morality to sentiment; his essay on miracles and his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion remain the classic modern case against revelation and design. In politics he was a cautious conservative who rejected the social contract for convention.
Why he matters: The Five Ways, the Church's teaching that God can be known from created things, and the credibility of miracles are all challenged by Hume at the root; Newman's Grammar of Assent and Elizabeth Anscombe's work on causation are Catholic replies that only make sense with Hume in view.
Where to be careful
His denial that reason can reach God is contrary to Vatican I (Dei Filius, ch. 2 and canon 2.1), his bundle theory denies the substantial soul (Lateran V), his necessitarianism denies free will (Trent), and his sentimentalism denies the natural law (Veritatis Splendor 35–53); his works were placed on the Index in 1761.
Reading
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Dialogues Concerning Natural ReligionDavid Hume · The case against design, in dialogue form.
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An Enquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingDavid Hume · Sections IV–VII on causation; Section X “Of Miracles.”
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Collected Philosophical Papers, vol. 1: From Parmenides to WittgensteinG. E. M. Anscombe · Includes her exposure of Hume's argument that something can begin without a cause.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.