David Hume |
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A leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume is modern philosophy's most thorough-going naturalist, arguing that the mind itself knows nothing without experience. The son of a minor Scottish landowner, Hume rejected his family's wishes that he become a lawyer in order to study philosophy first at Edinburgh University and later in France. Hume believed that all knowledge came from experiences and that experiences existed only in an individual's mind. The existence of the world outside of human consciousness could not be proved. And he believed that causality - for all effects, there is a cause - could not be proved. His major publications include Essays Moral and Political (1742), An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), and Enquiry Concerning the Principals of Morals (1748). Important for those interested in liberty, Hume (and his fellow Scottish Enlightenment philosophers Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson) explored phenomena known as spontaneous orders. Spontaneous orders are those that arise through human action, but not human design. Related Links David Hume: Essays, Papers, and Reports David Hume: Internet Encyclopedia of History Resources by David Hume Essays: Moral, Political and Literary Expert Areas Academic Disciplines Philosophy Rights & Freedoms Natural Rights |
