Scottish · 1711–1776
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian and essayist born in Edinburgh in 1711. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and spent three years in France, where he wrote A Treatise of Human Nature, published in 1739 and 1740. It received little notice, so he recast its ideas in two shorter books: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. He also wrote Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, published after his death, and a six-volume History of England that made him famous in his lifetime. His religious skepticism cost him university posts in Edinburgh and Glasgow. He worked as a librarian, a diplomatic secretary in Paris and an under-secretary of state. Hume argued that knowledge comes from experience, that belief in cause and effect rests on habit, and that morality grows from sentiment. His work shaped Kant, Adam Smith, the logical positivists and modern philosophy of science. He died in Edinburgh in 1776.