Definition

1. Proper noun:
   • Scottish philosopher: David Hume refers to an 18th-century Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known for his influential system of philosophical empiricism, scepticism, and naturalism.
   • Key figure in the Enlightenment: He is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment.

Examples of Usage

• Proper noun:
  • David Hume is often grouped with John Locke and George Berkeley as a British Empiricist.
  • The philosophical works of David Hume, such as "A Treatise of Human Nature," continue to be widely studied.
  • Many consider David Hume's problem of induction to be a fundamental challenge to scientific reasoning.

Advanced Usage

• "Humean": Pertaining to or characteristic of the philosophy of David Hume.

  • She adopted a Humean view of causality, arguing that we only perceive constant conjunction, not necessary connection.

• "Hume's Fork": A philosophical distinction, attributed to Hume, between statements about relations of ideas (analytic, a priori) and matters of fact (synthetic, a posteriori).

  • The argument was dissected using Hume's Fork to determine its type of proposition.

Variants and Related Words

• Humean (adj): Of or relating to David Hume or his philosophy.
• Empiricism (n): The theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience, a philosophy strongly associated with Hume.
• Scepticism/Skepticism (n): An attitude of doubt or a doctrine that true knowledge is uncertain, a hallmark of Hume's thought.

Synonyms

• The Scottish Philosopher: A common epithet.
• The Historian Hume: Referring to his significant work as a historian, such as .

Related Phrases

• "Hume's Law" or the "Is–ought problem": The philosophical idea, articulated by Hume, that one cannot logically derive an "ought" (a prescriptive statement) from an "is" (a descriptive statement).
  • The ethical debate centered on Hume's Law, questioning the leap from factual descriptions to moral prescriptions.

Related Idioms

• "No instance of a causal connection": A phrase reflecting Hume's sceptical analysis of causality, meaning we never observe causation itself, only sequential events.
  • Following Hume, he argued that we see correlation, but no instance of a causal connection in the observable world.

Noun

1. Scottish philosopher whose sceptical philosophy restricted human knowledge to that which can be perceived by the senses (1711-1776)