David Hume

(1711-1776)

1. Scottish Enlightenment philosopher
2. Philosophical empiricism- knowledge only from sensory experience
3. Philosophical skepticism: question the possibility of knowledge
4. Naturalism: all enquiry from the method of natural science
5. Feelings/emotions/experience over reason: “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions”
6. “Ethics based on emotion or sentiment rather than abstract moral principle”
7. “Statement of fact alone can never give rise to a normative conclusion of what ought to be done”- is-ought problem
8. Influenced utilitarianism, logical positivism, the philosophy of science
9. Modern era thinker was empiricist, claiming that experience is source of knowledge, not reason/rationality;
10. He influenced utilitarianism and logical positivism;
11. Philosophy as the inductive, experimental science of human nature;

Books:

1. A Treatise of Human Nature - 1739-40