Selected Essays

David Hume (Edinburgh, May 7, 1711 – Edinburgh, August 25, 1776) was a Scottish philosopher and historian. He was, along with Adam Smith and Thomas Reid, among others, one of the most important figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. He is sometimes seen as the third and most radical of the so-called British empiricists, after John Locke and George Berkeley (despite the latter being Anglo-Irish). The emphasis given to the trio Hume, Locke, and Berkeley, while traditional, undervalues ​​the influence of several Francophone writers such as Pierre Bayle and other English-language intellectual figures such as Isaac Newton, Samuel Clarke, Francis Hutcheson, and Joseph Butler. Hume's influential philosophy is famous for its profound skepticism, although many specialists prefer to highlight its naturalist component. The study of his work has oscillated between those who emphasize the skeptical side (such as Reid, Greene, and the logical positivists) and those who emphasize the naturalist side (such as Kemp Smith, Stroud, and Gallie Strawson). It is unknown whether David Hume held any beliefs; some consider him an atheist, and others an agnostic, despite living in a Scottish environment characterized by the Presbyterian church. Politically, he was a liberal of the Whig party, in favor of the union between Scotland and England in 1707. His native language was Scots; he spoke English with a strong accent, yet wrote in it exemplarily. He was one of the illustrious members of the Select Society of Edinburgh. Closely following events in the American colonies, he sided with American independence. In 1775 he told Benjamin Franklin: "I am an American in my principles."