DAVID HUME, 1711-1776. The principal English philosopher, and the founder of empiricism

      Hume was born into wealth and establishment in Edinburgh, Scotland. Because of his unorthodox opinions he never achieved the high status position in the Universities of Scotland he apparently craved. Hume never married, but he traveled widely, knew French and France well, had acheived status in England, and wrote important books, most of which were recognized in his time. The exception was the main philosophical work of his youth. He is regarded as the principal English philosopher and founder of empiricism. He was a companion and friend of Adam Smith and other important Scots of the time, and his off-again-on-again friendship with Jean Jacques Rousseau is famous.

1.Ontology and Epistemology
       Hume is an empiricist and follows John Locke in believing that knowledge is a product of experience, not religious authority. He is a skeptic, holding that all knowledge is tentative. People commonly think factual things are so by nature (read God’s command) when they are merely the product of constant conjunctions of events — and there is no guarantee they will be constant. He opposes metaphysical arguments with skeptical analysis. He rests on the basis that things usually happen in a certain way, but without certainty.

2 Axiology – Theory of Morality
       Moral judgments to Hume are innate. (Genetic origins would not have occurred to him in that era). Morals are not rational and not a product of culture as such. The common element in moral judgment is utility. Moral progress consists in widening the net – including more people in our “community”.