David Hume
1711–1776 · Scotland
“A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.”
Peak-work percentile in the canon.
The lineage through David Hume
Drew From(2)
who shaped David Hume
- Hume names Descartes directly — "the Cartesian doubt" is the antagonist of Section XII
- The Meditations is the method Hume rejects: doubt everything, then rebuild from a single indubitable point
- Read Descartes first and Hume's mitigated skepticism comes into focus as the counter-move — he argues Descartes' all-or-nothing doubt collapses on itself, and offers a humbler version in its place
- When Hume names his own "academical or sceptical" philosophy in the Enquiry, he's claiming descent from Cicero's Academic skepticism — he says so explicitly
- He read Cicero closely as a young man and held him up as the model of philosophy written for common life, not the schools
- Read Cicero first and Hume's measured, doubt-tempered method stops looking like an invention and starts looking like an inheritance
Portraits
Web Gallery of Art reproduction of Ramsay's 1766 portrait — a tightly cropped, widely cited version of the canonical likeness.
Allan Ramsay, 1766
Same Ramsay 1766 portrait, scanned from the National Galleries of Scotland's PG 1057 record — Hume in scarlet and gold, resting on a Tacitus volume.
Allan Ramsay, 1766
Earlier Ramsay portrait of Hume at age 43, in a plain dark coat without the scarlet finery — a sober, scholarly bust-length view.
Allan Ramsay, 1754
Larger-than-life bronze of Hume seated bare-chested in classical Greek robes, a slate tablet on his knee, his right toe burnished gold by tourists rubbing it for luck.
Alexander Stoddart, 1995
Famous Quotes
“No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish.”
“If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
“A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.”
“Custom, then, is the great guide of human life.”
About David Hume
Scottish philosopher, historian, and essayist, one of the most important figures of the Enlightenment. His radical empiricism challenged the foundations of knowledge, causation, and religious belief. His Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Treatise of Human Nature remain central texts in epistemology and the philosophy of mind.