1711–1776
○ Cancer
Sceptical philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment who traced causality to custom and probed the limits of reason
Born in Edinburgh and educated at its university, he was kept out of a professorship by his reputation as an atheist and worked instead as librarian to the Faculty of Advocates and as a diplomat. In A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740) he pushed the empiricist claim that all ideas derive from impressions to its end, arguing that causal connection cannot be justified by experience and is a belief born of custom. In his lifetime he was better known as the historian of the bestselling History of England. His scepticism, in the empiricist line of Locke and Berkeley, woke Kant from his dogmatic slumber, and in Materialism and Empirio-criticism Lenin found the roots of Machism in Berkeley and Hume.
Activities and affiliations
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1739–1776
Scholarship and theory
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1763–1765
United Kingdom state institutionsSecretary to the British embassy in Paris
Diplomacy and international organization -
1767–1769
United Kingdom state institutionsUnder-Secretary of State for the Northern Department
Government and administration
Career Timeline
- 1739–1740A Treatise of Human Nature
- 1745Denied the Edinburgh chair
- 1748An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
- 1752Librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh
- 1754–1762The History of England
- 1763–1765Secretary to the British embassy in Paris
- 1767–1769Under-Secretary of State for the Northern Department