Historical figure · Pearson Edexcel International GCSE revision on Incandio

David Hume

Who Asked What the Evidence Was For · Philosopher & Historian · 1711–1776

The Edinburgh philosopher who asked what any argument for God actually rests on, was twice refused a university chair for the answer, and kept his hardest book in a drawer until he was dead.

Defend these ideas against David

Incandio is a free revision platform for the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE, and on it a topic counts as mastered only once you have learned it, proved it in questions, taught it back and defended it against the person with the strongest claim on it. David Hume is that person for 5 topics on the course:

• Belief, uncertainty and unbelief — Religious Studies · Sikhism
• Belief, uncertainty and unbelief — Religious Studies · Judaism
• Belief, uncertainty and unbelief — Religious Studies · Hinduism
• Belief, uncertainty and unbelief — Religious Studies · Christianity
• Belief, uncertainty and unbelief — Religious Studies · Buddhism

Who was David?

David Hume was born at Edinburgh in 1711 and brought up at Ninewells in Berwickshire, the younger son of a small landed family with more name than money. He went to the university at about twelve, was pushed towards the law and could not stand it, and spent a few months in a merchant's counting house at Bristol before leaving that too. He then went to France, to La Flèche, and in three years wrote A Treatise of Human Nature, published in 1739 and 1740 while he was still in his twenties. He later said it fell dead-born from the press, and it did. He rewrote its argument twice: as An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding in 1748, which contains the essay on miracles, and as An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals in 1751, which he thought his best work and which was ignored as thoroughly as the first. He was refused the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh in 1745 and another at Glasgow in 1752, both times because he was held to be irreligious — a charge he was never given a formal opportunity to answer. Appointed keeper of the Advocates Library in 1752, he used it to write the History of England, and it was the History rather than the philosophy that finally made him famous and comfortable. From 1763 he was secretary at the British embassy in Paris, where the salons made a great deal of him; in 1766 he brought Rousseau to England and the friendship collapsed in public. His Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, in which the design argument is taken apart at length, were finished years before his death and withheld: they appeared in 1779, three years after he died. He wrote a short account of his own life in April 1776. James Boswell called on him that July, partly to find out whether a dying man would change his mind, and recorded that he did not. He died at Edinburgh on 25 August 1776.

Major achievements

• A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), written in his twenties
• An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748), including the essay on miracles
• The History of England (1754–62), which made his name and his living
• Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, withheld in his lifetime and published in 1779

Life in brief

• 1711 — Born at Edinburgh: Raised at Ninewells in Berwickshire.
• 1734 — Leaves for France: After a few months in a Bristol counting house.
• 1739 — A Treatise of Human Nature: Written in his twenties; almost nobody read it.
• 1745 — Refused the Edinburgh chair: On the grounds that he was irreligious.
• 1748 — The first Enquiry: Containing the essay on miracles.
• 1752 — Keeper of the Advocates Library: Where he wrote the History of England.
• 1763 — Secretary at the Paris embassy: Received in the salons as he never was at home.
• 1776 — Dies at Edinburgh: Having written a short account of his own life in April.

Explore the life of David — five chapters

1. A Younger Son with No Profession — Law, then commerce, then neither
2. The Book That Fell Dead-Born — Three years in France and almost no readers
3. Twice Refused — A charge he was never allowed to answer
4. The History Paid, the Philosophy Did Not — A librarian with a very large collection
5. A Visitor Who Wanted Him to Change His Mind — April to August 1776

Read the five-chapter life of David Hume →

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