David Hume Enlightenment Ideas

The European Enlightenment Project 2015: David Hume David Hume (1711-1776) was a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, being born there in 1711 to relatively well-to-do parents, and died there in 1776 at the age of sixty-five. In 1721, at the age of ten, he began down a road largely determined by his family when he enrolled in the University of Edinburgh, and left after three years destined to pursue a career of his own. The next decades saw him developing through his publications a brilliant theory of human nature and the extent of human knowledge. In a very broad sense, Hume built his theories under the idea that “experience” is the only way one can realize the extent of their knowledge. Today, he is regarded as a preeminent figure of the Enlightenment,

Strayer’s words, “discover the laws that governed the universe”. David Hume embodied the Enlightenment because his philosophy challenged conventional religious beliefs in their assessment of natural laws, and the course of his own life maintained the Enlightenment characteristic of human progress. David Hume embodied the Enlightenment because he upheld, not as much with his philosophy as with his own life in general, the Enlightenment concept of human progress and deviation from tradition. Strayer notes in his book Ways of the World that the concept of human change and improvement was indeed characteristic of the Enlightenment era. One can see the applicability of this to Hume early on in his life. M. A. Stewart, in his article on Hume in the Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, notes that Hume’s family had “connections to the law”. Later, Stewart tells us that Hume, while studying at the University of Edinburgh, developed precocious interests outside the “pressure to adopt a legal

He maintained a clear understanding and demonstration of human progress, as seen with his frequent failures and setbacks early on in his life, and the route he chose for his life in general. Furthermore, he addressed both the common religious beliefs and perceptions of truth at a time during which many other people were making similar assessments. Consequently, Hume is an adequate and precise embodiment of the Enlightenment period. Furthermore, David Hume embodying the Enlightenment – whether inadvertently or not – as much with his own life as with his ideas and theories indicates a much closer assimilation of the Enlightenment in one individual as oppose to someone only whose ideas were characteristic of the Enlightenment. Therefore, one may consider Hume an even more exemplary figure of the Enlightenment period than others, as he extended the ideals and characteristics of the era to all channels of his life, not just his