essay on david hume

Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul: The Complete 1783 Edition David Hume 2/10/96 Copyright 1995, James Fieser (jfieser@utm.edu). See end note for details on copyright and editing conventions. This is a working draft; please report errors.1 Links to Sections: Essay I: On Suicide [Not assigned] Essay II: On the Immortality of the Soul Anti Suicide: Anonymous Reply on Suicide [Not assigned] Anonymous Reply on Immortality [Optional] Rousseau's letters on Suicide [Not assigned] Editor's Note: Hume's essays on the suicide and the immortality of the soul were completed around 1755 and printed as part of a book of essays titled Five Dissertations. When pre-release copies of Five Dissertations provoked controversy among influential readers, Hume and his printer Andrew Millar agreed to have the two essays physically removed from the printed copies. They were replaced with an essay titled Of the Standard of Taste, and the book of essays appeared in 1757 under the title Four Dissertations. Rumors about the two withdrawn essays circulated for years, and clandestine copies appeared anonymously in French (1770) and later in English (1777). In 1783 the two essays were published more openly, and this time with Hume's name attached. Like the 1770 and 1777 publications, the 1783 publication was not authorized by Hume. Along with Hume's two essays, the anonymous editor of the 1783 edition included his own critical notes to Hume's two pieces, and excerpts from Rousseau's La Nouvelle Heloise on the subject of suicide. The contents, then, of the 1783 publication are as follows: Preface: p. iii Essay I. On Suicide (Hume): p. 1 Essay II. On the immortality of the soul (Hume): p. 23 Anti-Suicide (anonymous editor): p. 39 Immortality of the Soul (anonymous editor): p. 53 Letter 114 from Rousseau's Eloisa: p. 67 Letter 115 from Rousseau's Eloisa: p. 90 A copy of the original two.
1. Life and Works Born in Edinburgh, Hume spent his childhood at Ninewells, his family's modest estate in the border lowlands. He came from a “good family” (MOL 2)—socially well connected but not wealthy. His father died just after David's second birthday, leaving him and his elder brother and sister in the care of our Mother, a woman of singular Merit, who, though young and handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of her Children. (MOL 3) Katherine Falconer Hume realized that David was uncommonly precocious, so when his older brother went up to Edinburgh University, Hume went with him, although he was only 10 or 11. There he studied Latin and Greek, read widely in history and literature, ancient and modern philosophy, and also did some mathematics and natural philosophy—what we now call natural science. The education David received, both at home and at the university, aimed at training pupils to a life of virtue regulated by stern Scottish Calvinist strictures. Prayers and sermons were prominent aspects of his home and university life. At some point, Hume read The Whole Duty of Man, a widely circulated Anglican devotional tract that details our duties to God, our fellow human beings, and ourselves. Hume's family thought him suited for a legal career, but he found the law “nauseous”, preferring to read classical texts, especially Cicero. He decided to become a “Scholar and Philosopher”, and followed a rigorous program of reading and reflection for three years until “there seem'd to be open'd up to me a new Scene of Thought” (HL 3.2). The intensity of developing his philosophical vision precipitated a psychological crisis in the isolated scholar. The crisis eventually passed, and Hume remained intent on articulating his “new Scene of Thought”. As a second son, his inheritance was meager, so he moved to France, where he could live cheaply, and.
“Hume is our Politics, Hume is our Trade, Hume is our Philosophy, Hume is our Religion.” This statement by nineteenth century philosopher James Hutchison Stirling reflects the unique position in intellectual thought held by Scottish philosopher David Hume. Part of Hume’s fame and importance owes to his boldly skeptical approach to a range of philosophical subjects. In epistemology, he questioned common notions of personal identity, and argued that there is no permanent “self” that continues over time. He dismissed standard accounts of causality and argued that our conceptions of cause-effect relations are grounded in habits of thinking, rather than in the perception of causal forces in the external world itself. He defended the skeptical position that human reason is inherently contradictory, and it is only through naturally-instilled beliefs that we can navigate our way through common life. In the philosophy of religion, he argued that it is unreasonable to believe testimonies of alleged miraculous events, and he hints, accordingly, that we should reject religions that are founded on miracle testimonies. Against the common belief of the time that God’s existence could be proven through a design or causal argument, Hume offered compelling criticisms of standard theistic proofs. He also advanced theories on the origin of popular religious beliefs, grounding such notions in human psychology rather than in rational argument or divine revelation. The larger aim of his critique was to disentangle philosophy from religion and thus allow philosophy to pursue its own ends without rational over-extension or psychological corruption.  In moral theory, against the common view that God plays an important role in the creation and reinforcement of moral values, he offered one of the first purely secular moral theories, which grounded morality in the pleasing and useful.
David Hume 1711-1776 Scottish philosopher, essayist, historian, critic, and autobiographer. The following entry presents recent criticism on Hume's works. Considered one of the most important figures in the history of modern philosophy, Hume promoted what he called a “mitigated” form of philosophical skepticism—the doctrine that all empirical knowledge is uncertain. Hume wrote extensively on causation and perception, formulated theories of knowledge and ideas, and wrote at length on moral, political, and religious issues. In most of his works Hume attempted to shed light on the reasoning process through which knowledge of such issues was achieved, earning international praise from the philosophical community; in the words of his friend Adam Smith, Hume was a man of “the most severe application, the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of thought, and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive.” Biographical Information The son of Joseph Home, a lawyer, and Katherine Falconer Home, an ardent Calvinist, Hume was born on his family's estate at Ninewells in Berwickshire. Joseph Home died during David's infancy, after which most of Home's estate passed to David's elder brother, John. David remained at Ninewells until age twelve, when he and John went to the University of Edinburgh; after three years, they left without degrees, a common practice at the time. Although the Edinburgh curriculum probably included some philosophy, all that is known for certain about David's studies is, according to his autobiography, that he “passed through the ordinary Course of Education with Success.” Hume returned to Ninewells intending to study law but soon found in himself “an insurmountable Aversion to anything but the pursuits of Philosophy and General Learning.” Around age eighteen a “new scene of thought” opened to him, and he began the work which became his A Treatise.