David Hume
David Hume, (1711-76). Scottish philosopher. Having studied law and commerce, he went to France at 23 to write his Treatise of Human Nature (1739), an unusually witty book for a philosopher. Hume argued that there can be no knowledge that is not gained by the senses, and therefore no true knowledge of the ‘self’. Although Hume’s extreme scepticism and atheism debarred him from academic life, he filled several diplomatic and literary posts. He also wrote a well-known History of England.
