David Hume

(1711 - 1776)

At the age of sixteen in 1727, David Hume prevailed upon a friend to “allow me to talk thus like a philosopher: ’tis a subject I think much on and could talk all day long of.” Economist, historian, and philosopher alike, he published A Treatise of Human Nature in 1739 and 1740 and Essays, Moral and Political in 1741 and 1742. Allegations of atheism prevented him from obtaining posts at Edinburgh University in 1744 and Glasgow University in 1752—the latter a chair in logic vacated by fellow Scotsman Adam Smith. A lodestar of philosophical empiricism and skepticism, he died in his Edinburgh home after a long illness in 1776.