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|Brief=a Scottish philosopher, historian, and essayist; he is widely considered the most important philosopher to write in the English language.
|Summary=Hume’s contributions to our understanding of the processes of scientific change and the nature of scientific knowledge come from his major philosophical works including ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' (1738) and ''Enquiries concerning Human Understanding'' (1748). He is most noted for his skeptical views on a variety of topics including the powers of human reason, metaphysics, human identity, and the existence of God.[[CiteRef::Fieser (2016)]] He is perhaps best known, first, for rejecting Aristotle’s epistemological distinction between knowledge and belief and replacing it with his own distinction between matters of fact (which depend on the way the world is) and relations of ideas (that are discoverable by thought, such as mathematical truths). This new distinction is known as Hume's Fork. Secondly, he is known for questioning whether knowledge derived from inductive reasoning can be justified. The problem he posed is known today as Hume's Problem of Induction. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]] Thirdly, Hume questioned whether theological knowledge is possible,and played a substantial role in its removal from the scientific mosaic of the modern world. [[CiteRef::Gavin Hyman(2007)]] The impact of these skeptical arguments is still felt to this day.
|Historical Context=David Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1711. His family had a modest estate and was socially connected, but not wealthy.[[CiteRef::Norton (2009)]] They recognized that Hume was precocious, and sent him to Edinburgh University two years early (at the age of 10 or 11) with his older brother (who was 12). He studied Latin and Greek, read widely in history, literature, and ancient and modern philosophy, as well as some mathematics and natural philosophy. [[CiteRef:: Morris and Brown (2016)]][[CiteRef:: Harris (2015)|p. 35-65]] Both at home and at the university, Hume was raised in the stern '''Calvinist faith''', with prayers and sermons as prominent features of his home and university life. [[CiteRef:: Morris and Brown (2016)]] Following the completion of his studies, Hume rejected his family's plan that he become a lawyer, and instead determined to become a scholar and philosopher, engaging in three years of intensive personal study. Living in the aftermath of the acceptance of [[Isaac Newton]]'s(1643-1727) revolutionary theories of motion and gravitation, eighteenth century thinkers proclaimed the ''''Age of Enlightenment'''' and expected philosophy (which then included what we would call the natural and social sciences) to dramatically improve human life. [[CiteRef::Bristow (2017)]] Hume, like many of his times, revered Newton, calling him "the greatest and rarest genius that ever arose for the ornament and instruction of the species". [[CiteRef::DePierris (2006)]]
