Hume: Philosophy in an Hour

Our insensibility before the composition of the body seems to natural reason a proof of a like state after dissolution.

– ‘On the Immortality of the Soul’

Errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

– A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 2

Hume’s extreme brand of empiricism may have been destructive of philosophy and religion, but it was to clear the way for a brave new world. Here there would be no straitjacket of tradition, the old certainties could be questioned, nothing was sacred any more – except the truth, and this was available to everyone through experience. Implicit in Hume’s philosophy was a belief in existential self-responsibility. From here it was but a short step to a belief in progress, democracy, and science – the shibboleths of our age.

We think we know a great deal – but in reality much of what we think we know is mere supposition. Reliable supposition, but supposition nonetheless.