What Did Hume Mean To The ENLIGHTENMENT?
What DiD He Mean To The Enlightenment?
To the Enlightenment, Hume meant quite a lot. Even though he was mainly a philosophical figure, Hume also influenced thoughts and viewpoints on history, empiricism, and skepticism. In fact, he influenced many important figures in the Enlightenment such as Newton, Voltaire, and Rousseau.
What important principles and ideas did hume promote?
Being a philosopher, historian, economist and essayist, David Hume promoted many principles and ideas. The most important idea that he promoted was that philosophy was the experimental science of human nature. Also, like he discusses in his book “An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals”, published in 1751, Hume argues that morality is based on one’s opinions, and not on reason.
Hume's Influence at the time
While writing his book “A Treatise of Human Nature”, Hume was influenced by Sir Isaac Newton since he used his scientific method as a model. John Locke was another important Enlightenment philosophe that affected Hume’s point of view because in some of his works, he used Locke’s epistemology to describe how the mind uses knowledge to function. David Hume was also a philosophical historian which defended and contributed to the idea that the British governments were best run with a strong monarchy.
how did his ideas live on?
His ideas on human experience, which explained that the science of men is the only foundation for other sciences, was rediscovered in the 20th century during the Logical Positivist movement. Therefore, Hume didn't only influence other philosophes of the 16th century, but also many of the 20th century.