David Hume

David Hume (1711–1776), a prominent intellectual of the Scottish Enlightenment, is renowned as the modern thinker who most rigorously applied the experimental method to traditional problems in philosophy. His impact, overall, is arguably even greater than Scottish luminaries such as Adam Smith and Thomas Reid, and Rousseau and Voltaire on the French side. His approach generated innovative theories of human understanding, knowledge, belief, emotion, moral and political practice, and other areas of human endeavor.