1711–1776
David Hume
Hume, a Scottish philosopher, published A Treatise of Human Nature in 1739–40 and later recast parts of it in the two Enquiries (1748 and 1751). He ties the content of thought to experience and treats causal inference as habit rather than as a glimpse of necessary connection. In the discussion of liberty and necessity he is a central early compatibilist: necessity, as he understands it, does not abolish moral sentiment.
Also in the atlas
- Impressions and ideas
- Causation and habit
- Liberty and necessity
Reading, not a syllabus ranking
- A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) — The earlier, larger system, including identity, causation, and the passions.
- An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) — A shorter statement on experience, causation, and liberty.
Questions for reflection
- If causes are regularities we are used to, what is left of “could have done otherwise”?
- Can a moral judgment be a conclusion of reason alone?
Hume is the atlas’s clearest pointer to compatibilism, which the agency axis deliberately does not score.