Summary of David Hume’s contributions and question about his status 


Author: Terence Rajivan Edward (or 0161__Rajivan, if that helps)
Draft version: version 4 (15th May 2026, against monkish virtues added and the testimony improbable argument against miracles; first draft 19th September 2025)
Software used (freeware): Google docs, google.com


The question. I suspect that various students of philosophy or students of courses on Western classics wonder about whether David Hume merits his place as a great figure, a great philosopher. QUESTION: could not his various contributions have been devised by someone of the ability of a Bernard Williams or Robert Nozick or Joseph Raz or Derek Parfit, philosophers we regard as falling short of greatness? (Maybe the recent statue dispute involving Black Lives Matter is partly underpinned by the same or a similar question. I don’t know. See Malik 2020.) I suppose Hume is above the level of the near contemporaries listed, but I am not sure how to justify that belief (see Edward 2026, for more). Below I list the contributions of Hume from political theory and philosophy courses at the University of Manchester, presenting the standard interpretations, not expert ones. Note: this list of contributions detaches them from Hume's general projects, such as founding a science of human nature: such detachment may explain why he appears to some a lesser figure.


Consent. Hume opposes the Lockean view that a person who resides in a country thereby consents to obey its laws: because there needs to be a reasonable means of expressing dissent, and a poor peasant does not have the wealth to leave the country to express dissent. Hume vividly compares asserting the peasant tacitly consents to this: “We may as well assert, that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean, and perish, the moment he leaves her.” (On the Original Contract 1748)


Belief-desire rationality. When do I have a reason to do something? Desire is required as well as belief. I do not have reason to perform a kind action merely because I believe it would be kind. I also need some relevant desire, such as a desire to be kind. Hume vividly expresses this point by saying, “Reason is and ought only to be slave to the passions” (Treatise 1739-40: 2.3.3.4) and “‘Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.” (Treatise 1739-40: 2.3.3.6. Does the Humean account actually go back to Hobbes? See Pink 2004. For a recent Humean account of morality, see Foot 1972 or my summary.)


The sensible knave. Hume introduced the problem of the sensible knave. This strategist wants the benefits of a practice which is already in place without following its rules. If most people follow the rules but a few do not, then the practice remains and the sensible knave (occasionally) does not follow the rules, feeling no aversion to villainy (Enquiry 1751: 9.22).


Is-ought gap. We cannot ever validly derive a conclusion about what ought to be purely from premises about what is. (“Valid argument” in logic does not mean that the premises are true, rather if they are true then the conclusion must be true.) To illustrate: one cannot validly infer the conclusion that you ought to meet me this evening purely from the premise that you promised to meet me this evening. Some further premise is needed, such as “If you promised to meet me this evening, then you ought to meet me this evening.” A premise purely about what is - e.g. you promised to meet me this evening - is not enough. (Treatise 1739-40: 3.1.1; sometimes Hume is sometimes read as going beyond a purely logical point and saying that an ought conclusion cannot be derived purely from is premises and analytic bridge principles. See Pigden 2011: p.1. For much-discussed counterexamples, see Prior 1960.)


No miracles. A miracle is an exception to the laws of nature. But a statement of the form “Whenever A obtains, then B obtains” (e.g. whenever the temperature is 100 degrees Celsius, water boils) only presents a genuine law of nature if it is exceptionless. Therefore there cannot be any miracles. The very idea of a miracle is incoherent, because a law of nature is only a law of nature if it lacks exceptions. (Of Miracles 1748; Pritchard and Richmond describe the argument attributed here as a popular misreading, 2012: p.229) Another popular interpretation of Hume's argument is that we learn about miracles through testimony and the probability that the witness is mistaken or lying is always higher than the probability that a miracle really occurred, so we have insufficient reason to believe the testimony. 


No self. Hume is unable to find any sensory impression of himself, rather perceptions of this or that. He writes, “For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.” (Treatise 1739-40: 1.4.6.3) Hume is an empiricist and ideas for empiricists must originate in sensory impressions, leaving him with the question of whether we have any idea of the self. Empiricists deny there are innate ideas. Hume proposes his bundle theory of the self: that what we call an individual self is a collection of perceptions without a self possessing them. 


The problem of induction. Inductive reasoning is when we generalize from a sample, for example, “This slice of bread is healthy, this second slice bread is healthy, this third slice is healthy; conclusion: the whole loaf of slices is healthy.” Hume’s problem of induction is NOT that such generalizations do not yield certainty. Rather it is this: any piece of inductive reasoning depends on an assumption that is not self-evident and cannot be justified, namely the assumption of the uniformity of nature. If nature is irregular, then we cannot generalize from a sample. But we cannot justify the assumption by inductive reasoning, since each piece of inductive reasoning itself depends on the assumption: we would be circularly already assuming the conclusion. And we cannot justify it by merely reflecting on the relationships between ideas (by deductive reasoning), because there is no contradiction in denying the assumption. (Saying “nature is not uniform” is not like saying, “This book is blue and also it is not blue,” a contradiction, which we can by reflection know does not represent the truth.)


Skeptical solution. Hume is known for his skeptical solution to the problem of inductive reasoning. It is not justified but our nature and the customary nature of the mind lead us to inductively reason and we are creatures of nature and custom.
  
Causation and necessary connection. When is there a causal relationship between events of type C and events of type E? Is it merely when events of type C are regularly followed by events of type E? A proposal is this: events of type C cause events of type E if and only if events of type C are necessarily followed by events of type E. But Hume, standardly interpreted, denies that we have any idea of necessary causal connection. With a causal relationship, there is no contradiction in supposing that events of type C are not followed by events of type E, even if they in fact always are (e.g. supposing it is dark forever, no day). Also we cannot observe with our senses a necessary connection. We may regularly observe events of type C being followed by events of type E (this billiard ball hits that one and that one moves), but we do not observe necessity, necessary connection. Hume famously said of any work which does not ground itself on relations of ideas or observation “Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” (Enquiry 1748: 12.34; Expert Helen Beebee sounds as if she rejects this interpretation of Hume on causation, or did. 2012: 143)


Projectivism. Hume writes that “the mind has a great propensity to spread itself on external objects.” (Enquiry 1739-40: 1.3.14.25) A standard example given to illustrate his thinking is disgust. One experiences disgust and attributes the property of being disgusting to an object, when there is only experience within the mind. This is called projection in contemporary philosophy and there is much discussion of the projection of moral and aesthetic qualities, with different interpretations of the projection metaphor. On one interpretation, sentences which attribute value properties to external objects are false (or the propositions conveyed are) whereas on another interpretation sentences which do this do not even convey propositions and are neither true nor false. (Simon Blackburn is a projectivist about value, using the latter interpretation. See McDowell 1987: 2) Regarding aesthetic value properties, Hume writes that taste is a “productive faculty, and gilding or staining all natural objects with the colours, borrowed from internal sentiment, raises, in a manner, a new creation.” (Enquiry 1751: appendix 1)


The monkish virtues. Hume opposes the monkish virtues, which he regards as vices: dispositions to celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, and solitude. He writes: "they serve to no manner of purpose; neither advance a man’s fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member of society; neither qualify him for the entertainment of company, nor increase his power of self-enjoyment? We observe, the contrary, that they cross all these desirable ends; stupefy the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the fancy and sour the temper. We justly, therefore, transfer them to the opposite column, and place them in the catalog of vices…" (Enquiry 1751: 9.3) Hume has been criticized as inconsistent with his work as historian, because his history says monasteries contributed to the local economy (see Welchman and Wilburn 2024: 768). 


Hume’s ideal judge. In his essay “Of the Standard Taste,” Hume shows awareness of differences in taste over time and across societies, but also registers that certain classics are consistently valued, such as Homer. He emphasizes the value of practice in matters of taste. This is the area of Hume I know least about, but I think the main idea various philosophers wish to defend is that an aesthetic work A is better than B because judges with ideal qualities for the purposes of judging the matter say that it is better, rather than because they detect betterness. (This is related to Euthyphro’s dilemma. Leading analytic philosophers who engage with Hume’s metaphysics of value include John McDowell and Crispin Wright.)


Impressions, ideas, the copy principle, and the missing shade of blue. Hume divides the contents of a person’s mind into impressions and ideas. When we have sensory perceptions, we have impressions. Ideas are involved in thinking. An idea, Hume, thinks is a faint copy of an impression or its simple components are. His copy principle is: “all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv’d from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent.” 1739-40 1.1.1.7. Hume thinks the imagination cannot create anything simple. It can combine ideas, such as imagining a horn on a horse. The simple components of what we imagine are copied from sensory experience. But Hume also said that if there is a missing shade of blue, we can conceive it, which seems to contradict his general empiricist doctrine of imagination.


References
Beebee, Helen. 2012. Causation and necessary connection. In A. Bailey and D. O’Brien (eds.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Hume. London: Bloomsbury.
Destiny’s Child. 2010. Independent Woman, Pt. 1 (Official HD Video). Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lPQZni7I18
(For comprehending the use of "question" in uppercase letters!)
Edward, Terence Rajivan. 20??. Philippa Foot on morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives. Available at:
https://www.academia.edu/14643677/Philippa_Foot_on_morality_as_a_system_of_hypothetical_imperatives
Edward, Terence Rajivan. 2026. Hume, Raymond Carver and Dream Skepticism. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/165256320/Hume_Raymond_Carver_and_dream_skepticism
Edward, Terence Rajivan. 2026. My report so far on why Hume is a great philosopher. Available at PhilPapers: https://philpapers.org/rec/EDWMRS
Foot, Philippa. 1972. Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives. Philosophical Review 81 (3): 305-316. Available at:
https://sites.pitt.edu/~mthompso/readings/foot_mshi.pdf
Hume, David. 1739-40. Of the Origin of our Ideas. In A Treatise of Human Nature. Available at: https://davidhume.org/texts/t/1/1/1
(Where the copy principle is stated.)
Hume, David. 1739-40. Of Personal Identity. In A Treatise of Human Nature. Available at:
https://davidhume.org/texts/t/1/4/6
Hume, David. 1739-40. Of the idea of necessary connection. Available at:
https://davidhume.org/texts/t/1/3/14
(Where Hume addresses causation.)
Hume, David. 1739-40. Of the influencing motives of the will. In A Treatise of Human Nature. Available at:
https://davidhume.org/texts/t/2/3/3
(Where Hume says that only the means taken to ends can be rationally assessed.)
Hume, David. 1739-40. Moral Distinctions not deriv'd from Reason. In A Treatise of Human Nature. Available at: https://davidhume.org/texts/t/3/1/1
(Where the is-ought gasp is presented.)
Hume, David. 1748. Of Miracles. In An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Available at:
https://davidhume.org/texts/e/10
Hume, David. 1748. Of the Original Contract. In Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, Part 2. Available at: https://davidhume.org/texts/empl2/oc
Hume, David. 1748. Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy. In An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Available at: https://davidhume.org/texts/e/12
Hume, David. 1751. Conclusion. In An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. Available at: https://davidhume.org/texts/m/9
(Where opposition to monkish virtues is.)
Hume, David. 1751. Appendix 1. In An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. Available at: https://davidhume.org/texts/m/
Hume, David. 1757. Of the Standard of Taste. In Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary. Part 1. (1777 edition). Available at:
https://davidhume.org/texts/empl1/
Malik. Kenan. 2020. David Hume was a complex man. Erasing his name is too simplistic a gesture. The Guardian Sunday 20th September 2020. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/20/david-hume-was-a-complex-man-erasing-his-name-is-too-simplistic-a-gesture
McDowell, John. 1987. Projection in truth and in ethics. The Lindley Lecture, University of Kansas 1987. Available at: https://philarchive.org/archive/MCDPAT-2
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https://www.academia.edu/5649505/Is_Ought_Survey_Recent_Work_on_Is_and_Ought_
Pink, Thomas. 2004. Free Will: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prior, Arthur Norman. 1960. The Autonomy of Ethics. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 38(3): 199-206.
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Welchman, Jennifer, and Wilburn, Ronald. 2024. Why Hume’s Censure of the Monkish Virtues Is Not Question-Begging. The European Legacy 29: 767-780. Available at:
https://www.academia.edu/126378139/Why_Hume_s_Censure_of_the_Monkish_Virtues_Is_Not_Question_Begging