David Hume - The Great Empiricist & Skeptic

In this BBC episode of In Our Time, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss David Hume, a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century. Hume was an empiricist who believed that all ideas and knowledge must ultimately be based on sensory experience. This led him to conclude, not only that ideas about God and ultimate reality are without any genuine meaning or rational ground, but so too even for ideas of the self, substance, and causality (hence, his bundle theory and the problem of induction). Hume saw human nature as a manifestation of the natural world, rather than something above and beyond it. He gave a skeptical account of religion, which caused many to suspect him of atheism. He was also the author of a bestselling History of England. His works, beginning in 1740 with "A Treatise of Human Nature", have influenced thinkers from Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant, to Charles Darwin and Einstein, and today is regarded as one of the most important philosophers ever to write in English.

Melvyn Bragg discusses Hume with Peter Millican (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford), Helen Beebee (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham), and James Harris (Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews).

For more information about In Our Time, go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl

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