Causality

David Hume A central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume was born in Edinburgh in 1711. While still very young he published his Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), a work that, in his own words, “fell dead-born from the press” and would be recognized only much later. His reputation as a skeptic in matters of religion cost him the university chairs he sought; he made his living as a librarian, a diplomatic secretary, and above all as a highly successful essayist and historian. A man of serene and amiable temperament — “le bon David” — he died in 1776, facing death with the tranquility of a sage. ...