ABSTRACT
David Hume is generally considered to be a major philosopher in the Western tradition. He writes influential works on social contract theory, ethics, and economics. Hume is best known for his brand of mitigated skeptical empiricism. In this chapter Hume makes two general arguments. His principal claim is against modern (Descartes) and ancient (Pyrrhus) radical skepticism. There is a species of skepticism antecedent to all study and philosophy that is much inculcated by Descartes and others as a sovereign preservative against error and precipitate judgment. The skeptical objections to moral evidence, or to the reasonings concerning matter of fact, are either popular or philosophical. There is another skeptical topic of a like nature, derived from the most profound philosophy, which might merit our attention, were it requisite to dive so deep to discover arguments and reasonings that can so little serve to any serious purpose.
