Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, Allan Ramsay
David Hume (1711-1776) was an influential philosopher best known for his analysis of reason and empiricism. Philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) said,
"I freely admit that the remembrance of David Hume was the very thing that many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave a completely different direction to my researches in the field of speculative philosophy." (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, 1783)The rest of this post is some quotes from Hume.
Analysis of evidence
"In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence... A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence." (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748)
"I weigh one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision and always reject the greater miracle." (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748)
"By this means all knowledge degenerates into probability; and this probability is greater or less, according to our experience of the veracity or deceitfulness of our understanding, and according to the simplicity or intricacy of the question." (A Treatise of Human Nature, 1739)
"We must therefore glean up our experiments in this science from a cautious observation of human life... Where experiments of this kind are judiciously collected and compared, we may hope to establish on them a science." (A Treatise of Human Nature, 1739)
Analysis of complex phenomena
"Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain." (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 1779)
"Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable, should you afterwards ask me, what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts." (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 1779)
