Philosopher, historian, and economist. Born April 26, 1711 in Berwickshire, Scotland. Died 1776.
He spent a lot of his time questioning religion, but also worked on space, time, free will, free trade, causality, and morality. Due to his attacks on Christianity he had some trouble with the church -- his objections to the JCI God are quite clever, and still oft quoted.
He and his friend Adam Smith were two of the biggest players in the Scottish Enlightenment.
He died of "internal disorders". But, who doesn't? (It was probably cancer).
Hume offered refuge to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had been ordered out of Switzerland in 1766. Rousseau, being suspicious of plots against him, publicly accused Hume of conspiring to ruin his character (which was pretty much ruined already--go read about Rousseau next). Hume, who tended to write about everything, sent out a flyer to the public explaining that this was not the case.
Hume has stuff named after him -- see Hume's Fork, Hume's Law, and Hume's Maxim. If you are interested in his work (and you should be), You might also want to look at Hume's Problem of Induction, Hume, Empiricism, and Miracles, and David Hume on Causality.
"Truth springs from argument amongst
friends."