- Lived:
- 1711–1776 · Edinburgh, La Flèche, London, Paris — and Edinburgh again, always
- Tradition:
- Scottish Enlightenment; empiricism driven to its honest, unnerving conclusion
- The Big Idea:
- Reason is far weaker than we think — custom, feeling, and habit carry the load — and when you actually audit our most basic beliefs (cause and effect, the self, the future resembling the past), the receipts aren't there.
- In their words:
- "A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence."
- If you remember one thing:
- The cheerful fat man of Edinburgh quietly dismantled more of Western thought's load-bearing walls than anyone before or since — and died laughing.