1001Philosophers

David Hume vs Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Knowledge

Hume's account of knowledge is empiricist and skeptical: reason is the slave of the passions, and large-scale moral and political claims are revisable conventions rather than necessary truths. Rousseau's epistemology is more rhetorical than systematic, but it carries a strong critical claim: the inflated knowledge of the philosophes is itself part of the corruption of natural humanity, and the recovery of right judgment requires the recovery of natural sentiment.

About this topic

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge. Philosophers have asked what distinguishes knowledge from mere opinion, whether it requires certainty or can be probabilistic, and how perception, reason, memory, and testimony each contribute. Ancient skeptics challenged the possibility of knowledge altogether, while rationalists located its source in reason and empiricists in experience. Contemporary epistemology investigates justification, reliability, and the social conditions under which beliefs count as knowing.

For a side-by-side overview of the two philosophers more broadly, see the full David Hume vs Jean-Jacques Rousseau comparison. To browse philosophy more widely on this theme, see the Knowledge quotes hub.

Representative quotes on knowledge

David Hume on knowledge

  • “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.”

    Section X: Of Miracles; Part I. 87

  • “Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”

    Part 4, Section 7

  • “All knowledge degenerates into probability.”

    Part 4, Section 1

  • “When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken.”

    § 9.13 : Conclusion, Pt. 1

  • “Of Money (1752) as quoted in David Hume: Writings on Economics (1955, 1970) ed., Eugene Rotwein, p. 45.”

    Here then we may learn the fallacy of the remark... that any particular state is weak, though fertile, populous, and well cultivated, merely because it wants money . It appears that the want of money can never injure any state within itself: For men and commodities are the real strength of any community. It is the simple manner of living which here hurts the public, by confining the gold and silve

All 10 David Hume quotes on knowledge →

Jean-Jacques Rousseau on knowledge

  • “Let's go dance under the elms: Step lively, young lassies. Let's go dance under the elms: Gallants, take up your pipes.”

    Le devin du village (1752)

  • “Le devin du village (1752)”

    Let's go dance under the elms: Step lively, young lassies. Let's go dance under the elms: Gallants, take up your pipes.

  • “As quoted in A Dictionary of Quotations in Most Frequent Use: Taken Chiefly from the Latin and French, but comprising many from the Greek, Spanish, and Italian Languages, translated into English (1809) by David Evans Macdonnel”

    All that time is lost which might be better employed.

  • “L'accent est l'âme du discours.”

    Accent is the soul of language ; it gives to it both feeling and truth. | English translation as quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards , p. 2.

  • “An honest man nearly always thinks justly.”

    As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards , p. 277.

All 8 Jean-Jacques Rousseau quotes on knowledge →

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