1001Philosophers

David Hume vs John Locke on Knowledge

Locke and Hume share the empiricist principle that all ideas derive from experience but reach very different conclusions about what experience can deliver. Locke holds that we have rational knowledge of substances, of necessary connections in nature, and of the persistent self. Hume denies each of these: there is no impression of substance, of necessary connection, or of a continuing self, and Locke's empiricism collapses into a more rigorous skepticism when its principles are pressed.

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 John Locke 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 →

John Locke on knowledge

  • “No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.”

    Book II, Ch. 1, sec. 19

  • “Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”

    As quoted in "Hand Book : Caution and Counsels" in The Common School Journal Vol. 5, No. 24 (15 December 1843) by Horace Mann , p. 371

  • “It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth.”

    Book IV, Ch. 7, sec. 11

  • “There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.”

    Sec. 121

  • “New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common.”

    Dedicatory epistle, as quoted in Fred R Shapiro (2006). The Yale Book of Quotations . Yale University Press. p. 468. ISBN 0-300-10798-6 .

All 13 John Locke quotes on knowledge →

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