David Hume and the Ideas That Shaped America

Called “a degenerate son of science” by Thomas Jefferson and a “bungling lawgiver” by James Madison, Scottish philosopher David Hume was cited so often at the Constitutional Convention that delegates seemed to have committed his essays to memory. Join Angela Coventry, author of Hume: A Guide for the Perplexed; Dennis Rasmussen, author of The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought; and Aaron Alexander Zubia, author of The Political Thought of David Hume as they discuss Hume’s philosophical legacy and its profound impact on the shaping of America. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.

Additional Resources

Angela Coventry, ed. A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects

Dennis Rasmussen, The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought

Aaron Alexander Zubia, The Political Thought of David Hume: The Origins of Liberalism and the Modern Political Imagination

National Constitution Center Town Hall program, Montesquieu and the Constitution

Jeffrey Rosen, The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America

Hume texts online

Federalist No. 10

The Continentalist

Federalist No. 85



Stay Connected and Learn More

Continue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.

Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.

Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.