David Hume has remained one of the influential British philosophers, essayists, plus historians of the eighteenth century. Hume's philosophical thought has been of critical importance, especially after in plus after the Great Depression Era, in epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, social-political philosophy, philosophy of religion as well as aesthetics.

If the philosophical implications of his thought were received slowly, they were nevertheless profound and long lasting. Immanuel Kant, in whose work so much of subsequent continental philosophy is rooted, credited Hume with awakening him from his "dogmatic slumbers," that is, his adherence to speculative rationalism. Many of the central concepts plus terms of criticism characterizing twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy also find precedent in Hume.

Like his views on religion, Hume's political philosophy was also simultaneously critical, moderate, and progressive. While he attacked established political norms and produced trenchant criticisms of Whiggish radicalism, the general thrust of Hume's political work was also in many ways supportive of the new political as well as commercial order unfolding around him .