David Hume (1711-76) may be best understood as the first postsceptical philosopher of the early modern period. Many of Hume's immediate predecessors, particularly the Cartesians, had attempted to refute philosophical scepticism. In contrast to these predecessors, Hume was a self-proclaimed sceptic who consciously developed a philosophical position that is at one and the same time fundamentally sceptical and fundamentally constructive. His position is sceptical in so far as he shows that knowledge has nothing like the firm, reliable foundation the Cartesians or other rationalists had claimed to give it; his position is constructive in so far as he undertook to articulate a new science of human nature that would provide for all the sciences, including morals and politics, a unique and defensible foundation. For nearly two centuries the positive side of Hume's thought was routinely overlooked - in part as a reaction to his thoroughgoing religious scepticism - but in recent decades commentators, even those who emphasize the sceptical aspects of his thought, have recognized and begun to reconstruct Hume's positive philosophical positions.