TY - JOUR T1 - Practising humility: how philosophy can inform general practice JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 561 LP - 561 DO - 10.3399/bjgp17X693725 VL - 67 IS - 665 AU - Chris Murphy Y1 - 2017/12/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/67/665/561.abstract N2 - As a philosopher turned GP myself, David Hume has long been my favourite philosopher. He lived in 18th-century Scotland, with renowned Scottish physician William Cullen as his own doctor and friend. Hume attended university at age 12, early even in those days, pushing himself so far that he ended up developing the ‘Disease of the Learned’ — a malady that seems to have been a sort of depression or nervous breakdown. Philosophers can suffer from burnout too.In philosophical circles, Hume is considered to be ‘one of the most important philosophers to write in English’1 but his isn’t the name that springs to mind if the man on the street is asked to name a famous philosopher. In fact, there’s much to recommend Hume as the most ‘GP’ figure of the Enlightenment. In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding he sets out to apply the … ER -