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The Buddha was born in around the 5th century BC, probably in modern day in Nepal.

David Hume was born in the 18th century in Scotland.

By all accounts, both were tubby blokes, corpulent chaps.

But what, if anything, do their philosophies have in common and is it possible that Hume was influenced by Buddhism?

Allison Gopnik, a renowned psychologist and philosopher, has been investigating a possible link.

Alta and Gopnik, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Well, glad to be here.

The topic we're going to focus on is Hume and Buddhism.

What's the connection between these two?

Because apart from from in terms of

physique it's not obvious? Well when you look at a lot of Hume's philosophical

ideas they're strikingly similar to some of the ideas that are in the Buddhist tradition.

And I got interested in this particularly because of Hume's ideas about the self.

Hume has a really radically new different idea about the self, quite different from the ideas that people have had before.

So someone like Descartes thinks that it's obvious that you have a self.

You look into your head and there it is, it exists, it continues over time.

In fact, Descartes thinks that's the only thing that you know for sure is that you have a self.

And Hugh does something really surprising, which is to say, well, wait a minute, when I actually look inside of my head,

...