"Empiricism" is generally understood as the position that all knowledge is derived from sense experience.  

"Skepticism" is generally understood as the position that knowledge is unattainable (either with respect to some particular domain, or generally).  

In his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume starts out sounding like a pretty straightforward empiricist, at least when it comes to any knowledge that we might come to possess about "matters of fact."  By the end of section 4 of the Enquiry, it seems as if Hume is also a skeptic about "matters of fact."  

Is this connection a necessary one?  If one is committed to "empiricism," is the only rationally consistent option to also be committed to "skepticism?"

Reflection Response Draft #2

     The basic dilemma presented by being both an empiricist and a skeptic: one has to trust their senses in dealing with the everyday world. We eat when our bodies convey hunger; we negotiate our own personal space among the obstacles we encounter (when driving an automobile, for example). We are, for better or worse, dependent upon our sensory input, when dealing with the real world. We drive our automobiles on the right-hand side of the road, here in the United States. We stop at red lights. There's no room for debate on this- defy these rules and you will pay the consequences.

     Skepticism, however, at its most basic definition, consists of questioning all these understandings we have entered into with our world. Just because everything went according to plan yesterday does not insure that tomorrow holds the same promise. Some things- we pretty much have to count on- that there will be a new day tomorrow; that gravity will still be in effect; that we're still the same human being this morning that went to sleep last night... But skepticism, at its zenith, denies us these basic assumptions of continuity. However unlikely- everything we rely upon could, potentially, change. We could wake up in a Kafkaesque nightmare- transformed into a cockroach overnight. Not likely- but nevertheless possible...

     Obviously, it becomes a question of balance. If I cannot rely upon even the most basic facts of my life- my name, my social status, my job, my family... then I become a candidate for a mental institution. But yet, to go through life on “auto-pilot”, never questioning what my parents/teachers/churches have told me is “the truth”... I submit that this is only a slightly lesser form of “crazy.” To blindly accept everything you are told is the sad story of too much of our history. Thank “God” for skeptics... who doubted that the world was flat; that the Earth was the center of the universe; that there were “witches” who needed to be burned at the stake... on and on it goes, the list of false assumptions that humanity has endured over the millenia. There will be more revelations as time marches on... it is the skeptics who will bring them forward.

     The one big revelation I can take from reading Hume (there are many minor ones): is that he truly understood the “unworldliness” of the philosopher. His contrast of the “easy” philosophy with the more “abstruse” endeavor belies his own doubts of the merits of the latter; yet he defends this more rarefied environment quite well. An elite group of humans have taken on the harder questions, and their “answers” have trickled down to society at large. Hume believed this to be a good thing, and I agree.

     Not everyone can be committed to skepticism- things would fall apart. It takes a fairly large flock of “sheep” to keep the mechanics of a society working, guided by a small group of shepherds. Only after man evolved beyond his primitive hunter/gatherer state did this even become possible; it took an elite, leisure-class, with time on their hands (think classical Greece) to sit around and ponder the more esoteric questions. How else could I be sitting here, typing into a word-processor, connected to the “agora” via the internet? “For Hume the bell tolls!”