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Other editions of book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    David Hume, Paul Spremulli

    eBook (Angelnook Publishing, March 6, 2014)
    This Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding includes a new study guide:• Comprehensive study guide covering all the sections of the book• An informative study guide that will insist you in understanding the books text • Study guide helps you to ask questions to comprehend Hume and how to conquer its meaning.This edition adheres to the The Posthumous Edition of 1777, and Edited L.A. Selby-Bigge, M.A., Late Fellow of University College, Oxford. Second Edition, 1902, And has been carefully proofread for errors, and elegantly and expertly formatted for Kindle ereaders.An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in 1748. It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his more developed ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The end product of his labours was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume's views on personal identity do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume's argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained. This book has proven highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber" The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    David Hume, Paul Spremulli

    eBook (Angelnook Publishing, March 6, 2014)
    This Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding includes a new study guide:• Comprehensive study guide covering all the sections of the book• An informative study guide that will insist you in understanding the books text • Study guide helps you to ask questions to comprehend Hume and how to conquer its meaning.This edition adheres to the The Posthumous Edition of 1777, and Edited L.A. Selby-Bigge, M.A., Late Fellow of University College, Oxford. Second Edition, 1902, And has been carefully proofread for errors, and elegantly and expertly formatted for Kindle ereaders.An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in 1748. It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his more developed ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The end product of his labours was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume's views on personal identity do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume's argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained. This book has proven highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber" The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    David Hume, Paul Spremulli

    eBook (Angelnook Publishing, March 6, 2014)
    This Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding includes a new study guide:• Comprehensive study guide covering all the sections of the book• An informative study guide that will insist you in understanding the books text • Study guide helps you to ask questions to comprehend Hume and how to conquer its meaning.This edition adheres to the The Posthumous Edition of 1777, and Edited L.A. Selby-Bigge, M.A., Late Fellow of University College, Oxford. Second Edition, 1902, And has been carefully proofread for errors, and elegantly and expertly formatted for Kindle ereaders.An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in 1748. It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his more developed ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The end product of his labours was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume's views on personal identity do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume's argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained. This book has proven highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber" The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    David Hume, Paul Spremulli

    eBook (Angelnook Publishing, March 6, 2014)
    This Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding includes a new study guide:• Comprehensive study guide covering all the sections of the book• An informative study guide that will insist you in understanding the books text • Study guide helps you to ask questions to comprehend Hume and how to conquer its meaning.This edition adheres to the The Posthumous Edition of 1777, and Edited L.A. Selby-Bigge, M.A., Late Fellow of University College, Oxford. Second Edition, 1902, And has been carefully proofread for errors, and elegantly and expertly formatted for Kindle ereaders.An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in 1748. It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his more developed ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The end product of his labours was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume's views on personal identity do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume's argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained. This book has proven highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber" The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    David Hume, Paul Spremulli

    eBook (Angelnook Publishing, March 6, 2014)
    This Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding includes a new study guide:• Comprehensive study guide covering all the sections of the book• An informative study guide that will insist you in understanding the books text • Study guide helps you to ask questions to comprehend Hume and how to conquer its meaning.This edition adheres to the The Posthumous Edition of 1777, and Edited L.A. Selby-Bigge, M.A., Late Fellow of University College, Oxford. Second Edition, 1902, And has been carefully proofread for errors, and elegantly and expertly formatted for Kindle ereaders.An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in 1748. It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his more developed ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The end product of his labours was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume's views on personal identity do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume's argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained. This book has proven highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber" The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    David Hume

    Paperback (Independently published, March 6, 2020)
    David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is the definitive statement of the greatest philosopher in the English language. His arguments in support of reasoning from experience, and against the "sophistry and illusion"of religiously inspired philosophical fantasies, caused controversy in the eighteenth century and are strikingly relevant today, when faith and science continue to clash.The Enquiry considers the origin and processes of human thought, reaching the stark conclusion that we can have no ultimate understanding of the physical world, or indeed our own minds. In either sphere we must depend on instinctive learning from experience, recognizing our animal nature and the limits of reason. Hume's calm and open-minded skepticism thus aims to provide a new basis for science, liberating us from the "superstition" of false metaphysics and religion. His Enquiry remains one of the best introductions to the study of philosophy, and his edition places it in its historical and philosophical context.
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

    David Hume, L. A. Selby-Bigge

    Paperback (Digireads.com Publishing, April 9, 2018)
    Disappointed by the public reception to “A Treatise of Human Nature”, published anonymously between 1739 and 1740, David Hume decided to produce a shorter more polemic version of that work nearly ten years later. That revision, which was published in 1748, would be entitled “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”. Dispensing with much of the extraneous material from the “Treatise”, Hume focuses on his more vital propositions in the “Enquiry”. Proceeding in incremental steps Hume discusses the following concepts: “The Different Species of Philosophy”, “The Origin of Ideas”, “The Association of Ideas”, “Sceptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Understanding”, “Sceptical Solution of These Doubts”, “Probability”, “The Idea of Necessary Connection”, “Liberty and Necessity”, “The Reason of Animals”, “Miracles”, “Of a Particular Providence and of a Future State”, and “The Academical or Sceptical Philosophy”. Widely considered a classic of modern philosophical literature, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” is Hume’s theory of knowledge which would influence thinkers both in his time and for generations to come. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and includes an introduction by L. A. Selby-Bigge.
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    David Hume

    eBook (Ozymandias Press, Feb. 6, 2016)
    Moral philosophy, or the science of human nature, may be treated after two different manners; each of which has its peculiar merit, and may contribute to the entertainment, instruction, and reformation of mankind. The one considers man chiefly as born for action; and as influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment; pursuing one object, and avoiding another, according to the value which these objects seem to possess, and according to the light in which they present themselves. As virtue, of all objects, is allowed to be the most valuable, this species of philosophers paint her in the most amiable colours; borrowing all helps from poetry and eloquence, and treating their subject in an easy and obvious manner, and such as is best fitted to please the imagination, and engage the affections. They select the most striking observations and instances from common life; place opposite characters in a proper contrast; and alluring us into the paths of virtue by the views of glory and happiness, direct our steps in these paths by the soundest precepts and most illustrious examples. They make us feel the difference between vice and virtue; they excite and regulate our sentiments; and so they can but bend our hearts to the love of probity and true honour, they think, that they have fully attained the end of all their labours...
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Annotated

    David Hume, Sir Lewis Amherst Selby-Bigge, W. Charles Eliot

    eBook (, Oct. 6, 2016)
    This edition of “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” includes: - Introduction by L. A. Selby-Bigge,- Introductory Note by W. Charles Eliot,- Author’s Advertisement,- Quotes by David Hume,- Notes.
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    David Hume

    Paperback (Independently published, Feb. 23, 2020)
    An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in English in 1748. It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40.
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    David Hume

    Paperback (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Sept. 1, 2016)
    Hume's excellent account of human nature and mental functioning is published here complete and inclusive of original notes. Often referred to as simply 'The Enquiry', this work is notable for setting forth a number of the concepts which would come to define David Hume's contribution to empirical philosophy. Although selling poorly at the time of first publication in 1748, this book found recognition following Hume's death as his ideas became increasingly appreciated in academic circles. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding has an intuitive layout - commencing with an introduction to the philosophic matters at hand, Hume delves incrementally into his beliefs on the nature of the human being. The means by which people mentally formulate ideas occupies a large tract of the work, while the process of learning, assimilating and memorising information is also discussed. Later chapters focus on abstract topics, including the relation of probability to human activity, the inter-relatedness of individual ideas, and the merits of societal liberty in allowing man to exert his free will. Comparisons of human perception and behaviour with members of the animal kingdom, together with an examination of human testimony in the context of miraculous events, are also present. Today, this work by Hume is considered a classic of Enlightenment era philosophy, and remains a required text in many university courses.
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    David Hume

    Paperback (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Jan. 29, 2014)
    After his three-volume Treatise of Human Nature dropped like a rock to the bottom of the pool of British philosophic writing, Hume set out to write a briefer, more accessible version -- the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. One of the early points it makes is that most endeavors to write about the nature of thought are hopeless and nearly impossible to understand. With that disclaimer, Hume sets out to contradict himself by writing lucidly about, while candidly acknowledging the severe limits of, this topic. He uses logic to show that most human understanding falls into two categories: a very small group of innate truths deducible by logic, like every triangle has three sides, and a much larger group -- nearly everything we "know" -- which is based on reality-based observation. This latter group always has, at a fundamental level, an element of probabilistic assumption: Things customarily happened this way before, so they probably will again. Thus almost everything we (think we) know about the world is based on empirical experience, not pure logic. A must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in philosophy or modern thought, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is primarily concerned with the psychological question of the origin of our concepts. About the answer to this question, the empiricists were all agreed--our concepts are furnished by experience, which includes both sensory experience and introspection (i.e., the experience of our own mental states). The empiricists also agreed about the way we can justify our beliefs. Some beliefs are true (or false) in virtue of the ideas they contained, and we can know their truth (or falsity) simply by thinking about them; other beliefs are true (or false) in virtue of how the external world is, and we can know their truth (or falsity) only by drawing on our experiences of the world. According to Hume, all substantial conclusions about the world fall into this second category. That is, the truth (or falsity) of all substantial claims about the existence and nature of things in the external world can be discovered only by checking those claims against the evidence of our senses.