Other editions of book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

As intriguing today as when it was first published, Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a fascinating exploration into the nature of human knowledge. Using billiard balls, candles, and other colorful examples, Hume conveys the core of his empiricism--that true knowledge can only be gained through sensory experience. No other philosopher has been at the forefront of the mind than David Hume; physics, psychology, neuroscience--connections to Hume are everywhere. Here is the book that Immanuel Kant confessed to have awoken him from his ""dogmatic slumber.""

The second edition of Hume's excellent account regarding human nature and mental functioning is published here complete and inclusive of the author's original notes. Often referred to by scholars 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 it sold poorly at the time of first publication in 1748, the text enjoyed greater recognition following Hume's death as his ideas became increasingly appreciated in academic circles. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding has an intuitive layout: it commences with an introduction to the philosophic matters at hand, then Hume delves incrementally into his beliefs on the nature of the human being. The ways in 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 circumstances. Today, this work by Hume is considered a classic of Enlightenment era philosophy, and remains a required text in many university courses.

David Hume (born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, scepticism, and naturalism. Hume's empiricist approach to philosophy places him with John Locke, George Berkeley, Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes as a British Empiricist. Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1738), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Against philosophical rationalists, Hume held that passion rather than reason governs human behaviour. Hume argued against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge is founded solely in experience.In what is sometimes referred to as Hume's problem of induction, he argued that inductive reasoning and belief in causality cannot be justified rationally; instead, our trust in causality and induction result from custom and mental habit, and are attributable only to the experience of "constant conjunction" of events. This is because we can never actually perceive that one event causes another, but only that the two are always conjoined. Accordingly, to draw any causal inferences from past experience it is necessary to presuppose that the future will resemble the past, a presupposition which cannot itself be grounded in prior experience.Hume's opposition to the teleological argument for God's existence, the argument from design, is generally regarded as the most intellectually significant attempt to rebut the argument prior to Darwinism.Hume influenced utilitarianism, logical positivism, Immanuel Kant, the philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive science, theology, and other movements and thinkers. Kant himself credited Hume as the spur to his philosophical thought who had awakened him from his "dogmatic slumbers". (wikipedia.org)

As intriguing today as when it was first published, Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a fascinating exploration into the nature of human knowledge. Using billiard balls, candles and other colorful examples, Hume conveys the core of his empiricism - that true knowledge can only be gained through sensory experience. No other philosopher has been at the forefront of the mind than David Hume; physics, psychology, neuroscience - connections to Hume are everywhere. Here is the book that Immanuel Kant confessed to have awoken him from his 'dogmatic slumber'.

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An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in 1748. It was a simplification 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 stillborn from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. 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.

David Hume is seen by many today as one of the greatest philosophers who have ever written in English, as well as among the most influential philosophers in history. His take on philosophical empiricism and skepticism is depicted extremely clearly in this Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding – a well-written counterpart to Hume's Treatise on Human Nature – his most famous philosophical work. Placing himself in opposition with many of the rational thinkers of the day, including Descartes, Hume is known for upholding the values of empiricism and being one of the most influential philosophers who considered that desire should be held in much higher regard when compared to ration, claiming that even the idea of the “self” is, in fact, merely a conjunction of cause and effect that leads to empirical sensations about a perceived self. Such thoughts are clearly defined in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume also touching upon the bigger issues of where ideas come from, how intuition fits into the puzzle and how instinct, inspiration and understanding really work. His insightful answers when it comes to these issues are still upheld as valid by modern-day thinkers. Although having written this remarkable book in a time when Calvinism and Rationalism were the main belief systems that most thinkers wanted to be associated with, and so his fame did not reach as far as he may have wanted it to, he and his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding were still a strong influence on both contemporary and upcoming philosophers, Kant himself having admitted that Hume managed to take him out of his initial “dogmatic slumbers.”

The masterwork by the Scottish empiricist; a revision of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40. Extracted from: Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding, and Concerning the Principles of Morals, By David Hume. Reprinted from The Posthumous Edition of 1777, and Edited with Introduction, Comparative Tables of Contents, and Analytical Index by L.A. Selby-Bigge, M.A., Late Fellow of University College, Oxford. Second Edition, 1902 CONTENTS I. Of the different Species of Philosophy II. Of the Origin of Ideas III. Of the Association of Ideas IV. Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Understanding V. Sceptical Solution of these Doubts VI. Of Probability VII. Of the Idea of necessary Connexion VIII. Of Liberty and Necessity IX. Of the Reason of Animals X. Of Miracles XI. Of a particular Providence and of a future State XII. Of the academical or skeptical Philosophy INDEX “Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? ... I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty. Most fortunately it happens, that since Reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends. And when, after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.”

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. 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.

David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding was a simplification of an earlier effort, Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise of Human Nature He felt that if "fell dead-born from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. This book was highly influential, Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his "dogmatic slumber." The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.