An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~62,300 words · 296 passages
Cite this work
- APADavid Hume. (n.d.). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding
- MLADavid Hume. "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding.
- ChicagoDavid Hume. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding.
What it is about
Where the mind gets its ideas and by what right it connects causes and effects: Hume's answer — custom, not reason — and his call to commit to the flames any metaphysics that cannot bear it.
Context and history
Published in 1748, it is the mature, concise rewriting of the 'Treatise of Human Nature', which in his mid-twenties had 'fallen dead-born from the press', as he put it himself. Its analysis of causation and its critique of miracles made it scandalous; its prose, a classic. And it found the most consequential reader imaginable: Kant wrote that Hume had woken him from his 'dogmatic slumber' — without this book, the 'Critique of Pure Reason' would not exist as we know it.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
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 sceptical Philosophy INDEX SECTION I. OF THE DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PHILOSOPHY. 1. 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