An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: with Hume's Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature and A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh (Hackett Classics)

This review mostly concerns the Enquiry. The Letter is primarily a defense of Hume's earlier Treatise of Human Nature, while his Abstract is an anonymous review of the Treatise. It strikes me as very funny, though not surprising, that Hume would review his own work. Funny because any author would give his right arm to get at least one favorable review when all the other critics are completely missing its point. Unsurprising because Hume was probably one of the only people alive at that time who could truly grasp all the facets of his radical philosophical claims.

The Enquiry was written after the Treatise. Hume, though he claimed the opposite, seems never to have really recovered from the blow he took from seeing his Treatise "fall dead born from the press." As a result, his Enquiry is far more cautious in the steps it takes. (For those of you who have read both, yes, I swear, Hume IS more cautious. Compare the claims.) A more robust philosophical stance is taken in his Treatise, while a more focused stance is taken in his Enquiry.

The Enquiry is mainly a work of epistemology and as such, scrutinizes our methods of acquiring knowledge. Making perhaps the most radical (and poignant) claim in all of modern philosophy, it posits, and supports, that there is NO causation, only conjunction. That, for example, when we see a glass drop and break, we cannot say we know gravity caused this (in the way we know two plus two equals four). All we see is constant conjunction. The connection is lacking, i.e., it is not inconceivable that the glass wouldn't bounce, turn to ash, or dissolve into sand (the way it is inconceivable that two plus two equals five). This, in effect, nullifies all the so called "laws" of nature that are formed by science. (Note that this does not state that there are no laws of nature, just that we really can never make the claim that we ever really know there are laws of nature.)

This could be thought of as the philosophical shot heard round the world. Agree or disagree, Hume must be answered. Hume has historically been charged with creating an intellectual and philosophical cul-de-sac with his skepticism. To paraphrase Bertrand Russell, Hume makes a claim which none can refute, but at the same time one which none can accept. In effect, Hume's philosophy seems to bind the human mind, stopping its journey of discovery and ultimately accomplishing what his predecessor, John Locke, set out to do, i.e., map the extent of human knowledge.

However, where one may see Hume's philosophy as shackles and fetters in the search for truth, one could also equally see his philosophy as liberation. Implicit in his philosophy is the idea that ANYTHING is possible. There are no shackles, no fetters, no limits; only those that we create for ourselves. Our limits are self-imposed, constructs of our observance (and inference) of connection. In this way Hume appears in the same light as the Eastern masters seeing that reality is not what we have (through experiential knowledge) believed it to be. It is something much more wondrous. In Zen, our causal thinking is the only barrier between the person and enlightenment. Hume could be seen as implying that when the idea of causality is removed, with only conjunction remaining in its place, the state of true knowledge and wisdom (true zen) is achieved.

This, of course, is only idle speculation. But it is stated so as to demonstrate the richness and immense possibility Hume's philosophy possesses when seen in the correct light. Instead of saying, "Nothing is certain," after reading Hume, one can say, with equal validity, "Anything is possible." The first statement approaches philosophy with despair. The second approaches it with a sense of childlike wonder and hope at the immense possibilities of reality. It approaches life as a beginning, not an ending. It approaches life as the philosopher approaches it.

i dropped this class but hume is woke

Hume's Enquiry marks an epoch in human understanding; when rightly understood it will cause tectonic shifts in your understanding of understanding. Unfortunately, it is rarely rightly understood; he was grossly misconstrued in his own time and still is in ours. He indeed spoke truly when he wrote:

"My principles are also so remote from all the vulgar sentiments on the subject, that were they to take place, they would produce almost a total alteration in philosophy; and you know revolutions of this kind are not easily brought about." -- David Hume

I quite enjoyed reading this version of David Hume's Enquiry, it was my very first time sitting down with this and I cannot recommend this book enough to any student of the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Hume is charming in his wit and impressive in his arguments, especially in the infamous chapter " Of Miracles ", which is present in this writing. I came out disagreeing with his empiricism, but I have the utmost respect for him as a philosopher and any individual lucky enough to acquire this text will surely come to understand why.

Hume mah dawg, his theory of the association of ideas made the whole philosophical community hate so hard they were fittin' to ride on their enemies fo' like a quarter millenia. Hume's criticism of tha abstrusity of dat weak-sauce ivory tower mess opened up my eyes. Phizzle-osophy aint of no use to no mahfs. if it's written to be exclusionary and nizeedlessly abstract. Kant on some weak stuff with his candy refusing to get on my man Hume's level and spittin it so real mahfs could track. Causality some bull-ish to. Inductive posteriori-zzle knowledge straight up weak next to the the realness of the sense-impressionizzle you would feel when the righteous power of Hume's pimp hand finds you and your candy.

Stating the obvious, but the Enquiry is a must read for those interested in the intellectual foundation of modern civilization. So many ideas people living in the modern West take for granted are here proffered as revolutionary changes--of course, they were revolutionary in Hume's era.

A sampling of these ideas are:
1) Regarding miracles as superstition rather than proofs of the validity of a religion
2) The notion that a person's private view of divinity has no effect on their ability to participate in public life
3) The failure of Aristotle and the Scholastics to provide experiential support for their natural philosophy
4) The disjunct between professional philosophy and the concerns of everyday men and women

To have argued for these ideas in little over one hundred pages with style and wit is remarkable.

The one caveat to reading this book is that these ideas are so much a part of modern Western civilization that there's not a lot of further insights to be gained from reading them and in an original source.

For example, I often work with causal inference in statistics. Even though Hume's ideas on causality are foundational, there's not a lot new to be gained from a close reading. His work has been elaborated on and improved by later authors.

I would recommend reading Hume whether or not you agree with his contributions. I personally disagree with him on a number of points but not to read the source of so many vital ideas is to leave a large gap in one's understanding of modernity.

Great thought provoking book about the nature of reality & it helps me go directly to sleep sometimes.

Hume seems to get into the processes of cognitive thinking/therapy in part of this book which I found to be insightful and astute. The book describes Hume's view on how humans acquire knowledge and rationalize events i.e. thinking. I definitely thought this was better than Aristotle's The Nicomachean Ethics or Plato's "Five Dialogs. As far as reading this one went - it was pretty good. It was not overly complicated. Some philosophy books you have to read parts over and over again to figure out what is going on, this one wasn't like that.

Everyone should read this at least once in their lifetime.

Throughout most of his adult life, David Hume acquired a reputation for eminent reason and good cheer; reading his Enquiry, I find little reason to quarrel with that assessment. Hume's name is as resonant as those of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, and Nietzsche's, but in many ways Hume was quite an unorthodox philosopher. His approach to the problems of philosophy entailed the imprint of a mechanic; that is to say he took to the discipline with a very practical mindset. The popular image of a philosopher, of a man (or group of men) portentously reflecting on boundless abstractions, did nothing for Hume. The only way, Hume believed, one could comment on the displeasure of, say, thirst was to deprive yourself of liquid for extended periods of time. Sex? Don't have it at all? Poverty? Stop working. This basic principle encompassed the body of his philosophy. Hume rounded out the British school of empiricism, following the trail of John Locke and Bishop George Berkeley. Unlike Locke and Berkeley, Hume carried empiricism to its farthest point. Locke's popularity stems from the spirit of his liberalism vis-a-vis American constitutionalism, but his empiricism is little known, while Bishop Berkeley's empiricism smacks of a kind of idealism; reducing material phenomena to mental events. Hume's approach is not so novel, but nor is it plagued with the obvious errors of his historical counterparts.

The resurgence of Hume's philosophy in the public sphere of influence is owed, in my opinion, to the popular New Atheist culture. He is not alone here, as the likes of Bertrand Russell, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, Spinoza, and a smattering of other Enlightenment figures, have since come to occupy a significant portion of the public discourse in relation to theology and philosophy. And while I admire the spirit of the New Atheists, I cannot privilege their work above their intellectual forefathers. So, what makes Hume so great? Well, to begin with, Hume's contributions to empiricism and epistemology were groundbreaking and, most importantly, incredibly lucid. If he is not known as the father of empiricism, then he is, at the least, the father of scepticism. For Hume, despite all outward appearances, did not fasten a dogmatic reliance to empiricism. Evidence derived from the senses is supreme, but the nature of human understanding is obviously a little more complex. What precisely consists of the human understanding is, at the end of it all, as much mystery to Hume as it is to the rest of us. His thoughts on the relation of cause and effect, in particular, make for compelling, original reading. Assume one sees a meteor crash into the earth, he would no doubt say that the crater was a product of the meteor making contact with the earth, and he'd be right. But what's the genesis of the meteor? Space, you say. Again, no issue with the judgment. But Hume would probe deeper still. Conceive of two bodies of any distinction in your mind, where one's production (effect) is dependent on the other (cause). We know how the chain of causation is stimulated on these conditions, but Hume reduced his analysis to the cause of the cause. Here, Hume made the concession that the root cause of any object eludes human understanding; even the perceived "root cause" must consist of elements prior to it, and so on ad infinitum.

This did not lead Hume down the road of despair, but fascination. Hume was as equally preoccupied with the feelings that accompanied our reasoning. The conceptual apparatus of human understanding was partitioned into three categories: 1) the initial impression based on direct, experiential observation; 2) the transference of that memory to our idea of it; 3) a synthesis of the two prior categories enforce our understanding of impending causes. We can collectively take this criteria and our faculty of reasoning as Hume's support of compound empiricism. By compound empiricism, I mean our ability to relate to objects and future causes based on their relation to previous events. In this respect, all knowledge is contiguous and dependent on a successive relation of prior causes. This does not mean, however, that the sense data received from an event or object (memory) works interchangeably with our idea (imagination) of it. Experience and fancy are not tautologous. If pressed, Hume notes, man will always privilege memory above imagination - reality above fantasy. This is what Hume meant by the feeling that accompanied the thought.

The assent we grant the object corresponds as much with the initial impression as it does with the feeling applied to it. Hume lends this quality to a letter addressed to Dr. Tillotson (Arch Bishop of Canterbury) regarding the divinity of miracles (see page 76). It is demanded of us to submit to the word of the Being based on a historical succession of testimonials. The man cursed with blindness has his sight miraculously restored by saliva. The content of such a miracle reeked of absurdity to Hume, and he did little to shirk his acerbic enthusiasm for this degree of stupidity. the dogmatic continuity that attests to the power of divine intervention and miracles is its chief demerit. If anything, the core of the myth expands and dilutes by virtue of the passage of time. We start from dubious initial causes and end up with the pitter-patter of old wives' tales. Could this prophet, this faith healer, reanimate the lower half of an amputated limb? Not likely. Moreover, despite our susceptibility to delusion, could the laws of nature be suspended in a way to favour that one man, in a way which has never been observed before? Hume answered in the negative. Our desire to understand the world around us is burdened by the power of belief, where the domain of reason plays no role.

David Hume's Enquiry is a short, but powerful essay on the apparatus of human understanding. His wit, prose style, and lucidity serve to remind us the enormity of the man's legacy. This is a must buy title.