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) 2nd Edition

Delivered as excepted. On a side note, I've just discovered philosophy, and Hume is one of my favorite philosophers now.

Great edition. Good price and book. Easy format and minimalist.

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.

Used for school all day. The book was a great help. It also came in brand new and was a great help!

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.

David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian ], economist, and essayist; the companion volume to this book is An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, and his other writings include A Treatise of Human Nature Volume 1,A Treatise of Human Nature Volume 2,Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,The Natural History of Religion, etc. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 198-page Bobbs-Merrill paperback edition.]

This collection begins with his autobiographical reflection, "My Own Life," in which he says, "Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature. It fell DEADBORN from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered the blow and prosecuted with great ardor my studies in the country." (Pg. 4) [This is the reason why he later reworked the Treatise into this volume and its companion.] He adds, "In 1751, I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a man of letters. In 1752 were published... my Political Discourses, the only work of mine that was successful on the first publication. It was well received abroad and at home. In the same year was published at London my Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, which in my own opinion ... is of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best. It came unnoticed and unobserved into the world." (Pg,. 6-7)

He famously argues, "The mind can never possibly find the effect in the supposed cause by the most accurate scrutiny and examination. For the effect is totally different from the cause, and consequently can never be discovered in it. Motion in the second billiard ball is a quite distinct event from motion in the first, nor is there anything in the one to suggest the smallest hint of the other. A stone of piece of metal raised into the air and left without any support immediately falls. But to consider the matter a priori, is there anything we discover in this situation which can beget the idea of a downward rather than an upward or any other motion in the stone or metal? ... so must we also esteem the supposed tie or connection between the cause and effect which binds them together and renders it impossible that any other effect could result from the operation of that cause... may I not conceive that a hundred different events might as well follow from cause?... All our reasonings a priori will never be able to show us any foundation for this preference. In a word, then, every effect is a distinct event from its cause. It could not, therefore, be discovered in the cause, and the first invention or conception of it, a priori, must be entirely arbitrary. And even after it is suggested, the conjunction of it with the cause must appear equally arbitrary, since there are always many other effects which, to reason, must seem fully as consistent and natural. In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine any single event or infer any cause or effect without the assistance of observation and experience." (Sec. IV, Pt. I, pg. 43-44)

He observes, "Thus, according to these philosophers, everything is full of God. Not content with the principle that nothing exists but by his will... they rob nature and all created beings of every power in order to render their dependence on the Deity still more sensible and immediate. They consider not that by this theory they diminish, instead of magnifying, the grandeur of those attributes which they affect so much to celebrate. It argues, surely, more power in the Deity to delegate a certain degree of power to inferior creatures than to produce everything by his own immediate volition. It argues more wisdom to contrive at first the fabric of the world with such perfect foresight that of itself, and by its proper operation, it may serve all the purposes of Providence than if the great Creator were obliged every moment to adjust its parts and animate by his breath the wheels of that stupendous machine." (Sec. VI, PT. I, pg. 82-83)

In his powerful and influential essay, "On Miracles," he states: "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined... Nothing is esteemed a miracle if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden... But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life, because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof... against the existence of any miracle..." [NOTE to any Christians who think that C. S. Lewis's book Miracles "refuted Hume by proving that his argument was circular," this part ISN'T his argument---it's preliminary material. Read on...]

He continued, "... nor can such a proof be destroyed or the miracle rendered credible but by an opposite proof which is superior... no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish... When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact which he relates should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other, and according to the superiority which I discover I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates, then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief of opinion." (Part I, pg. 122-124)

After reviewing reports of miracles from classical times; in Chinese religion; in Catholicism, etc., he observes, “Upon the whole, then, it appears that no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof… and therefore we may establish it as a maxim that no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle and make it a just foundation for any such system of religion.” (Pt. II, pg. 137)

He further elucidates, "let us examine those miracles related in Scripture... let us confine ourselves to such as we find in the Pentateuch... Here, then, we are first to consider a book presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written ... in all probability, long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts which every nation gives of its origin... It gives an account of a state of the world and of human nature entirely different from the present: Of our fall from that state; of the age of man extended to near a thousand years; of the arbitrary choice of one people as the favorites of heaven, and that people the countrymen of the author; of their deliverance from bondage by prodigies the most astonishing imaginable---I desire anyone to lay his hand upon his heart and, after a serious consideration, declare whether he thinks that the falsehood of such a book, supported by such a testimony, would be more extraordinary and miraculous than all the miracles it relates..." (Pt. II, pg. 140)

He points out, "In vain would our limited understanding break through those boundaries which are too narrow for our fond imagination. While we argue from the course of nature and infer a particular intelligent cause which first bestowed and still preserves order in the universe, we embrace a principle which is both uncertain and useless. It is uncertain because the subject lies entirely beyond the reach of human experience. It is useless because our knowledge of this cause being derived entirely from the course of nature, we can never... return back from the cause with any new inference or... establish any principles of conduct or behavior." (Sec. XI, pg. 151)

In the final essay in the book, he advises, "Divinity or theology... has a foundation in reason so far as it is supported by experience. But its best and most solid foundation is faith and divine revelation. Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment. Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt more properly than perceived... When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume---of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance----let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." (Sec. XII, Pt. III, pg. 173)

While Hume's main philosophical arguments are actually presented more effectively in the Treatise, the additional essays and chapters included in this "Inquiry" make this "must reading" for anyone seriously studying philosophy.

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

Hume does an outstanding job of standing western philosophy, as it existed at the time, on it's head. This book awoke Kant from his "dogmatic slumber," and is a must read for any student of philosophy.