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

by David Hume, Eric Steinberg (Editor)

A landmark of Enlightenment thought, Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is accompanied here by two shorter works that shed light on it: A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh, Hume's response to those accusing him of atheism, of advocating extreme skepticism, and of undermining the foundations of morality; and his Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature, which anticipates discussions developed in the Enquiry.

In his concise Introduction, Eric Steinberg explores the conditions that led Hume to write the Enquiry and the work's important relationship to Book I of Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, School, Classics, Empiricism, Psychology, College

151 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1748

About the author

David Hume was a Scottish historian, philosopher, economist, diplomat and essayist known today especially for his radical philosophical empiricism and scepticism.

In light of Hume's central role in the Scottish Enlightenment, and in the history of Western philosophy, Bryan Magee judged him as a philosopher "widely regarded as the greatest who has ever written in the English language." While Hume failed in his attempts to start a university career, he took part in various diplomatic and military missions of the time. He wrote The History of England which became a bestseller, and it became the standard history of England in its day.

His empirical approach places him with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others at the time as a British Empiricist.

Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably René Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behaviour. He also argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. He argued that inductive reasoning and therefore causality cannot be justified rationally. Our assumptions in favour of these result from custom and constant conjunction rather than logic. He concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self.

Hume's compatibilist theory of free will proved extremely influential on subsequent moral philosophy. He was also a sentimentalist who held that ethics are based on feelings rather than abstract moral principles, and expounded the is–ought problem.

Hume has proved extremely influential on subsequent western philosophy, especially on utilitarianism, logical positivism, William James, the philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive philosophy, theology and other movements and thinkers. In addition, according to philosopher Jerry Fodor, Hume's Treatise is "the founding document of cognitive science". Hume engaged with contemporary intellectual luminaries such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Boswell, and Adam Smith (who acknowledged Hume's influence on his economics and political philosophy). Immanuel Kant credited Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumbers".

Reviews

[Orhan Pelinkovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Nothing is more free than the imagination of man."

David Hume (1711-1776), a Scottish philosopher and a radical and uncompromising empiricist, discusses epistemology in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748).

Hume's central argument is that knowledge cannot be attained through reasoning a priori and that ancient and modern philosophers are most guilty of this exaggerated claim. Instead, knowledge can only occur through experience and no conclusion can be drawn without the assistance of observation and experience through our senses, hence, nothing can be proved a priori.

Furthermore, Hume goes on to discuss how the experiences from our past can only act as suppositions for our future claims and that: "These records of wars, intrigues, factions, and revolutions, are so many collections of experiments, by which the politician or moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science."

A concise and comprehensible read that I enjoyed and a philosophy that entirely shifts us away from metaphysics. This edition also includes Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh (1745) and An Abstract of A Treatise of Nature (1740).

[Samuel Bierig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good writer. Super bitter and angry. He is not correct at all.

[Genni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love rereading things. The last time I read this, I was in the middle of moving. At the time it felt all over the place, but I thought it was because *I* was all over the place.

This second time around, I see that it was not quite as chaotic as my first experience had me believe. It did become clear that Hume was not so much in the business of constructing a solid argument as he was poking holes in the rationalism of his day. As a work of deconstruction, it asks very good questions.

[Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are very few writers that can make a point as clearly and as straightforwardly as Hume. His work, though written in the later years of the 1700s, is direct and understandable, with the exception of a few confusing words here and there. This is in direct contrast to one of his contemporaries in the world of philosophical reason: Kant. Anyone that has ever read Kant knows that the best way to do so is not at all- those readings are best done by people with extraordinarily specific hyperfixations and a powerful love for the art of novel-length definitions. It's a nice change of pace to understand what you read.

To understand Hume's ideas, I think that it's important to understand the context in which they occurred. He is part of the great philosophical debate that was in vogue at the time: where does Reason come from? There were generally two camps to be in. Number one (the Continental Rationalists), who believed that capital "R" Reason is inherent to a person. They believed that you are born with your capacity for reason, and while your lived experiences may help you hone that skill and uncover your logic, ultimately it is something that you were capable of since birth. A perfect example of this, even if it predates the Rationalists, is Plato's World of Forms. Number two (the British Empiricists), believed that people are born without Reason and instead develop it through experiences and interacting with the world. Essentially, they believed in the Scientific Method.

While the explanation is very much snore, I think it's important to understand because Hume was an Empiricist, and this book is essentially his Empiricist Manifesto and a ginormous middle finger to the Rationalists.

He begins by going over the origin of ideas, the main takeaway of which is that without experience to ground our thoughts, without real moments and memories to draw from, analyze, and reconstitute, we cannot create new ideas or reason effectively. For example, while a person can imagine a unicorn (because they have seen a horse and creatures with horns and can smush the two things together in their mind to create something that they have not seen before), a person cannot imagine something for which they have no basis of comparison or starting point, such as a new flavor that they haven't tasted before, or a color they haven't seen. There are no "innate ideas".

The second big basis of his philosophical viewpoint is cause and effect. Hume believes that our ability to draw reasonable conclusions rests on our understanding of cause and effect. A cue ball hits the 8 ball, which causes it to move forward. However, he says that this estimation of cause and effect is not borne of an intrinsic understanding of the laws of physics and inertia, but simply the product of having seen the transfer of momentum from a moving object to a stationary one so many times that a connection is formed that informs our estimation of the future. Many previous experiments push us to presume that the same thing will happen again- the more times we see the same cause produce the same effect, the more sure we are of our guess.

HOWEVER DOT DOT DOT, he is explicitly clear that because all of our reason is formed on an experimental basis, it is important to remember that there is always a reason for error. What if the 8 ball is glued to the table, and doesn't move when struck by the cue ball? Hume advocates for a healthy dose of skepticism, and in doing so, wrote the extremely famous line:

"A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence."

This idea leads Hume to advocate for what is essentially, diet Skepticism. It never veers into Ancient Greek Cynicism, which he viewed as a waste of thought and extremely unhelpful to day to day life. He would like us to act on the most likely version of our beliefs, with the understanding that no matter how unlikely, they may be incorrect. For example, it is safe to say that we can live our lives assuming that the Sun will come up tomorrow, seeing as it has done so for all of recorded history. Even though we are making that assumption, we can see that it might POTENTIALLY be possible that the Sun doesn't rise tomorrow. However, the likelihood is so small that we should not base our actions around the possibility of impending nuclear winter every single day.

Hume was a genius whose works have stood the test of time better than many of his contemporaries- his philosophy advocates for a scientific development of ideas, constant skepticism and alteration of one's ideas, and places significant importance on having new experiences and interacting with varied opinions. He was also, shockingly , not excommunicated from the church despite some truly damning pieces of textual evidence against his case.

[Dylan Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book club read for April, my first time picking what work we'd do (I really just picked Hume and we settled on this) and I enjoyed it. Read it online which sucked and I feel like I could read this again and find more to chew on, but I liked Hume for his fairly pragmatic approach to philosophy. He articulates the difference between reasoning and intuition very well, and fits belief nicely into his concepts of how we come to understanding and make sense of the world around us. I came into this influenced by Haidt and his appreciation for Hume grasping how our mind wanders and gives automatic replies based on sensory information, rather than a deliberate, situation-specific understanding of information. That analysis definitely colored how I approached the text, and I think I had a harder time digesting this than I would with a physical copy. That being said, it led to some fun discussions,

[Ella McLaughlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was nice to read a metaphysician (even if he denies being so) that doesn’t use the existence of a god as a means of explaining everything. But like, is it ever really nice to read metaphysics?

[Emilio Rabell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Enquiry is a classic of Modern philosophy, being a prime example of the skepticism that was developing in that era. The biggest strength of this book is the amazing prose that Hume employed. It is a huge accomplishment for any influential philosopher to write in a manner that is comprehensive, understandable, and concise. The method of argumentation, simply laying out premises and logical conclusions from those premises, was easy to follow and engaging. The biggest weakness of the book, I perceived, was the seeming jump in logic in certain parts of some arguments (I'm thinking specifically in the section regarding miracles). And, from my understanding, this line of reasoning paved the way for the craziness that can be found in contemporary philosophy. This is why I could not endorse the fullness of propositions that Hume advocates for in this book. However, I believe this book is a must read for anyone who is interested in the study of philosophy, as it is a great example of philosophical reasoning, and it is relatively accessible for people who are not extremely familiar with the subject matter.

[Diem · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy. He's on to something. Just when I was completely fed up with metaphysics along comes Hume to say that everyone needs to just stop with the trying to explain religion syllogistically because religion always has and always will fail that test. Miracles are not proofs because there are no miracles, only phenomena that we can't explain because we lack the knowledge to explain them. Not because a natural explanation doesn't exist.

Hume goes on to explain that the only miracles are those attested to in scripture and the miracle of faith. The faith in something that can't be proven, yet survives from generation to generation. Faith is the miracle.

I don't agree. But his is the first view of religion that hasn't made me sputter with exasperation over its profound and obvious lack of logic in spite of thousands of words trying to convince me of its watertight logic. Of course, Hume was rejected as an atheist and a sceptic because you put a lot of people out of work when you start talking about miracles not being real. Like the makers of eucharist wafers (available on Amazon).

So far, Leibniz and Hume are my favorite philosophers. Not that they're similar. Just that they had the courage to challenge illogical Christian dogma at a dangerous time for such activity.

[Daniel Stepke · Rating 5 out of 5]

despite disagreeing with it in its fundamental essence, especially concerning the foundation of religion (it's not faith), the epistemic state of custom (he's not consistent here), the analysis of free will (obviously false, read pride and prejudice), and the assessment of skepticism (people acting contrary to their beliefs doesnt mean the beliefs are wrong), hume can provide us with good reasons for hope (if one thing does not necessarily follow the other, we will not be determined in our current state) and an appropriate humility, slashing through many bad arguments and being careful to not claim to know what we do not.

[isabela baldini · Rating 3 out of 5]

queria estar lendo leibniz

[Samuel Kinch]

A pillar of Enlightenment thought, Hume's brief Enquiry turned epistemology on its head, putting into question all assertions about causality and what humans can know about our external world.

In short, Hume states that for "matters of fact", or any non-deductive truth about our world, nothing, with reason or not, can be stated with certainty, as all evidence that suggests our past will be like our future, was collected in the past, and relies on this same assumption. The inference that a past observation will extend to the future is poorly founded.

But, the human mind frequently makes assumptions of cause and effect from experience, using the tool of custom, where we make inferences from the repeated conjunction of two qualities, like feeling warmth from being near a fire. Hume reveals this new argumentative framework as happening without reason, simply an automatic process of the mind.

Seriously an enthralling read, clear and thorough, the skeptical essay is written for an equally skeptical audience, and readers (and modern philosophy) cannot help concurring.

Read for my History of Modern Philosophy class.

"[...] since it implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change, and that an object, seemingly like those which we have experienced, may be attended with different or contrary effects. May I not clearly and distinctly conceive that a body, falling from the clouds, and which, in all other respects, resembles snow, has yet the taste of salt or feeling of fire? Is there any more intelligible proposition than to affirm, that all the trees will flourish in December and January, and decay in May and June? Now whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning priori"
pg 22

[Zach Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just as Hume had awoken Kant from his dogmatic slumber, Hume has done so in part for me. After spending months in the rational minds of Spinoza and Descartes, I needed a radical opposing opinion as to what, if anything, is evident as truly existing. Hume's test of evidence is based on induction, so that anything which is not experienced is subject to scepticism. From this, he boldly offends religious apologetics, claiming that faith and reason cannot coexist and that miracles are contradictory to nature. While I, for one, cannot base my worldly interpretations solely on empirical facts based on the corollary total rejection of human rationality, which guides our thinking, allowing an expansion of creativity and problem-solving. I did, however, find many connections to my own thinking in Hume's argument, such as the fact that, to fully understand the effects, it is necessary to know the cause. Intuition alone is not a valid form of philosophy because metaphysical reasoning suggests that some causes are barred from human understanding. Again, I return to my favorite philosopher, Kierkegaard, regarding his teleological suspension of the ethical, which adequately explains the contradictions in rational and empirical forms of philosophy. Hopefully, this preparation for the Critique of Pure Reason will suffice for an entry-level understanding of Kantianism.

[Richard Sarkisian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Across my years, I find I agree with a lot of things Hume put down, but he's slightly too reserved/conservative for me. He wanted to rebalance and temper the outright attacks on metaphysical belief but I think sometimes one should get that sweet ass off the fence. "The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation." True! The excitement of touch or the taste of honey can get better with memory though, even if it's not as True/Real. Even if my sense-memory of Cinnabon is wildly vivid, me imagining I'm eating one (as I'm often doing to save calories) isn't the move. Sometimes memory embellishes and gives a certain glow to impressions - both good and bad. But I think going beyond Objects, that zingy quote doesn't work. Famed Wise Alec David Hume never factored in Extreme Cringe. I find I've frequently bitten and screamed into my knuckle to sweep away deeply shameful or embarrassing actions I've made, and I know for a fact those memories carry more power than the action did in the moment. But an action is only cringe if you see it as cringe. I don't know man. I don't think this is a good summary of his arguments. Anyway. Berkeley seems more extremely ostrich-hole refusing than Hume. Descartes doesn't sound at all appealing- that guy needs to relax. Good job David Hume, keep up the good work man. I love that you wrote a "friend" pretending to be Epicurus saying what a crock of shit the argument for a God's existence is, just so you could doubly cover your ass from backlash. Dork king. Stand up brother.

[Lauren Collins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enemy #1. Philosophy is DEAD and Hume killed it. No wonder, no pursuing a desire to know the Whole. Just making obvious observations about experiences.

Eerie similarities with Pascal and probably Kierkegaard. All agree reason is entirely shut out from deep things of the world, from causation, from God, from how things might fit together in a harmonious whole. And all agree it’s the pitch of presumption and arrogance to try philosophizing about such things. (I’m not sure what specific problems with philosophical arrogance Hume has in mind. For Pascal, it’s a vice that keeps one from God.)

True philosophy can’t remain faithful to itself without being open to religion! Hume’s efforts to cut out religious philosophizing turn philosophy itself into mere science.

[Aman · Rating 4 out of 5]

All our thoughts are either: ideas or impressions. Impressions are that which we perceive due to the forces which act upon our senses; what we may call our stream-of-consciousness. Ideas are copies of our impressions, and thus, are weaker in their liveliness.

Hume's epistemology begins by distinguishing between necessary truths and inductive truths (i.e. relations of ideas and matters of fact, respectively). Next, he discusses the association of matters of fact into cause-and-effect relationships. Finally, he lays out the problem of induction:

Logical: the move from "every observed member of set x is y" to "every member of set x is y" is circular.

Temporal: the move from "x has been y in the past" to "x is y" is circular.

The "problem of induction" frames much of the Enquiry from then on.

This is evident when Hume posits his theory of inductive knowledge as custom: As we see things appear before us, one instance is not sufficient to raise any eyebrows. While we cannot know for certain the nature of cause-and-effect (due to the problem of induction), we nonetheless feel certain in our belief that a given x causes the subsequent y. How is that? Constant conjunction, or when “the repetition of any particular act or operation produces a propensity to renew the same act or operation” in our beliefs, without being provoked by any reasoning or process of the understanding (Sec V.I).

This naturally leads us to claims about probability. Given any situation x, the probability of an outcome y is determined to be more likely than z if and only if y has followed x more frequently than z has followed x in our past experience. This is different from constant conjunction, because the latter is that every past experience of x has been followed by y. Nonetheless, both secure a strong feeling--belief--in humans.

Hume's compatibilism also incorporates the problem of induction. In "Of Liberty and Necessity", he argues that liberty is compatible with our knowledge of necessity, because necessary connection or cause-and-effect are inductive inferences based on constant conjunction. Nothing about cause-and-effect is true a priori, and thus, Hume's conception of necessity (as custom) does not preclude liberty.

How about miracles? Well, since they are by definition subversions of the laws of nature, they cannot, by definition, display constant conjunction. Thus, it makes no sense to believe in miracles, and still no sense to have faith in them:

"And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience." (X, II)

From the Epicurean dialogue, the central point is that, starting from an effect, one cannot infer there to exist more in its cause than what is present in said effect.

Then some words on the skepticism of Descartes, Berkeley and the weaker skeptics of the senses, Pyrrhonists, and his own academic (or mitigated) skepticism. His conclusion is that excessive skepticism (that of the Pyrrhonists) cannot be truly held because one must eventually commit an action.

Ultimately, the Enquiry traverses empiricism and skeptical philosophy with comfort and ease, it provides an impetus for the scientific method, and its written by one of the geniuses of the Enlightenment, who was nonetheless a virulent racist.

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, you could see where his thoughts came from, but also where these thoughts bely what feels like personal contempt for anything outside of his simultaneously too wide and too narrow and inhuman purview. For instance, we get a whole lot on miracles and the reason of animals in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, but far too little on why he thinks poetry and other arts are inferior (to the real (not morally, but in perception)), for example. Regardless, these are equally derided in Hume's central thesis - by the end it felt like he was flinging his issues at the reader with less care for his prose than the good stuff at the start. Not a fun read when the author writes bitterness into his points, or when little things clearly feel missing...

[Bumbles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was already aware of Humes's central argument but I loved this nonetheless. Highly recommend. The idea is such a simple tweek about the ways in which we see the world but its realization has a profound effect on human understanding.

1. "It is experience only, which gives authority to human testimony; and it is the same experience, which assures us of the laws of nature. When, therefore, these two kinds of experience are contrary, we have nothing to do but substract the one from the other, and embrace an opinion, either on one side or the other, with that assurance which arises from the remainder."

2. "The experienced train of events is the great standard, by which we all regulate our conduct. Nothing else can be appealed to in the field, or in the senate. Nothing else ought ever to be heard of in the school, or in the closet."

3. "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."

[Richard Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am really re-reading this book, having read it first several years ago and having studied some parts in great detail for my original degree in philosophy. When I first read it, I enjoyed it but found it moderately hard work. Now coming back to it after several more years of reading philosophy books and I find it a paragon of clarity and easy reading. His 18th century writing style can take a little getting into - it is hardly punchy in the modern sense, but full of long elegant sentences. I think it is worth getting into, and although what Hume believed is not always agreed with in modern philosophy (well, it has always been disputed by some people), his thinking process is worth examining and he remains relevant.

I have to admit to a small bias in that I like David Hume - I find his thinking generally enlightening and without all the deep complexity of many modern philosophers. Mostly, I also find his writing a pleasure to read irrespective of whether I agree with the precise arguments he is making. Probably not everyones cup of tea, but certainly at the enjoyable end of philosophical texts.

[Nick Grammos · Rating 5 out of 5]

My philosophical training was limited to passing first year at university. Even though I had two tutors who later became renowned Princeton professors. One, spent an hour with my one afternoon going over nuclear deterrence and as a result I felt relatively calm about the whole nuclear proliferation of the Reagan years. Philosophy works that some level to calm us and contain our irrational bits, ie the dominant bits. I had acquired knowledge, though not by sensory experience. But I didn’t want to be tested by actual experience on that occasion.

The 18thC Scot, David Hume, wanted no more than to state clearly and elegantly the way we acquire knowledge. For that he ran afoul of the church authorities that campaigned behind the scenes and openly to block his access to proper university posts. And that makes him as contemporary as can be. In any age.

How do we get knowledge? Hume wants to understand the simplest thing really, that we learn by experiencing. And the world of senses and stimuli take us there. Ie, we experience first then gain knowledge. The one phrase I recall fondly from PH101 is a priori. It refers to knowledge that is reasoned to exist before or prior to experience. As though it always existed. It’s a tempting idea that we receive by some pool of collective wisdom much of what we know. But, perhaps we can accept that we can also learn by absorbing knowledge through education as custom and practice. Which is like being given guiding principles to apply to experiences. But a priori knowledge sounds like a way of staying ignorant by not learning from what we sense, or apply our reasoning to through experiences. Hume instead wants to explore that knowledge is acquired by observation. Here is the idea in a Hume nutshell:

A man must be very sagacious, who could discover by reasoning, that crystal is the effect of heat, and ice of cold, without being previously acquainted with the operation of these qualities.

Though our senses can’t necessarily tell us that what we see, smell, taste etc allows us to gain knowledge. After all, knowing that bread once fed us, doesn’t explain how it will do so again. What is bread’s secret power to nourish, asks Hume. The mind takes certain processes to know that.
It is only after a long course of uniform experiments in any kind, that we attain and a firm reliance and security with regard to a particular event. or further:

From a body of like colour and consistence with bread we accept like nourishment and support.

While that sounds good, he goes on wanting to enquire further:

But this surely is a step or progress of mind which wants to be explained.

I can see how he ran into trouble with the received wisdom of his day:

I must confess that a man is guilty of unpardonable arrogance, who concludes, because an argument has escaped his own investigation, that therefore it does not really exist. I must also confess, that, though all the learned, for several ages, should have employed themselves in fruitless search upon any subject, it may still perhaps be rash to conclude positively, that the subject must, therefore, pass all human comprehension.

You can see why the church might want to obscure his work by denying him paid employment in his chosen field.

Of course, one’s senses cannot be fully sufficient, nor can one’s reasoning ability. When facts and reasoning meets the human imagination, it can go off anywhere. I like this part of Hume’s argument very much, because he is acutely aware of the nonsense that can spring from our wanton thinking. He says:

Nothing is more free than the imagination of man; and though it cannot exceed that original stock of ideas, furnishing by the internal and external senses, it has unlimited power of mixing, compounding, separating, and dividing these ideas, in all the varieties of fiction and vision. It can feign a train of events, with all the appearance of reality, ascribe to them a particular time and place, conceive them as existent, and paint them out to itself with every circumstance that belongs to historical fact, which it believes with the strongest certainty.

You can see here how today’s dilemmas about facts and fictions, information dissembling, control and manipulation would’ve torn out Hume’s hair. And who hasn’t heard this spurious defence of just about any murderous intent in our own times:

There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavour the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. NOT just philosophical disputes I wanted to add…

Hume lived through perhaps the era of the best English prose, too. He is quite a joy to read for the balance of his ideas contained in each sentence. He gives credit to the idea that the elegance of the idea should be delivered through an equivalent elegance of a sentence. As the above sentence demonstrates.

Hume is an interesting read today simply because I can read lines in his work that stimulate reflection on the contemporary world. But then, how we acquire knowledge is a timeless question. We fail or rise to the occasion continuously, too. Here’s a nice line:

The observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us, at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or evade it.

Hume would likely walk down the street today looking for lampposts to beat his head against. We humans repeat ourselves, hence the problem of philosophical enquiry is relevant to each age. Hence Hume doesn’t get old.

All my review can offer is a sampler. He’s worth reading. His ideas are clean and polished as anything that survived 250 or so years.

Anyway, by the end of this work, I was calmed into understanding the faculty of using experience and reason to guide thinking on the one hand. Much as I had calmed myself that afternoon 40 years ago about nuclear deterrence. And on the other hand, I saw around me the absence of critical observation on the world and the proliferation of believing before knowing. I’m off to find a lamp post. At least I have a good idea why I want to beat my head against it. One pain distracts the mind from the other, perhaps worse pain. At least I read that in a credible medical article on pain. Someone had done the actual research on pain.

[Nat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hume's predictions for what works of literature and philosophy will withstand the test of time are always absurdly wrong. Here's what he says in §1 to illustrate his claim that it is philosophers of common sense who will, by sticking to saying things that make sense and can actually be confirmed or disconfirmed, withstand the test of time:

"CICERO flourishes at present; but that of ARISTOTLE is utterly decayed.
LA BRUYERE passes the seas, and still maintains his reputation: But the glory of MALEBRANCHE is confined to his own nation, and to his own age.
And ADDISON, perhaps, will be read with pleasure, when LOCKE shall be entirely forgotten".

[Khalid · Rating 4 out of 5]

بالنسبة لهيوم فإن الانسان عبارة عن مجموعة أحاسيس وعواطف تترجم اغلب سلوكياته وان عقله مجرد خادم لاحول له ولاقوة أمام هذه الأحاسيس لذلك عشان الانسان يفهم تصرفاته فلازم عليه يدرس احاسيسه عواطفه..

‏تكلم أيضا عن دور العقل في الاعتقاد وقال انه لايمكن للعقل وحده ان يصل ل اي اعتقاد.


وبعدها قسم ادراكاتنا الذهنية لقسمين
١- إنطباعات ٢-أفكار
‏الانطباعات هي الاحاسيس اللي نختبرها بأنفسنا مثل الرؤية الالم الجوع الخ
‏أفكارنا هي مجرد تصور وخيالات ضعيفة لتلك الانطباعات

‏بعدها تكلم في أمور معقدة لست متأكد حقيقة ان كنت فهمتها جيدًا 😅

[May Ling]

I enjoyed this piece on skepticism and would recommend it for those attempting to work in this area. The perspective Hume takes at piecing together his argument that knowledge is relative is nice. It speaks volumes about what was going on around the time of the revolution. It makes sense given how much the world was changing at the time.

[Sotiris Makrygiannis · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Hume covers Empiricism, Impressions and Ideas, Causation and Induction, Scepticism, Limits and reasons, miracles and religion. Did he cover all of them well? I don't think so. Nevertheless, especially the part of miracles is rather interesting.

[lauren]

only read the good bits (ch4+5)

[Tarun Rattan · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Hume is considered the greatest British philosopher and, through his influence on have been one of the major names in philosophy of the last 250 years. Kant famously said that Hume woke him from his dogmatic slumber. Though his first book, A Treatise of Human Nature, “fell dead-born from the press,” hardly noticed by anyone, it was a remarkable achievement, especially since it was written in his twenties. However, Hume’s views on religion saw him passed over for academic philosophy posts, and it was only his History of England and Political Discourses, published in his forties, that led to him becoming well known and well off.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a mature version of the Treatise, and in its relatively easy, non-academic style is an excellent starting point for exploring Hume.

Hume start his enquiry by looking at the different species of philosophy. He brackets it into two species, one set of philosophers treat man as chiefly born for action and endeavour to cultivate his manners whereas another species consider man in the light of a reasonable rather than active being and instead endeavour to form his understanding. The members of the former species believe man to be influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment; pursuing one object, avoiding other, according to the value or virtue which these objects seems to possess. The other species regard human nature as a subject of speculation, and with a narrow scrutiny examine it, in order to find those principles, which regulate our understanding, excite our sentiments, and make us approve or blame any particular object, action of behaviour. Man being a reasonable being, receives from science proper food and nourishment for mind, but narrow bounds of science provides but little satisfaction. The author concedes that being an active man and from the various necessities of human life; he must submit to business and occupation. But the mind requires some relaxation, and cannot always support its bent to care and industry, so nature has pointed out a mixed kind of life as most suitable to human race. Indulge your passion for science, but let your science be human with direct reference to action and society. Abstruse thought and profound researches are prohibited in nature and would be punished by pensive melancholy and cold reception for those pretended discoveries. Be a philosopher; but amidst all your philosophy, be still a man. The author said that he would be happy, if we can unite the boundaries of the different species of philosophy, by reconciling profound enquiry with clearness, and truth with novelty.

Next the author outlays his theory of the origin of ideas. According to him the perceptions of the mind can again be divided into two species distinguished primarily by their different degrees of force and vivacity. A person can definitely feel the real pain of excessive heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth. But when he afterwards recalls to his memory these sensations, or anticipates these by his imaginations, he never can entirely reach the force and vivacity of the original sentiment. Similarly when we reflect on our past sentiments and affections like fit of anger, our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its object truly; but the colours which it employs are faint and dull in comparison of those in which our original perceptions were clothed. The author denominates the less forcible and lively of the mind perceptions as THOUGHTS or IDEAS. For the other species he employs the term IMPRESSIONS. By the term impression author means all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. And impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are less lively perceptions, of which we’re conscious, when we reflect on any of these sensations.

The author further articulates that, at first view, nothing may seem more unbounded than the thought of man, which not only escapes all human power and authority, but is not even restrained within the limits of nature and reality. To form monsters, and join incongruous shapes and appearances, costs the imagination no more trouble than to conceive the most natural and familiar objects. And while the body is confined to one planet, along which it creeps with pain and difficulty; the thought can in an instant transport us into the most distant regions of the universe; or even beyond the universe, into the unbounded chaos, where nature is supposed to lie in total confusion. What never was seen, or heard of, may yet be conceived; nor is anything beyond the power of thought, except what implies an absolute contradiction. But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, upon a nearer examination, we find that all this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience. When we think of a golden mountain, we only join two consistent ideas, gold and mountain with which we were formerly acquainted. In short, all the material of thinking are derived either from our outward or inward sentiment: The mixture and composition of these belongs alone to the mind and will. For Hume, ancient and modern philosophers had all thought too highly of the powers of human reason. Great systems had been built to understand humans, God, and the universe, while forgetting that, ultimately, all we can know is what we observe directly through our five senses. Going completely against Descartes, Hume argued that there are no timeless, abstract ideas. Rather, all concepts are a second hand rendering of initial perceptions or impressions of things from our senses; we cannot have a notion of something until we have experienced it.

When we analyse our thoughts or ideas, however compounded or sublime we always find, that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment. Even those ideas, which , at first view seem the most wide of this origin, are found, upon a nearer scrutiny, to be derived from it. The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom. We may prosecute this enquiry to what length we please; where we shall always find, that every idea which we examine is copied from a similar impression. This is also proven from the fact that if from a defect of the organ, a man is not susceptible of any species of sensation, then he is also little susceptible of the corresponding ideas. A blind man can form no notion of colours; a deaf man of sounds. Restore them with that sense and you also open an inlet for the ideas; and they find no difficulty in conceiving these objects.

The author then propound his primary proposition that he believes can be used for any metaphysical reasonings. All ideas, especially abstract ones, are naturally faint and obscure: The mind has but a slender hold of them: They are apt to be confounded with other resembling ideas; and when we have often employed any term, though without a distinct meaning, we are apt to imagine it has a determinate idea, annexed to it. On the contrary, all impressions, that is, all sensations, either outward or inward, are strong and vivid: The limits between them are more exactly determined. When we entertain, therefore any suspicion, that a philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea, we need to enquire, from what impression is that supposed idea derived?

Next Hume explores the principle of connexion between the different thoughts or ideas of the mind. To him, there appears to be only three principles of connexion among ideas, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause and Effect. A picture naturally leads our thoughts to the original i.e. resemblance. The mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an enquiry or discourse concerning the others i.e. contiguity. And if we think of a wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on the pain which follows it i.e. cause and effect.

After the principles of connexion among ideas have been deduced, the author then tries to address sceptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding. He suggests that all the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally de divided into two kinds, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation, which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the square of the two sides, is a proposition, which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of his kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, these truths would for ever retain their certainty and evidence. Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor in our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so con formable to reality. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind.

The author further says that it may be a subject worthy of curiosity, to enquire what is the nature of evidence, which assures us of any real existence and matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the record of the memory. He suggests that all reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation of Cause and Effect. By means of that alone we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses. There is always a connexion between the present fact and that which is inferred from it. Were there nothing to bind them together, the inference would be entirely precarious. Why? Because these are the effects of the human make and fabric, and closely connected with it. If we anatomize all the other reasonings of this nature, we shall find, that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect, and that this relation is either near or remote, direct or collateral. Heat and light are collateral effects of fire, and the one effect may justly be inferred from the other. If we would satisfy ourselves, therefore, concerning the nature of that evidence, which assures us of matters of fact, we must enquire how we arrive at the knowledge of cause and effect.

Here Hume venture to affirm, as a general proposition, that the knowledge of this relation is not, in any instance, attained by reasonings a priori; but arises entirely from experience, when we find, that any particular objects are constantly conjoined with each other. Let an object be presented to a man of ever so strong natural reason and abilities; if that object be entirely new to him, he will not be able to discover any of its cause or effects. Our reason, unassisted by experience, would never ever draw any inference concerning real existence and matter of fact.

Hume’s proposition, that causes and effect are discoverable, not by reason, but by experience, still begs a further question i.e. What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience? As to past Experience, it can be allowed to give direct and certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise period of time, which fell under its cognizance: But why this experience should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for aught we know, may be only in appearance similar? needs further enquiry.

Suppose a person, though endowed with the strongest faculties of reason and reflection, to be brought on a sudden into this world; he would, indeed, immediately observe a continual succession of objects, and one event following another; but he would not be able to discover any thing farther. He would not, at first, by any reasoning, be able to reach the idea of cause and effect; since the particular powers, by which all-natural operations are performed, never appear to the senses; nor is it reasonable to conclude, merely because one event, in one instance, precedes another, that therefore one is the cause, the other the effect. Their conjunction may be arbitrary and casual. There may be no reason to infer the existence of one from the appearance of the other. And in a word, such a person, without more experience, could never conjecture or reasoning concerning any matter of fact, or be assured of anything beyond what was immediately present to his memory and senses. Suppose again, that he has acquired more experience, and has lived so long in the world as to have observed similar objects or events to be constantly conjoined together; what is the consequence of this experience? He immediately infers the existence of one object from the appearance of the other. Yet he has not, by all his experience, acquired an idea or knowledge of the secret power, by which the one object produces the other, for example why a tiny seed produces a huge tree in few years? What is this principle that determines him to form such conclusion?

According to Hume, this principle is CUSTOM or HABIT. For wherever the repletion of any particular act or operation produces a propensity to renew the same act or operation, without being impelled by any reasoning or process of the understanding; this propensity is the effect of Custom. This definitely is not the ultimate reason of such propensity but has to be accepted as only a principle of human nature. The author at this point acknowledges that perhaps we can push our enquiries no farther, but must rest contended with it as ultimate principle, which we can assign, of all our conclusions from experience. According to author, it is sufficient satisfaction, that we can go only so far, without repining at the narrowness of our faculties, but at least we here advance a very intelligible proposition at least that we are determined by custom alone to expect the one e.g. heats from the appearance of the other e.g. flame. Custom, then is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone, which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.

This is the essence of the book, there are more chapters on miracles, animals and liberty but explanations are more or less based on the philosophical framework articulated above. The author concludes the book by giving an explicit call to readers for rigor in philosophy and for all metaphysical works to be taken with a grain of salt. If we take in hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, 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 flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. This focus on relation of ideas and matter of fact made Hume a patron saint of every kind of philosophical school that stands for empiricism and disavows metaphysical speculation.

Hume observed that “All sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature.” We fool ourselves if we think that the natural sciences are an objective realm of knowledge outside humankind. In fact, by knowing human nature, Hume believed that you could create “a complete system of the sciences.” He felt that questions of logic, morals, and politics should be at least at the same level as natural science, and if he had been alive today he would no doubt have been a great supporter of psychology and the social sciences, because, as he put it in the Treatise, “The science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences.”

[path · Rating 5 out of 5]

“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” (114)

Such a remarkable book, this sturdy pillar of western philosophy.

Going in, I knew something of Hume’s basic arguments for empiricism and how he positioned that work in contrast with arguments for a reason-focused approach to knowledge and understanding. What I had not anticipated was how direct and plain spoken the arguments would be, how solid the thought experiments would be, and how close to the surface Hume’s atheism (or religious skepticism) would run.

The essential argument of the book is easily summarized and it begins with a distinction between the ways that mind perceives. One way is through IMPRESSIONS which are the sense data coming from direct experience. The other is IDEAS which are representations of impressions. Ideas are more unbounded than sense impressions in that we can imagine things that do not exist, but they are ultimately grounded in impressions and are the medium through which we apply reason to order and make sense of impressions. Hume writes that the “creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience” (11). If we trace the origins of ideas they always lead back to impressions.

To this point, Hume offers his famous thought experiment about the missing swatch of blue on a gradient of other blue shades. Questioning if a person could apply reason to determine the shade of that missing blue, the answer is “yes” but only because of the sense data provided by the darker and lighter swatches and the sense information from the gradient itself. In the absence of that sense data, the answer would be no. This observation raises all kinds of interesting questions about the necessity of sense information for knowing. Can we know things that are insensible? Can we know things that others have sensed but we have not? How does knowledge survive through successive generations in the absence of a chain of sense impressions?

This argument is also interesting for how it democratizes philosophical pursuits. The philosophical pursuit that Hume describes doesn’t require preternatural skill with reasoning to properly access our innate ideas about the nature of universe — it requires access to our senses and a few simple rules about how ideas about sense impressions form. We build up knowledge by considering how ideas about impressions 1) resemble other impressions, 2) are contiguous with other ideas, and 3) how that contiguity suggests cause and effect relationships. These are the moves of understanding that rationalize a connection between pieces of sense data. And this then opens up other interesting questions like how do go from this kind of understanding to conclusions that we can call knowledge or facts? And how do we establish facts that we can then build into more complex facts? Surely lines of inquiry need not always start from raw sense data and move up to complexity. Instead, it is an accumulation of inferences, grounded in an accumulation of sensory impressions that allows us to form expectations about what is true, probabilistically (you’ll recognize the move to inductive reasoning here; although Hume doesn’t use the term). Without the sense data, however, we would have no basis upon which to form these rational beliefs. Here, Hume uses another of his famous thought experiments about colliding billiard balls to show how we form beliefs about cause and effect based on past sense data. Imagine never having seen billiard balls collide before … where would our beliefs above effects and causes arise from? Would we have any reason to believe that the balls would do something other than collide and stop?

Latter sections of the book take on how knowledge becomes integrated into and preserved through civilization. He also takes on divine providence and miracles showing them to be impossibilities.

Well worth a read.

[Bennett Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this volume. Steinberg's introduction was very good, which is unusual for Hackett series. Also, the 3 works that make up this volume (An Enquiry...; A Letter...; and Hume's Abstract) compliment each other nicely. The Enquiry is the main work. The Letter is a defense of it. And the Abstract is the author's summary of it. And Hume deserves praise for clear writing. I rarely agreed with him, but I always understood him. That is rare feat when trying to become "the inventor" of a new philosophy.

And what is his new invention? He calls it "moderate skepticism," but perhaps a better title would be "pragmatic skepticism." His contemporaries labeled it "extreme." Hume's central argument in the Essay is that when it comes to knowing matters of fact (as opposed to geometry) all our reasoning depends on the law of cause and effect, which cannot be proved. No cause, he argues, can be inferred from its effect (and vice versa), and the past is no sure guide to the future. We are guided in this by custom and habit (the great intellectual villains of the Enlightenment), not reason.

Hume clearly understands the implications of these idea and is eager to press them. I suspect this was the motivating factor all along. Aquinas' Quinque Viae (Five Ways of proving God's existence), which assume the reliability of cause and effect, seem to be lurking in the background. In fact, he specifically challenges the cosmological because it relies on cause and effect. He rejects the teleological argument (design implies designer) because of the presence of evil and chaos in the world. And he dismisses the ontological argument by arguing that all of our ideas are based on experience, and we have no experience of anything like this kind of Being.

Multiple assumption lie lurking in the shadows. For one, he has no doctrine of the Fall, which accounts for the suffering and chaos in the world. Two, he rejects all supernatural revelation, thus severing himself from a critical source of information about the world. And three, he rejects the incarnation. Actually, he never mentions it. John 1:18 says that one of the great purposes of the Incarnation was to make the invisible God known. But this - revelation and the incarnation - cannot be since he rejects the miraculous. Hume's critique of miracles is significant, and C.S. Lewis responded to in Miracles, the Abolition of Man, and God in the Dock (I think). Next year, I will definitely ask my students to read the Hume-Lewis debate.

He discusses both providence and morality as well. The groundwork for a rejection of a Christian understanding of providence had already be laid out previously. Of course, if you don't find his rejection of causation or God's existence convincing, it won't move you. But his discussion of morality was much more interesting. Hume understood the implications of his ideas, and so did his opponents. If one abandons God and the hope of future rewards and punishments, morality will be destroyed and society will collapse. Not so! Says Hume. In short, morality "works," and people will be good because that will make them happy. Does that make Hume the father of pragmatism? Maybe. Does he see that by rejecting God he is also rejecting objective morality and emptying words like "good" and "evil" of their meaning? Not at all. It is a significant oversight.

His Letter is fascinating. He desperately wanted the chair of Ethics and Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh in 1745, but his appointment was opposed by many of the Scottish clergy who had read his previous work. In this letter Hume responds to his critics and moderates his position to appear more pious. It comes off, frankly, as dishonest. Perhaps this is the key to understanding his "moderate" skepticism.

[Lotus Semiotics]

Hume divides perceptions into impressions and ideas. Impressions are vivid sensations, emotions, and passions, while ideas are the fainter copies formed from them. Every meaningful idea should trace back to an impression, although Hume allows the singular counterexample of the missing shade of blue and refuses to let it overturn the general maxim. He divides the objects of human reason into relations of ideas, which are intuitively or demonstratively certain, and matters of fact, whose contraries remain conceivable. His account of causation begins with experience. When one billiard ball strikes another, we perceive one movement followed by another, but no power binding them together. Even a person with perfect rational faculties but no experience could not infer an object's effects from its sensible qualities. Probability cannot prove that the future will resemble the past, because every appeal to past evidence already assumes that resemblance. Custom or habit fills the place that reason leaves open: repeated conjunctions produce a felt transition from the cause to its expected effect, and this impression gives rise to the idea of necessary connection.

Belief adds no new idea and does not arise by choice. It is a firmer and livelier way of conceiving one possibility, with its degree of force shaped partly by how often similar outcomes have occurred. This vividness gives belief its influence over imagination, conduct, and the passions. Hume applies the same account to human behavior: necessity may be understood either as the regular conjunction of motives and actions or as the mind's inference from one to the other, while liberty consists in acting according to one's will without external constraint. The two are therefore compatible, making their traditional opposition merely verbal. He then extends the account to animals, arguing that the experimental reasoning shared by humans and animals is itself a species of instinct or mechanical power whose operation is unknown to us. Applied to testimony, the same frequency-sensitive reasoning requires belief to be proportioned to the balance of evidence, grounding Hume's critique of miracles. His final position is a mitigated skepticism marked by doubt, caution, and modesty that confines inquiry to subjects answerable by experience and common life.

Hume's account has some parallels in modern cognitive science, where the mind is often described as a prediction engine that learns what usually follows what and comes to expect it. The resemblance is sharpest in his remark about frequency: when a cause has had more than one outcome, we lean toward whichever has occurred most often. Bayesian models formalize such shifts as numerical degrees of credence governed by rules for updating on evidence. Two points resist any simple identification of the accounts. For Hume, degrees of belief are variations in the felt force or vivacity of a conception rather than numerical credence. Bayesian formalism can specify how credences should change once evidence is given, but it cannot itself establish that observed evidence bears on unobserved cases. Active inference introduces a further comparison by adding action to this predictive picture, describing agents as reducing uncertainty while steering toward preferred outcomes. In biological applications, these preferences are often identified with the organism's characteristic viable states. Hume's target was narrower: the supposed power or necessary connection between causes and effects. Active inference instead joins prediction, action, and self-maintenance within one account of living organization. Whether it explains purposive self-maintenance or merely redescribes persistence in purposive terms remains open, and that tension is more interesting than the family resemblance.

[Omar Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally heard of Hume several years ago, in a course concerning Western history, where we were taught to remember him and his contributions by, essentially, attributing the word 'Human' to his surname, 'Hume,' in a non-serious manner, so when one thought of the word Human, they'd immediately think of Hume: a surefire way to remember the name and, somewhat, his M.O.; apart from that, I never had the pleasure to actually read a book from him--I've his Treatise of Human Nature on the table opposite me, and I'm not sure when I'll read that, but his Enquiry, at least the Hackett Classic edition, is a proper read complete with additional commentary and source references to ensure one never overlooked most references.

In the Enquiry, Hume consolidates most of the Treatise into a short, focused work concerning the boundaries of the mind, a more epistemological bend than the rest of the Treatise, illuming that several of the things people infer and, ultimately, take as truth or as evidences of things are nonsensical at best, for they're outside of human comprehension, or, in the way he puts it, their natural faculties, slighting the practice of the metaphysics of his time and of the time before his; the book is a restricting work, very much so that, when reading it, there were moments where one could feel Hume's airtight reason causing problems in real time, not to mention there were instances where I derived some form of fun from reading it, though I can't say that will be the case with any other philosophical work, those are much dryer, not as clear-cut either--anyhow, my reading experience would've been much better had my reading not been encroached on time and time again, causing me to lose most of the excitement I'd initially started out with; about his philosophy, I agreed with it for the most part, yet there were some parts I can't agree with (which is part of the reason why one should read books, it's fun to engage with other modes of thought) but entirely respect--the ending parts of the book are certainly amongst the weakest, at least past the part where Hume reconstructs a conversation he had with a friend where they took on the roles of Epicurus and a council had Epicurus been charged in his time, at least it was a council Hume played if I'm remembering correctly.

The only thing about Hume's book that caused any discomfort isn't so much the philosophy but the way in which he writes it: the punctuation, which I suppose was the standard of the time, is frequent and interrupting, causing me to lose my footing when caught in the flow of a sentence, when Hume tosses a semi-colon into the mix like a wrench to break it off into a new direction, but it's safe to say I adapted to it--all in all, it required a couple rereads here and there, and being dyslexic isn't that great an experience.

[89/100]

Lovely; I could pick up my copy of Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, as I skimmed through it and appreciate the writing far more than Hume's--funny--but I rather pick up something else for a change, perhaps Heidegger's Poetry, Language, Thought, before engaging with a couple of his lecture books I own, but then again, I've a copy of Baudrillard's essays on art, and that's just as interesting--decisions, decisions.

[anabel ❧ · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the great British empiricists! ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT because of his amazing description of miracles. He explains it so well and so simple for the ignorant like it’s CRAZY to me how people believe miracles. I also loved how he explains arguments against a divine providence and attributes of it!

“A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.”
“Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature.”
MY FAV QUOTE:
“For first, there is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good-sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in themselves eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable: All which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men.”