Product Description

A landmark of enlightenment though, HUme's An Enquiry Concerning Human understanding is accompanied here by two shorter works that shed light on it: A Letter from a Gentlemen to His Friend in Edinburgh, hume's response to those accusing him of atheism, of advocating extreme scepticism, 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 to write the Enquiry and the work's important relationship to Book 1 of Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16678 in Books
• Published on: 1993-12-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 142 pages

About the Author
E Steinberg

Customer Reviews

Hume at his best
David Hume was perhaps the leading light in the Empiricist movement in philosophy. Empiricism is seen in distinction from Rationalism, in that it doubts the viability of universal principles (rational or otherwise), and uses sense data as the basis of all knowledge - experience is the source of knowledge. Hume was a skeptic as well as empiricist, and had radical (for the time) atheist ideas that often got in the way of his professional advancement, but given his reliance on experience (and the kinds of experiences he had), his problem with much that was considered conventional was understandable.

Hume's major work, 'A Treatise of Human Nature', was not well received intially - according to Hume, 'it fell dead-born from the press'. Hume reworked the first part of this work in a more popular way for this text, which has become a standard, and perhaps the best introduction to Empiricism.

In a nutshell, the idea of empiricism is that experience teaches, and rules and understanding are derived from this. However, for Hume this wasn't sufficient. Just because billiard balls when striking always behave in a certain manner, or just because the sun always rose in the morning, there was no direct causal connection that could be automatically affirmed - we assume a necessary connection, but how can this be proved?

Hume's ideas impact not only metaphysics, but also epistemology and psychology. Hume develops empiricism to a point that empiricism is practically unsupportable (and it is in this regard that Kant sees this text as a very important piece, and works toward his synthesis of Empiricism and Rationalism). For Hume, empirical thought requires skepticism, but leaves it unresolved as far as what one then needs to accept with regard to reason and understanding. According to scholar Eric Steinberg, 'A view that pervades nearly all of Hume's philosophical writings is that both ancient and modern philosophers have been guilty of optimistic and exaggerated claims for the power of human reason.'

Some have seen Hume as presenting a fundamental mistrust of daily belief while recognising that we cannot escape from some sort of framework; others have seen Hume as working toward a more naturalist paradigm of human understanding. In fact, Hume is open to a number of different interpretations, and these different interpretations have been taken up by subsequent philosphers to develop areas of synthetic philosophical ideas, as well as further developments more directly out of Empiricism (such as Phenomenology).

This is in fact a rather short book, a mere 100 pages or so in many editions. As a primer for understanding Hume, the British Empiricists (who include Hobbes, Locke, and Berkeley), as well as the major philosphical concerns of the eighteenth century, this is a great text with which to start.

A CLASSIC TEXT BY THE GREATEST OF THE EMPIRICISTS
This is a fair edition of the first but fundamental book published by Hume in 3 volumes (1 and 2 in 1739; 3 in 1740) dedicated to the methodical study of knowledge, passions and moral, through experience and practical observation. It is with Hume that empiricism (following Locke and Berkeley) reaches its complete expression as a "modern" classical system, against previous dogmatic visions of philosophy. According to Kant, Hume awoke him from the dogmatic dream......
With Hume, english illustration comes to a definitive expression. Through his opus, empiricism is systematized and acquires a new dimension that expands its influence on all fields of philosophy. Previous conceptions about the theory of knowledge, ethics, politics, esthetics, and the philosophy of religion, all are transformed or renovated by Hume. In spite of his critics, Hume's system dwelled with different topics of modern interest: positivism, psychology, nominalism, critical skepticism, determinism, agnosticism, moral philosophy, political economy, etc.
No serious philosopher after Hume, has been able to avoid a careful look at his system. So if you are a student or scholar of the subject matter, I highly recommend Hume's seminal work.

Final 45 Pages on Practical Skepticism Are a Must Read
This book was written in 1748 and I must say it certainly humbled me to realize that modern philosophical concerns are neither new nor unique. Terminology may have changed since the time when this book was written, but the underlying deliberations and contemplations remain unchanged. Hume's first 100 pages discuss the experiential foundation of knowledge. His arguments are compelling, but too enduring. The final 45 pages are superb. In these pages, Hume presents his treatises on miracles and academic skepticism and I must admit that it is one of the best discussions on practical skepticism that I have had the pleasure of reading.