Hume (2008)

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Hume, David. (2008) Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Early Modern Texts. Retrieved from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/hume.

Title Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Resource Type book
Author(s) David Hume
Year 2008
Publisher Early Modern Texts
ISBN no ISBN
URL http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/hume

Abstract

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in English in 1748.[1] It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press,"[2] as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his more developed ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The end product of his labours was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume's views on personal identity do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume's argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained.