Support New Wellness
Living and this '
New Thought Series': https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted;_button_id=K6TMVM7NL5NNE
The Barter
Community: WeBarter.webs.com
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 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," 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.
This book has proven highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today.
Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber". The
Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.
David Hume was a
Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism and scepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of
Western philosophy and the
Scottish Enlightenment. Hume is often grouped with
John Locke,
George Berkeley, and a handful of others 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 stark opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably
Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behaviour, saying: "
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." A prominent figure in the sceptical philosophical tradition and a strong empiricist, he argued against the existence of innate ideas. He concluded instead that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. Thus he divides perceptions between strong and lively "impressions" or direct sensations and fainter "ideas", which are copied from impressions.
He developed the position that mental behaviour is governed by "custom", that is acquired ability; our use of induction, for example, is justified only by our idea of the "constant conjunction" of causes and effects.
Without direct impressions of a metaphysical "self", he concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self.
Hume advocated a compatibilist theory of free will that 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. Hume also examined the normative is–ought problem. He held notoriously ambiguous views of
Christianity, but famously challenged the argument from design in his
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1777).
Immanuel Kant credited Hume with waking him up from his "dogmatic slumbers" and Hume has proved extremely influential on subsequent philosophy, especially on utilitarianism, logical positivism,
William James, philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive philosophy, and other movements and thinkers. The philosopher
Jerry Fodor proclaimed Hume's Treatise "the founding document of cognitive science". Also famous as a prose stylist, Hume pioneered the essay as a literary genre and engaged with contemporary intellectual luminaries such as
Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Adam Smith (who acknowledged Hume's influence on his economics and political philosophy),
James Boswell,
Joseph Butler, and
Thomas Reid.
Works by David Hume include:
A Treatise of Human Nature
Abstract of a
Book lately Published
Essays,
Moral and Political
A
Letter from a
Gentleman to his
Friend in
Edinburgh
An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
An Enquiry concerning the Principles of
Morals
Political Discourses
Four Dissertations
Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (
Plus volumes
1 & 2)
My Own Life
Of
Suicide & Of the
Immortality of the Soul
Dialogues concerning Natural Religion
Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (The manuscript)
Source:
Wikipedia.org
- published: 12 Jul 2015
- views: 66