An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

by David Hume

Overview

Highly original and challenging in its views, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding proved controversial upon its 1748 publication, and it remains so today. In terms of influence, David Hume's theory of causality ranks as the modern equivalent of Aristotle's work on the subject. Hume's philosophy roused Immanuel Kant from his self-described "dogmatic slumber," and inspired the thinking behind the Critique of Pure Reason, which introduced a completely new school of philosophy in the form of Kantian ethics. One of the most widely read works in philosophy and the best introduction to Hume's other works, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding asserts that causal relationships constitute the core of our understanding of relationships between objects in the external world. Hume establishes the factors that define a causal relationship between two objects and demonstrates that causal theory derives from the mind rather than experience. In so doing, he questions the basis of scientific causal theory, which claims validity by nature of its basis in experiential knowledge. Hume's assessment of the limitations of human understanding and the merits of skepticism make his Enquiry a work of enduring relevance and influence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594624353
Publisher:	Book Jungle
Publication date:	02/08/2007
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.39(d)

About the Author

David Hume (born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) - 25 August 1776)[9] was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, scepticism, and naturalism.[1] Beginning with A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Hume argued against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. This places him with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and George Berkeley, as a British Empiricist.[10] Hume argued that inductive reasoning and belief in causality cannot be justified rationally; instead, they result from custom and mental habit. We never actually perceive that one event causes another, but only experience the "constant conjunction" of events. This problem of induction means that to draw any causal inferences from past experience it is necessary to presuppose that the future will resemble the past, a presupposition which cannot itself be grounded in prior experience.[11] An opponent of philosophical rationalists, Hume held that passions rather than reason govern human behaviour, famously proclaiming that "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions".[10] Hume was also a sentimentalist who held that ethics are based on emotion or sentiment rather than abstract moral principle. He maintained an early commitment to naturalistic explanations of moral phenomena, and is usually taken to have first clearly expounded the is-ought problem, or the idea that a statement of fact alone can never give rise to a normative conclusion of what ought to be done.[12] Hume also denied that humans have an actual conception of the self, positing that we experience only a bundle of sensations, and that the self is nothing more than this bundle of causally-connected perceptions. Hume's compatibilist theory of free will takes causal determinism as fully compatible with human freedom.[13] His views on philosophy of religion, including his rejection of miracles and the argument from design for God's existence, were especially controversial for their time. Hume influenced utilitarianism, logical positivism, the philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive science, theology, and many other fields and thinkers. Immanuel Kant credited Hume as the inspiration who had awakened him from his "dogmatic slumbers".

Table of Contents

I.	Of the Different Species of Philosophy	1
II.	Of the Origin of Ideas	8
III.	Of the Association of Ideas	12
IV.	Sceptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Understanding	14
V.	Sceptical Solution of These Doubts	24
VI.	Of Probability	35
VII.	Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion	37
VIII.	Of Liberty and Necessity	50
IX.	Of the Reason of Animals	66
X.	Of Miracles	70
XI.	Of a Particular Providence and of a Future State	85
XII.	Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy	96