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108 reviews for:
Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding: And Concerning the Principles of Morals
David Hume
3.78 AVERAGE
108 reviews for:
Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding: And Concerning the Principles of Morals
David Hume
3.78 AVERAGE
informative
adventurous
inspiring
medium-paced
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
This was my first ever philosophy book! While I didn't super-love this book, specifically, I am absolutely in love with the idea of reading philosophy, and I'm inspired to go back and read all the major works of philosophy, starting with Plato and Socrates.
I think, if I had read this book at the time it was written, I would have found it more profound. But, as much as I enjoyed the general experience of reading this, some parts haven't aged well in the nearly 300 years since then.
There are still parts that are still very relevant and very good, though. I'll get to that in a second. First:
The outdated bits
On several occasions, Hume throws up his hands in surrender for issues that are "unknowable," like, uhhhh, why fire is hot, which we actually understand now due to Science™!
There are quite a lot of things Hume ponders deeply and can't find an answer to, that are now common knowledge; or that he draws shaky conclusions to that we would now consider incorrect, due to developments in psychology, etc.
An almost bad thing that was really just a sad thing
Initially, I was disappointed with Hume's take on religion. Twice, it seemed, he comes very close to disproving his own beliefs (in the chapter on necessity and liberty, and the chapter on morals), but failed to take his own arguments to their full, logical conclusions, even though he's very thorough with all other topics.
But after doing some research, and learning more about David Hume the man, I realize that privately, he probably did take these arguments to their conclusions. He was, in fact, an atheist; his "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" wasn't published until after his death.
This is because it was just really socially unacceptable to be an atheist back then. He couldn't publicly share all of his actual thoughts on the matter without serious social repurcussions. And that makes me sad.
The best part
What I appreciated most about this book was the overall emphasis on empiricism, particularly as it was layed out in the chapter on miracles. I loved the way he argued for evaluating the strength of the evidence for a claim, and not then placing confidence in that claim beyond what the evidence supports.
Or put in other words, here's Hume's famous quote:
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."
Thank you, David Hume, for reminding us how to dispense with nonsense. Unfortunately, human reasoning tends to be muddied with it. Fostering empiricism, like he describes, is one of the best antidotes.
I think, if I had read this book at the time it was written, I would have found it more profound. But, as much as I enjoyed the general experience of reading this, some parts haven't aged well in the nearly 300 years since then.
There are still parts that are still very relevant and very good, though. I'll get to that in a second. First:
The outdated bits
On several occasions, Hume throws up his hands in surrender for issues that are "unknowable," like, uhhhh, why fire is hot, which we actually understand now due to Science™!
There are quite a lot of things Hume ponders deeply and can't find an answer to, that are now common knowledge; or that he draws shaky conclusions to that we would now consider incorrect, due to developments in psychology, etc.
An almost bad thing that was really just a sad thing
Initially, I was disappointed with Hume's take on religion. Twice, it seemed, he comes very close to disproving his own beliefs (in the chapter on necessity and liberty, and the chapter on morals), but failed to take his own arguments to their full, logical conclusions, even though he's very thorough with all other topics.
But after doing some research, and learning more about David Hume the man, I realize that privately, he probably did take these arguments to their conclusions. He was, in fact, an atheist; his "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" wasn't published until after his death.
This is because it was just really socially unacceptable to be an atheist back then. He couldn't publicly share all of his actual thoughts on the matter without serious social repurcussions. And that makes me sad.
The best part
What I appreciated most about this book was the overall emphasis on empiricism, particularly as it was layed out in the chapter on miracles. I loved the way he argued for evaluating the strength of the evidence for a claim, and not then placing confidence in that claim beyond what the evidence supports.
Or put in other words, here's Hume's famous quote:
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."
Thank you, David Hume, for reminding us how to dispense with nonsense. Unfortunately, human reasoning tends to be muddied with it. Fostering empiricism, like he describes, is one of the best antidotes.
reflective
medium-paced
What an amazing book! In the space of a mere 100 pages Hume argues for empiricism, pinpoints the problem of induction as a basis for epistemology (inspiring Karl Popper to find another foundation for science, namely, that a theory should be falsifiable), treats the problem of cause and effect, provides an argument against miracles and provides the proto-Idealist idead that will inspire Kant later. Probably no other philosophical work managed so much in so little space!
Some of the old-fashioned writing style can be a slog, and in many places one feels that many of Hume' problems would be solved if he knew about modern science, but overall so many of the topics discussed are still relevant today and have stood the test of time that I cannot help but recomment this for the philosophically inclined!
Some of the old-fashioned writing style can be a slog, and in many places one feels that many of Hume' problems would be solved if he knew about modern science, but overall so many of the topics discussed are still relevant today and have stood the test of time that I cannot help but recomment this for the philosophically inclined!
Hume's radical empiricism is almost standard today - not so much his claim that even repeated experiment can only show probability, but that everything requires experiment and can't simply be reasoned out. That doesn't make it any less radical, or profound. His arguments are simply and clearly presented, though I admit I didn't follow the reasoning behind his determinism and its compatibility with free will, everything else was quite clear. His veiled-for-the-purposes-of-politeness attacks on religion are surprisingly prevalent in this book considering that he didn't want to publish his Dialogues on Natural Religion until after his death because of more or less the same attacks.
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding proceeds with caution asking all the while what we can really know and confirm. He generally concludes that human understanding and knowledge is embarrassingly limited. He's not wrong in that sensory evidence and probability of conjunction of events tells us but never solidly proves causation or some other type of fixed sequence. It just feels like there must be more. Hume would fire back that as much as you would like there to be more there isn't, sorry. It is the truest "stay in your lane" philosophy and there isn't much wrong with that.