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An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist and philosopher David Hume, published in 1748. It was a simplification of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–1740. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise (it "fell dead-born from the press", as he put it) and so tried again to get his ideas before the public in this Enquiry. Among the changes from the Treatise included a removal of Hume's theories of personal identity.
This book was highly influential. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber".
Summary
The argument of the Enquiry proceeds following a series of incremental steps, separated into chapters which logically succeed one another.
- Of the different species of philosophy. In the first section of the Enquiry, Hume provides a rough introduction to philosophy as a whole. For Hume, philosophy can be split into two general parts: natural and moral philosophy. By "moral philosophy" Hume means the philosophy of human nature, which investigates both actions and thoughts. He emphasizes in this section, by way of warning, that philosophers with nuanced thoughts will likely be cast aside in favor of those who wield rhetoric (or sophists). However, he insists, precision helps art and craft of all kinds, including the craft of philosophy.
However, Hume admits that his account has one Achilles Heel: the "missing blue shade" problem. In this thought-experiment, he asks us to imagine a man who has experienced every shade of blue except for one. He predicts that this man will be able to divine the color of this particular shade of blue, despite the fact that he has never experienced it. This seems to pose a serious problem for the empirical account, though Hume brushes it aside as an exceptional case.
- Of the association of ideas. In this chapter, Hume discusses how thoughts tend to come in sequences, as in trains of thought. He explains that there are at least three kinds of associations between ideas: resemblance, contiguity, and cause-and-effect. He argues that there must be some universal principle that must account for the various sorts of connections that exist between ideas, but does not immediately show what this principle might be.
- Skeptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding (in two parts).
- In the first part, Hume discusses how the objects of inquiry are either "relations of ideas" or "matters of fact", which is roughly the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. The former, he tells the reader, are proved by demonstration, while the latter are given through experience.
- In part two, Hume inquires into how anyone can justifiably believe that experience yields any conclusions about the world. "When it is asked, What is the nature of all our reasonings concerning matter of fact? the proper answer seems to be, that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect. When again it is asked, What is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning that relation? it may be replied in one word, experience. But if we still carry on our sifting humor, and ask, What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience? this implies a new question, which may be of more difficult solution and explication." (p. 328) He shows how a satisfying argument for the validity of experience can be based neither on demonstration (since "it implies no contradiction that the couse of nature may change", p. 330) nor experience (since that would be a circular argument). Here he is describing what would become known as the problem of induction.
- Skeptical solution of these doubts (in two parts).
- For Hume, we assume that experience tells us something about the world because of habit or custom, which human nature forces us to take seriously. This is also, presumably, the "principle" that organizes the connections between ideas. Indeed, one of the many famous passages of the Enquiry was on the topic of the incorrigibility of human custom. Hume wrote: "The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of skepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life. These principles may flourish and triumph in the schools; where it is, indeed, difficult, if not impossible, to refute them. But as soon as they leave the shade, and by the presence of the real objects, which actuate our passions and sentiments, are put in opposition to the more powerful principles of our nature, they vanish like smoke, and leave the most determined skeptic in the same condition as other mortals."
- In the second part, he provides an account of beliefs.
- Of probability. This short chapter begins with the notions of probability and chance. For him, "probability" means a higher chance of occurring, and brings about a higher degree of subjective expectation in the viewer. By "chance", he means all those particular comprehensible events which the viewer considers possible in accord with their experience. However, further experience takes these equal chances, and forces the imagination to observe that certain chances arise more frequently than others. These gentle forces upon the imagination cause the viewer to have strong beliefs in outcomes. This effect may be understood as another case of custom or habit taking past experience and using it to predict the future.
- Of the idea of necessary connection (in two parts).
- By "necessary connection", Hume means the power or force which necessarily ties one idea to another. He rejects the notion that any sensible qualities are necessarily conjoined, since that would mean we could know something prior to experience. He also rejects the idea that volitions or impulses of the will may be necessarily connected to the actions they produce, since (among other reasons) we have no immediate knowledge of the powers which allow an impulse of volition to create an action.
- In the second part, he produces his solution to the dilemma: that the idea of a necessary connection arises out of observation of constant conjunction of certain impressions across many instances. He then produces three formulations of causation.
- Of liberty and necessity (in two parts). Here Hume tackles the problem of free will, espousing a broadly compatibilist position.
- Of the reason of animals (comparable to man). Hume insists that the conclusions of the Enquiry will be very powerful if they can be shown to apply to animals and not just humans. He believed that animals were able to infer the relation between cause and effect in the same way that humans can. (His views can be likened to those of behaviorism in 20th century psychology. However, testing on animals such as cats have concluded that they do not possess any faculty which allow their minds to grasp an insight into cause and effect.) He also notes that this "inferential" ability that animals have is not through reason, but custom alone. He concludes that there is an innate faculty of instincts which both beasts and humans share, namely, the ability to reason experimentally (through custom). Nevertheless, he admits, humans and animals differ in mental faculties in a number of ways, including: differences in memory and attention, inferential abilities, ability to make deductions in a long chain, ability to grasp ideas more or less clearly, the human capacity to worry about conflating unrelated circumstances, a sagely prudence which arrests generalizations, a capacity for a greater inner library of analogies to reason with, an ability to detach oneself and scrap one's own biases, and an ability to converse (and thus gain from the experience of others' testimonies).
- Of miracles (in two parts).
- Of a particular providence and of a future state.
- Of the academical or sceptical philosophy (in three parts).
- The first section of the last chapter is organized as an outline of various skeptical arguments. The treatment includes the arguments of atheism, Cartesian skepticism, "light" skepticism, and rationalist critiques of empiricism. Hume shows that even light skepticism leads to crushing doubts about the world which - while ultimately are more philosophically justifiable - may only be combatted through the non-philosophical adherance to custom or habit. He ends the section with his own reservations towards Cartesian and Lockean epistemologies.
- In the second section he returns to the topic of excessive skepticism.
- He concludes the volume by setting out the limits of knowledge once and for all. He argues that any metaphysical doctrines which cannot be reduced to an analysis of numbers, or matters of fact, ought to be ignored as sophistry and illusion.
External links
References
- Locke, John, and George Berkeley, David Hume. The Empiricists. 1974. Toronto: Random House.
1748 books | Books by David Hume | Philosophy books
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"An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding"