Enter The Mind
Skeptic of certainty and anatomist of human habit
David Hume was born in Edinburgh to a modest landed family and entered the University of Edinburgh unusually young, though he left without taking a degree. After abandoning a business career, he devoted himself to philosophical study and wrote A Treatise of Human Nature while still a young man. He later refined those arguments in the Enquiries and became a central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment as both philosopher and historian. His work is famous for grounding knowledge in experience, explaining causation through habit, and rooting morals in sentiment rather than pure reason.
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Begin with the anchor work, then sample a few representative passages before going wider.
Anchor Work
In this mature restatement of his empiricist philosophy, Hume asks what human beings can really know and how belief is formed. The Enquiry is famous for its analysis of causation, induction, miracles, and the dependence of understanding on custom rather than rational necessity.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, _Does it contain any abstract reasoning...
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Indulge your passion for science, says she, but let your science be human, and such as may have a direct reference to action and society. Abstruse thought and profound researches I prohibit, and will severely punish, by...
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
All other enquiries of men regard only matter of fact and existence; and these are evidently incapable of demonstration. Whatever is may not be. No negation of a fact can involve a contradiction. The non-existence of...
Works
Ordered for usefulness first: anchor texts and the works most alive in the current excerpt corpus.
1748 / 198 excerpts
In this mature restatement of his empiricist philosophy, Hume asks what human beings can really know and how belief is formed. The Enquiry is famous for its analysis of causation, induction, miracles, and the dependence of understanding on custom rather than rational necessity.
Highlights
These are strong thread entry points drawn from the existing excerpt set.
The author claims that prophecies are a subset of miracles and concludes that the Christian religion requires a miraculous subversion of reason for one to believe it.
What we have said of miracles may be applied, without any variation, to prophecies; and indeed, all prophecies are real miracles, and as such only, can be admitted as proofs of any revelation. If it did not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretell...
Hume advises philosophy to abandon the pursuit of 'sublime mysteries' like divine decree and return to the modest examination of common life.
To reconcile the indifference and contingency of human actions with prescience; or to defend absolute decrees, and yet free the Deity from being the author of sin, has been found hitherto to exceed all the power of philosophy. Happy, if she be thence sensible...
Hume identifies custom as the essential guide of human life, without which we would be unable to act or reason beyond our immediate memory.
Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past. Without the influence of custom, we...
The author argues that a cause must be strictly proportioned to its effect, meaning we cannot logically attribute more qualities to a creator than are visible in the creation.
The cause must be proportioned to the effect; and if we exactly and precisely proportion it, we shall never find in it any qualities, that point farther, or afford an inference concerning any other design or performance. Such qualities must be somewhat beyond...
Signature Themes
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Related Authors
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