An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

This is the most valuable of Hume's works to listen to because he offers a mature summary of his sceptical views on the limits of human knowledge. He covers all the main issues starting with his empiricist view that all simple 'ideas' are based on 'impressions' and complex ideas can be constructed from combinations of other ideas. He fails, however, to fully address the possibility of combining 'a priori' mathematical concepts with ideas drawn from experience.

His formulation of a compatiblist position on free will and determinism improves on the thinking of Locke and Hobbes but appears quaint today in the light of modern studies in neuroscience, consciousness and volition, reflected in the thinking of Libet, Haggart and Honderich.

His attack on miracles reveals a deeply prejudiced and conceited attitude to what he terms 'barbarous nations' and appears closed to new empirical evidence. Hume has too rigid a conception of 'laws' of nature, which appears old-fashioned as modern science now prefers to understand observed patterns as 'models' of interpretation. Swinburne, who views miracles as 'counter-instances' to the predictions of such models, has offered a thorough critique of Hume's vague musings on the credibility of witness statements on miracles.

This book is a must-listen for anyone interested in philosophy because of its powerful impact on the course of philosophical thinking, both on the continent, through Kant, and on the analytic approach in Britain. Hume's reflections on the common ground between human and animal understanding anticipate Darwin, and illustrate the courage and ground-breaking originality of Hume's thinking.

The narration is superb because of its clarity, but it does not fully capture the sceptical tone of Hume's writing. Careful inflection helps bring out the sense, even when Hume's style is a little elaborate to the modern ear.

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7 people found this helpful

Great work of philosophy.

Hume is a master of expression. Very easy to read and understand. Philosophical ideas apprended by the simplicity in explanation. Definitions are laid unconcusively. Great work and well narrated.

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I doubt it gets much better than this

Hume skewers the majority of his contemporaries by offering his clear and concise doctrine of skeptical empiricism. His hand is steady and calm, and his words are like steadfast arrows that he aims at the hithertofore impenetrable core of the rationalist fortress.

The book consists of largely two intervowen themes: anti-inductivistic empiricism and religious skepticism. While capable of being treated in isolation, they emerge from the same motivation: to encourage recognition of the limits of human understanding.

The brilliance of Hume's criticism of causal inferences requires no exposition. It remains one of the great achievements of epistemology.

Even if Kant and later thinkers improved upon it - without exactly refuting it - the skeptical logic retains an undeniable, raw, powerful immediacy.

Whether Hume was a full-blown atheist or not (my guess is that he was), the text leaves very little wiggle room for "the religious hypothesis."

The skeptical treatment of vulgar superstitions and educated follies is equally valuable, since human hubris, maleducation and gullibility remain the true masters of modern societies.

Hume's essayistic style is constantly verbose and not exactly scintillating on every page, but it is consistently lucid, analytical, honest, well-argued - and passionate where it counts.

The essay doesn't drag on either. It makes its case, clarifies it, expands it, and doesn't get bogged down in anecdotes. The book finishes strong, with a powerful appeal to a revolution in thought.

Surreptitiously, the reader is left in a state of doubt. The coup de grace was swift and fierce, and all is different. The invitation to a quiet contemplation by a gentleman was a kiss of death to our most cherished assumptions. And we are all better off for the death and rebirth.

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1 person found this helpful

weal and of little substance

there are so many more useful philosophers out there. this one wrote a book which says little of any use in any context. seems he likes to take a pot shot at many other philosophers, be they English or French.

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