Hume's enlightenment tract: the unity and purpose of An enquiry concerning human understanding

New York: Oxford University Press (2001)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Hume's Enlightenment Tract is the first full study for forty years of David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. The Enquiry has, contrary to its author's expressed wishes, long lived in the shadow of its predecessor, A Treatise of Human Nature. Stephen Buckle presents the Enquiry in a fresh light, and aims to raise it to its rightful position in Hume's work and in the history of philosophy

Categories

Keywords

Reprint years

2004

Call number

B1484.B83 2001

ISBN(s)

0198250886   0199271143

DOI

10.1093/mind/111.441.84
View all bargains

Buy this book

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,202

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

My notes

Chapters

Clearing the Ground

This book is out of step with some well-established verities in the interpretation of David Hume's philosophy. The preference is misguided in at least two respects. In the first place, it reflects certain convictions about the nature of Hume's philosophy — convictions derived from selected... see more

Circumstances and Aim

From its opening section, the first Enquiry signals that it has a polemical purpose. It is not merely a polemic, of course, but identifying the work's apparent and real targets assists in bringing out the underlying unity of its argument; and that argument, once its outlines have been sket... see more

Experimentalism and Scepticism

To cast David Hume as a player in the major drama of the new philosophy against the old may appear to make him Newtonian to a degree no longer seriously defensible. To qualify this view by adding that he is seeking to purify the new philosophy, even against some of its most notable defende... see more

Of the different Species of Philosophy

The opening section of the first Enquiry has two main tasks. The first is pre-emptive damage control, the second is to signal the work's critical purpose. The damage control is the task of encouraging the polite reader not to be disheartened when the subsequent chapters become harder going... see more

Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Understanding

This section presents David Hume's argument, the thoroughly Lockean argument that a properly experimental philosophy undermines the dogmatist's belief in the capacities of human reason to discern the underlying nature of reality. He rejects the dogmatic claims of philosophies that seek to ... see more

Sceptical Solution of these Doubts

Sceptical doubts require an answer, or scepticism will be the result. Indeed, scepticism will also be the result if the answer given affirms skeptical themes; and the sceptical solution provided in this section is a case in point. However, if to affirm skepticism is, as it is not frequentl... see more

Of Miracles

This section has suffered from its own success. In the first place, it has been so frequently anthologised in collections of readings in the philosophy of religion that it is most frequently read out of context. Restoring it to its place within David Hume's wider argument aids in understan... see more

Of the academical or sceptical Philosophy

The interconnected essays that make up this work have displayed a clear tendency: sceptical doubts have been raised, and sceptical solutions proposed. This is true not only of the two sections that explicitly bear this tag, but also of those succeeding sections that appeal to custom, proba... see more

Hume's Enlightenment Tract

The best explanations of the physical world are provided by experimental philosophy. This philosophy denies knowledge to make room for enquiry. That is, it rejects the extravagant claims made on behalf of human reason by the dogmatic philosophers, and therefore also of the knowledge of the... see more

Similar books and articles

An enquiry concerning human understanding.David Hume - 2000 - In Steven M. Cahn (ed.), Exploring Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press USA. pp. 112.
Stephen Buckle, Hume's Enlightenment Tract: The Unity and Purpose of 'An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding'. [REVIEW]Heiner F. Klemme - 2003 - Erkenntnis 58 (1):126-129.
Reading Hume on Human Understanding: Essays on the First Enquiry.Peter Millican (ed.) - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
An enquiry concerning human understanding: a critical edition.David Hume - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Tom L. Beauchamp.
An enquiry concerning human understanding and other writings.David Hume (ed.) - 2007 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hume's enlightenment tract: The unity and purpose of 'an enquiry concerning human understanding'.J. P. Wright - 2003 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (3):434 – 436.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
112 (#152,861)

6 months
15 (#143,114)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Quasi-Realism and Inductive Scepticism in Hume’s Theory of Causation.Dominic K. Dimech - 2019 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (4):637-650.
Hume and the enactive approach to mind.Tom Froese - 2009 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8 (1):95-133.
Humes old and new: Four fashionable falsehoods, and one unfashionable truth.Peter Millican - 2007 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1):163-199.

View all 19 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references