An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season125 pages, about 2 hours: half the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbSection One compares two kinds of philosophy, and one reader stalled at its fourth paragraph.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesNigel Warburton, on Five Books, traces Hume’s account of ideas to John Locke’s blank-slate tradition.
The case for it
on having all the answers
“I read Hume’s Enquiry, this wonderful, humane book saying that nobody has all the answers.”
Paul Krugman · Five Books, 2012 on the miracles argument
“The famous section X of the First Enquiry on miracles is this wonderful epistemological argument”
Simon Blackburn · Five Books, 2013 on the length
“It is fairly short and quite well-written”
a Substack review on the style
“in its relatively easy, non-academic style is an excellent starting point for exploring Hume.”
five stars · a book blog
The case against
on the substance
“In style, it exhibits a great improvement on the Treatise; but the substance, if not deteriorated, is certainly not improved. Hume does not really bring his mature powers to bear upon his early speculations, in the later work.”
Thomas Henry Huxley · Hume, 1879 on the prose
“difficult in parts because of the 18th century prose”
Nigel Warburton · Five Books, 2021 on the free will section
“I shall pass over the sections on free will (because I did not understand it)”
a book blog on missing shade of blue
“You’ve just admitted that there is at least one exception to your whole philosophical argument”
a book blog
