This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is the thesis of a thinker who was a scientist, psychologist, metaphysician, and skeptic who continues to fascinate contemporary minds. The product of both youthful fire and mature consideration, the
Enquiry, ‘contain[s] everything of Consequence relating to the understanding.’ In the face of skepticism, the
Enquiry offered progress based on experience. In a time of dogmatism, the
Enquiry dissected the basis of religious faith and delivered a still-powerful critique. It endeavors to be nothing less than the construction of an anatomy of human nature.
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David Hume was born on April 26, 1711, and grew up in Ninewells and Edinburgh, Scotland. His widowed mother educated her ‘uncommonly wake-minded’ son until he enrolled at age eleven at the University of Edinburgh, where he initially considered a career in law. At fifteen years old, he left the university to answer inner questions of theology and metaphysics. Among his friends were notables Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), Adam Smith (1723-90), and James Boswell (1740-95). After his death, others including Auguste Comte (1798-1857), Charles Darwin (1809-82), and Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) admitted admiration for his writings.