Hume's 'Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding': A Reader's Guide

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A&C Black, Dec 24, 2006 - Philosophy - 160 pages

David Hume is widely considered to be the greatest British philosopher and his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is the most frequently studied of all his works - a key text in the study of empiricist thought. This is a hugely important and exciting, yet challenging, piece of philosophical writing.

In Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: A Reader's Guide, Allen Bailey and Dan O'Brien explain the philosophical background against which the book was written and the key themes inherent in the text. The book then guides the reader to a clear understanding of the text as a whole, before exploring the reception and influence of this classic philosophical work. This is the ideal companion to study of this most influential and challenging of texts.

 

Contents

Reading the text
4
Of the origin of ideas
34
Of the association of ideas
43
Sceptical solution of these doubts
57
Of probability
64
Of liberty and necessity
84
Of the reason of animals
96
Of miracles
102
Of a particular providence and of a future state
114
Of the Academical or sceptical philosophy
127
Humes influence
137
Further reading
147
Bibliography
154
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About the author (2006)

Alan Bailey has taught in the Philosophy departments at the University of Keele and the University of Birmingham, UK. Dan O'Brien is a Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham and Associate Lecturer at the Open University, UK.

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