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AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING
HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
David Hume (1711–76) was born and educated in Edinburgh. In
1739–40he published A Treatise of Human Nature, a great work but
poorly received, and Hume came to regret the style and haste in
which he had written it. Far more successful were his Essays, Moral,
Political, and Literary, published from 1741, which proved highly
influential in political theory, aesthetics, and especially economics.
In1748Hume revised the abstruse epistemology of the Treatise
in essay form, as the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, the
definitive statement of his mature theoretical philosophy. Combining
elegance with devastating insight, it presents the views for which he
is now most famous, including his scepticism about induction and
causation, his compatibilist account of free will, his rejection of reli-
gious miracles, and his advocacy of ‘mitigated scepticism’.
In the course of a colourful life which included episodes in the
military, diplomatic, and civil services, Hume went on to write major
works in ethics, philosophy of religion, and history. But the argu-
ments expressed in the Enquiryare those on which his revolutionary
importance, as one of the greatest philosophers of all time, mainly
rests. This is the first modern edition to reproduce faithfully the text
of the Enquiryin its final form.
Peter Millican, Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Hertford
College, Oxford, studied at Oxford University and has also taught
at Glasgow and Leeds. His philosophical interests and publications
cover a wide range but with a particular focus on Hume and related
topics, especially the Enquiry, on which he also edited the collection
Reading Hume on Human Understanding(OUP,2002). He runs the
websitedavidhume.org, and is co-editor of the journal Hume Studies.
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
DAVID HUME
An Enquiry concerning
Human Understanding
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
PETER MILLICAN
1
3
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hume, David, 1711-1776
[Philosophical essays concerning human understanding]
An enquiry concerning human understanding / David Hume; edited with
an introduction and notes by Peter Millican.
p. cm.—(Oxford world’s classics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN–13: 978–0–19–921158–6 (alk. paper)
1.Knowledge, Theory of.I.Millican, P. J. R. (Peter J. R.)II.Title.
B1481.M55 2007
121—dc22
2006102409
Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Clays Ltd., St Ives plc
ISBN978-0-19-921158-6
13579108642
CONTENTS
Abbreviations vii
Introduction ix
1. From Ancient to Modern Cosmology xi
2. From Aristotelian to Cartesian Intelligibility xiii
3. Corpuscularianism, Locke, and Newton xvi
4. Free Will, and the Dangers of Infidelity xx
5. God’s Design, and Human Reason xxiii
6. Inertness, Malebranche, and Berkeley xxv
7. The Humean Revolution xxix
8. Section I: The Aims of the Enquiry xxx
9. Sections II and III: The Origin and Association of Ideas xxxii
10. Section IV: Hume’s Fork xxxv
11. Sections IV and V: The Basis of Factual Reasoning xxxvii
12. Section VI: ‘Of Probability’ xl
13. Section VII: ‘Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion’ xlii
14. Section VIII: ‘Of Liberty and Necessity’ xlvi
15. Section IX: ‘Of the Reason of Animals’ xlviii
16. Section X: ‘Of Miracles’ xlix
17. Section XI: ‘Of a Particular Providence, and of
a Future State’ lii
18. Section XII: ‘Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy’ liii
Note on the Text lvii
Select Bibliography lxi
A Chronology of David Hume lxiii
AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING
HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
Advertisement 2
i. Of the different Species of Philosophy 3
ii. Of the Origin of Ideas 12
iii. Of the Association of Ideas 16
vi Contents
iv. Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations
of the Understanding 18
v. Sceptical Solution of these Doubts 30
vi. Of Probability 41
vii. Of the Idea of necessary Connexion 44
viii. Of Liberty and Necessity 58
ix. Of the Reason of Animals 76
x. Of Miracles 79
xi. Of a particular Providence and of a future State 96
xii. Of the academical or sceptical Philosophy 109
Hume’s Endnotes 121
Appendix I:AbstractofA Treatise of Human Nature(1740) 133
Appendix II: ‘Of the Immortality of the Soul’ (printed 1755) 146
Appendix III: Excerpts from Parts I and II of the Dialogues
concerning Natural Religion(1779) 152
Appendix IV: Excerpts from Hume’s Letters 161
Appendix V: ‘My Own Life’ 169
Textual Variants 177
Explanatory Notes 185
Glossary 212
Glossarial Index of Major Philosophers and Philosophical
Movements 220
Hume’s Index 229
Index of Major Themes, Concepts, and Examples 231
Index of Names Mentioned in the Enquiry 233
Index of References to Hume’s Works 235
ABBREVIATIONS
References to Hume’s works are to the following editions and, except for
theEnquiryand the Treatise, indicate page numbers.
D Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, ed. Norman Kemp Smith
(Edinburgh: Nelson, 2nd edn. 1947)
E Enquiry concerning Human Understanding(this volume). References
to the Enquiryare given using section and paragraph numbers. In
the endmatter (such as the Explanatory Notes), the initial E is
usually omitted: thus the first paragraph on p. 26of this volume
can be referred to as either ‘E4.19’ or simply ‘4.19’. For detail
concerning marginal numbers and footnote references within the
Enquiry, see the Note on the Text, below, pp. lvii–lx.
Essays Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller
(Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 2nd edn., 1987)
History The History of England, ed. William Todd, 6vols. (Indianapolis:
Liberty Classics, 1983)
HL The Letters of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig, 2vols. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1932)
NHL New Letters of David Hume, ed. R. Klibansky and E. C. Mossner
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954)
L A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh, ed. Ernest C.
Mossner and John V. Price (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press,1967, containing a facsimile of the original 1745edn.)
T A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. David Fate Norton and Mary J.
Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). References to
the Treatise are given using book, part, section, and paragraph
numbers. Thus, for example, ‘T1.3.6.10’ indicates paragraph 10
of Book 1, Part 3, Section 6.
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INTRODUCTION
David Hume (1711–76) was one of the great philosophers (arguably
the greatest) of that prodigiously fruitful era known as the early modern
period. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, scholastic
Aristotelianism, a world-view which had dominated thought for many
hundreds of years, finally began to be overshadowed by a recogniz-
ably modern scientific perspective. René Descartes (1596–1650),
building on the discoveries of Galileo Galilei and others, was the first
philosopher seriously to threaten Aristotle’s dominance. Then in the
next generation, John Locke (1632–1704) developed a rival account
of the world, incorporating scientific developments from England
associated particularly with Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. By the
end of the seventeenth century, scholasticism was in terminal decline,
but intense debate continued as philosophers sought to make sense of
the world and man’s place in it, accommodating the new discoveries.
Some of the points in dispute were essentially scientific, but many
others concerned what we would now call epistemology(i.e. theory of
knowledge) or philosophy of science, and many of the most intractable
also had a theological dimension. Both Descartes and Locke found
ways of tying these threads together, and they were followed by
others, such as respectively Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) and
George Berkeley (1685–1753), who later developed their theories in
novel ways.
Despite this variety of speculation, these thinkers all shared some
important assumptions, notably a view of the world as created by
divine reason, and—relatedly—as potentially ‘intelligible’ to human
reason. Hume’s special significance is as the first great philosopher to
question both of these pervasive assumptions, and to build an episte-
mology and philosophy of science that in no way depend on either of
them. Over a century before Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species of
1859, Hume argued powerfully that human reason is fundamentally
similar to that of the other animals, founded on instinct rather than
quasi-divine insight into things. Hence science must proceed by exper-
iment and systematization of observations, rather than by metaphys-
ical theorizing or a priori speculation. This outlook, revolutionary in its
time, was to be powerfully vindicated during the twentieth century
