An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

David Hume is one of the most prominent figures of the Enlightenment and is perhaps Scotland’s most famous—or infamous—philosopher. Born in 1711 in Edinburgh, Hume’s work as a philosopher centered largely around questions of human nature and epistemology, or theory of knowledge. He was one of the most controversial figures of his time for his views on God, miracles, and the supernatural as well as his novel views of causality and sensory perception of material objects. Hume’s first major work A Treatise of Human Nature was met with apathy when noticed at all. It was only his later works—An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals—that gained him the fame and recognition that he had long desired after a career as a librarian and historian.

Hume’s major contributions came in the areas of epistemology, the relation between ideas/thoughts and impressions, and the relation between cause and effect. Hume’s academic career was slow to get off the ground. He was accused of being an atheist, which he denied, due to his views that all miracles are false and that human activity is ultimately a-moral, meaning without moral implications for good or bad.