Details Based On Books An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Title	:	An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Author	:	David Hume
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 96 pages
Published	:	January 1st 2006 by Digireads.com (first published 1748)
Categories	:	Philosophy. Nonfiction. Classics. Psychology

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Paperback | Pages: 96 pages

Relation As Books An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

I had seen so many references to Hume's Enquiry that I almost thought I had read it; but, when I actually got around to opening the book, I found as usual that things were not quite as I had imagined. I was not surprised by his relentless scepticism, or by his insistence on basing all reasoning on empirical evidence. These qualities, after all, have become proverbial. I was, however, surprised to find that I hadn't correctly grasped the essence of his argument concerning the nature of knowledge. In case you are as poorly informed as I was, let me summarise it here. Hume's position is wonderfully simple. He asks what grounds we have for supposing that multiple repetitions of an experiment justify us in inferring a necessary law. If we note, on many occasions, that hot objects burn our hands when we touch them, what logical reason do we have for assuming that we should not touch the next candle flame we happen to see? The answer is that we have no logical grounds at all for making such an inference. Of course, as a matter of observed fact, we do assume, after a small number of trials, that touching hot objects will hurt us. Hume says this is nothing to do with logic; we are simply designed in such a way that we cannot help being influenced by our experience to adopt such rules. As he points out, many other living creatures do the same. It is impossible to believe that a dog or a horse is performing any kind of logical deduction when they learn to avoid touching naked flames. They simply acquire the habit of behaving in this way. The most economical explanation of what we see is that human beings are doing the same thing. A mountain of discussion has accumulated since Hume published his book, and it would be presumptuous of me to give my opinions when so many extremely clever people have already done so. I am, however, struck by something I have noticed in the course of my professional career. I have worked in Artificial Intelligence and related subjects since the early 80s, and during that period the field has suffered a profound change. In 1980, most AI research was related to logic. People assumed that the notion of intelligence was in some essential way based on the notion of deduction. Making machines intelligent was a question of making them capable of performing the right kinds of logical inferences. This tempting approach was, unfortunately, a resounding failure. Somewhere towards the end of the last century, a different way of looking at things started to become fashionable, and quickly gained ground. Instead of thinking about logic, people began more and more to think about probability. They collected data and extracted various kinds of statistical regularities. The new AI systems made no attempt to think logically; their decisions were based on associations acquired from their experience. At first, the AI community was scornful, but it was soon found that "data-driven" systems worked quite well. They made stupid mistakes sometimes; but so did the logic-based systems, and the mechanical logicians tended to make more stupid mistakes. They could reason, but they had no common sense. Today, data-driven systems have taken over the field, and the approach has been shown to work well for many problems which had once been considered impossible challenges. Particularly striking successes have been notched up in machine translation, speech recognition, computer vision, and allied fields. If David Hume came back today, I have no idea whether he'd be offered a chair at a philosophy department. But I'm fairly sure that Google would be interested in hiring him.

Particularize Books During An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Original Title:	An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
ISBN:	1420926993 (ISBN13: 9781420926996)
Edition Language:	English

Rating Based On Books An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Ratings: 3.92 From 16351 Users | 432 Reviews

Commentary Based On Books An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

It is rare that I read an entire book twice in a row, but I made an exception for Hume's Enquiry. Yes, hes that good. I wasnt quite as happy with the Kindle version of this book though, since there are no direct links in the text to Hume's own notes - which doesnt exactly allow for a smooth reading experience. The Oxford Worlds Classics edition includes the Abstract of the Treatise of Human Nature, the essay Of the Immortality of the Soul, excerpts from letters and from the Dialogues concerning

After his three-volume Treatise of Human Nature dropped like a rock to the bottom of the pool of British philosophic writing, Hume set out to write a briefer, more accessible version -- the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. One of the early points it makes is that most endeavors to write about the nature of thought are hopeless and nearly impossible to understand. With that disclaimer, Hume sets out to contradict himself by writing lucidly about, while candidly acknowledging the severe

In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence."Best summary I've seen:*As intriguing today as when it was first published, Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a fascinating exploration into the nature of human knowledge. Using billiard balls, candles and other colorful examples, Hume conveys the core of his

It is ironic that Hume was known in his own time as a historian and his philosophical work was largely ignored while he was alive. We know him today for his philosophy, not his historical writing. He is part of British empiricists along with Locke, and Berkeley. He concluded their inquiries based on empirical knowledge. Hume's big points in this book are the problem of induction simply that we see one thing follow another we never see actual causes and we have maybe seen the sunrise in the

Hume's classic philosphical investigation into the nature and limits of human knowledge and its acquisition.



"Be a philosopher; but amidst all your philosophy, be still a man".