%%id:308%% %%start:review%% ## Review Essays on the human understanding, or sometimes said as Inquiry (abbrv. Essays) on the humain understanding, is the most famous book of David Hume, at the apogee of the scepticism theory. It was written in 1748 and followed his second book *"A treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects"* where he developed his keys concepts, but that didn't find his public. Later on, it will influence Kant, who qualified Essays as one of the most decisive book for his thinking paradigm. In Essays, Hume highlight how our knowledge is dependent of our experience, not only as a cluster of lived situations but as any of the things that can be feeled and resume it as "all the knowledge we can have is the result of our experience and nothing more". It oppose to Descartes' Cogito as he demonstrate that none of the things we know can be innate, because everything derives from our experiences and impressions. We also can cite, as opposed to the theories of a lot of philosophers who think that a transcendant entity is responsible of some or total of our knowledge, may it be named god or anything other (think of Nature in Spinoza's system) so: Malebranche, Nicole, Descartes, Epictete, Pyrrhon... Hume take more his assumptions from atheist philosophers and scientific, and first from Newton, whom he described as one of the genius of his era. He will, in the book, largely refer to Newton's laws and epistemological ideas to proves his assents. It will also sporadically, mostly on the "On Belief" chapter, describe how he agree with Epicure on the fact that miracles (and thus God) don't exists. Among others who he had agree with: Leibniz Hume is largely one of the most influential philosopher on modern epistemology and science's philosophy and we understand why within this book. He achieve to perfectly demonstrate that the origin and the association of ideas can solely come from experience and that one's , not just can't absolutely be sure of any of one knowledge, even for the most obvious assumptions, such as "the sun will rise tomorrow", but also that no one comes to the world with innate caracteristcs, because everything derives from the experience. He also emphasis the importance of habits as > The most important principle to the subsistance of our species and to the tuning of our behaviour, in all human life circonstances and occurrences. For Hume, as anything is created by experience, and that you can never be sure at 100% of the reproduction of a causal link between two events, it is the habits or custom to that, acquired and consolidated by experience, that define us. It was for me one of the best book I've ever read -not the less demanding for sure-. The things that strikes me is how simple, beautiful, consistent, thoughtful, and unbeatable his demonstration is. It highlighted and tells with better words how I was merely thinking about the birth, the construction and the association of ideas as well of the weight of influences. I arrived to this book after reading [L'Existentialisme Est Un Humanisme - Jean Paul Sartre](L'Existentialisme%20Est%20Un%20Humanisme%20-%20Jean%20Paul%20Sartre.md), and listening various podcast on Hume. I firstly was attracted by his ideas about identity but quickly discover that his major field of research was epistemology and aesthetics. I understand how someone like Kant could have been stuck by Essays, because, even though it was written in 1748, it is nowadays still something that can be eyes opening on a lot of principles, especially on religion and the innate/acquired debates. %%end:review%% --- _The following was auto-generated by [Books and Binders](Books%20and%20Binders.md) and relates to the copy I own_ ## Enquête Sur l'Entendement Humain This book from David Hume was edited by Le Livre De Poche and released 12/2021. I had it for 5.1€ from Fnac. I read the 316 pages yet. ## More on this book : - Buying date : 27/10/2022 - Buying condition : brand_new - Actual condition : very_good - Book type : physical - Binding : paperback - Language : French - Category : Philosophy - ISBN : 9782253067344 - Weight in grams :