An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by philosopher David Hume, published in 1748.
The text is in the public domain.
This is the book that woke Immanuel Kant from his self-described "dogmatic slumber". It was a simplification of an earlier effort, Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London 1739–40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise (it "fell dead-born from the press", as he put it) and so tried again to get his ideas before the public in this Enquiry.
In one of the many famous passages of the Enquiry, Hume wrote:
"The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of skepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life. These principles may flourish and triumph in the schools; where it is, indeed, difficult, if not impossible, to refute them. But as soon as they leave the shade, and by the presence of the real objects, which actuate our passions and sentiments, are put in opposition to the more powerful principles of our nature, they vanish like smoke, and leave the most determined skeptic in the same condition as other mortals."
