An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (World's Classics)

by David Hume

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 epistemology 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 experiment and systematization of observations, rather than by metaphysical theorizing or a priori speculation.