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Hume asks where our ideas come from and finds that all of them trace back to experience. His most famous argument is about cause and effect: we never actually see one thing make another happen, we only see one follow the other, and our expectation that the future will resemble the past rests on habit, not reason.
Context and significance
Published in 1748 as a clearer, shorter version of the first part of his Treatise of Human Nature, the Enquiry also contains a famous chapter on miracles. Kant said Hume woke him from his dogmatic slumber, and the problem of induction he raised is still discussed today.
About the author
David Hume (1711–1776) was born in Edinburgh and wrote his Treatise of Human Nature in his twenties, in France. His scepticism about religion cost him professorships at Edinburgh and Glasgow, but his essays and his History of England made him famous and comfortable.
As secretary to the British embassy in Paris he was adored in the salons, and in Edinburgh he was the warm centre of the Scottish Enlightenment and a close friend of Adam Smith. His Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding woke Kant from his dogmatic slumber. He faced death with a calm and humour that astonished his visitors.