I just finished an audio book of an Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. I suspected I would agree with most of this work because it is very empirical and very pre-postmodern. Although Hume’s attempt to find “matters of fact” is simplistic compared to postmodernism, it might be still relevant to an lone individual’s understanding of the world. Hume also seems to regard philosophy as a progressive enterprise but may be because he uses a narrower definition of philosophy than postmodernism.

The central idea seems to be very modest: ask where does our knowledge come from and can we be sure of it? I leave aside tautological truth for simplicity. We cannot progress far on a-priori knowledge. Our senses supply us with information of various types but of unknown reliability. We may notice two sensations, let us call them A and B that appear conjoined (associated in some arbitrary way). If at a later time we experience A, might we expect B? Our first association of A and B might have been coincidental. If we do see 100 times that A is followed by B, we might the same thing to occur on the 101st observation of A. But of course we have mistaken A for event C which, to our senses, appears exactly the same as A. What appears to us as A, but which is really C, might be followed not by B but by event D. In this way, no certain knowledge is possible.

I might speculate that the conjoining of A with B might be called force (if they are billiard balls), justice (if punishment follows crime) or morality (if an evil action causes a person to sin). Note that “force”, “justice” and “morality” are not directly observable but are human interpretations. I would imagine Hume would reject the last one because “sin”, as an effect, is not accessible to our senses. Since causal relations only exist, according to him, between sensory experiences, that leaves no room for metaphysical cause or effect. Interestingly, he leaves metaphysics and valuations to other non-philsophers.

A correct Judgement [...] confines itself to common life, and to such subjects as fall under daily practice and experience; leaving the more sublime topics to the embellishment of poets and orators, or to the arts of priests and politicians.

I would say that philosophy still has some role in valuations – or should that be the art of ruling?

I was previously considering ideas of God, omniscience and evil. I found Hume had already comprehensively discussed this point! Put simply: if God created the world and knew the future, he might have intended everything that has happened and will happen (unless, according to Wilde, he was over ambitious and erred). This is inconsistent with the concept of free will.

One issue with audio books is the unrelenting pace. There is less time to digest the ideas. I may as well finish on the often quoted last line of the book, which actually seems to be aimed at philosophers rather than people at large:

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

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