Hume's Enlightenment Tract: The Unity and Purpose of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding - Hardcover

Buckle, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198250886 ISBN 13: 9780198250883

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2001

Synopsis

This is the first full book-length study in forty years of David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding-which, contrary to its author's expressed wishes, long lived in the shadow of its predecessor A Treatise of Human Nature. Stephen Buckle presents the Enquiry in a fresh light, aiming to raise it to its rightful position in the history of philosophy. He argues that the Enquiry is not, as so often assumed, a mere collection of watered-down extracts from the earlier work. It is, rather, a coherent work with a unified argument; and, when this argument is grasped as a whole, the Enquiry shows itself to be the best introduction to the features of its author's general philosophy.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Buckle is Lecturer in Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University.

Review

... a pleasure to read. Buckle's commentary on the Enquiry is compelling, and the manner in which he situates the Enquiry in its historical and intellectual context is likewise engaging. This book clearly presents the roles of philosophical thought in the various phenomena constituting the Englightenment, and so will be of value to scholars and students of Hume, and will be of special value to people who are teaching the Enquiry for the first time and desire to understand how it all "hangs together". Eighteenth-Century Thought Buckle's work represents a stimulating and timely addition to the new scholarship on the first Enquriry ... He succeeds in the important task of establishing the Enquiry as an independently significant philosophical work, central to the interpretation of Hume's thinking as a whole, and his book should help ensure that the work remains at the forefront of a new critical thinking about Hume's epistemology. Journal of Scottish Philosophy Stephen Buckle's new work represents the first full study of the first Enquiry by a single author since Anthony Flew's Hume's Philosophy of Belief appeared more than 40 years ago ... Buckle's work is undoubtedly an important addition to the recent growth in scholarly writing on the Enquiry ... the only single-author work to offer both a critical overview of the Enquiry, a systematic general interpretation, and a section-by-section commentary on its contents. Journal of Scottish Philosophy Buckle makes out a fascinating and extremely scholarly case for concluding that Hume's first Enquiry was indeed originally intended to show how Hume's ideas were all related to and provided support for those of what came to be called the Enlightenment ... this is one of those books a copy of which ought to be held in the Philosophy section of every university library. British Journal for the History of Philosophy Stephen Buckle's new study of the first Enquiry and its relation to Book I of the Treatise will be welcomed as a potentially important addition to the Hume literature ... genuine food for thought. Mind This astonishingly learned and wonderfully stimulating study ... Buckle's great achievement is to present the Enquiry as a unified and constructive work, a current (rather than a counter-current) in the stream of the Enlightenment. His book is full of insight ... and its clear, measured and stately prose makes it accessible even to readers encountering Hume for the first time ... We are lucky to have a splendid new book that sheds so much light on [Hume]. Kenneth P. Winkler, Times Literary Supplement

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0198250886
• ISBN 13: 9780198250883
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 368