A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects (1739–40) is a book by Scottish philosopher David Hume, considered by many to be Hume's most important work and one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy.[1] The Treatise is a classic statement of philosophical empiricism, scepticism, and naturalism. In the introduction Hume presents the idea of placing all science and philosophy on a novel foundation: namely, an empirical investigation into human nature. Impressed by Isaac Newton's achievements in the physical sciences, Hume sought to introduce the same experimental method of reasoning into the study of human psychology, with the aim of discovering the "extent and force of human understanding". Against the philosophical rationalists, Hume argues that the passions, rather than reason, cause human behaviour. He introduces the famous problem of induction, arguing that inductive reasoning and our beliefs regarding cause and effect cannot be justified by reason; instead, our faith in induction and causation is caused by mental habit and custom. Hume defends a sentimentalist account of morality, arguing that ethics is based on sentiment and the passions rather than reason, and famously declaring that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave to the passions". Hume also offers a sceptical theory of personal identity and a compatibilist account of free will.
Isaiah Berlin wrote of Hume that "no man has influenced the history of philosophy to a deeper or more disturbing degree".[2] Jerry Fodor wrote of Hume's Treatise that it is "the foundational document of cognitive science".[3] However, the public in Britain at the time did not agree, nor in the end did Hume himself agree, reworking the material in both An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). In the Author's introduction to the former, Hume wrote:
Most of the principles, and reasonings, contained in this volume, were published in a work in three volumes, called A Treatise of Human Nature: a work which the Author had projected before he left College, and which he wrote and published not long after. But not finding it successful, he was sensible of his error in going to the press too early, and he cast the whole anew in the following pieces, where some negligences in his former reasoning and more in the expression, are, he hopes, corrected. Yet several writers who have honoured the Author's Philosophy with answers, have taken care to direct all their batteries against that juvenile work, which the author never acknowledged, and have affected to triumph in any advantages, which, they imagined, they had obtained over it: A practice very contrary to all rules of candour and fair-dealing, and a strong instance of those polemical artifices which a bigotted zeal thinks itself authorized to employ. Henceforth, the Author desires, that the following Pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles.
Regarding An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume said: "of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best".[4]
^The book has appeared in many editions after the death of the author. See Hume, David (1888). Selby-Bigge, L.A. (ed.). A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved 30 June 2014. via Archive.org; Hume, David (1882). Green, T.H.; Grose, T.H. (eds.). A Treatise of Human Nature : Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects & Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Vol. 1. London: Longmans, Green & Co.; Hume, David (1882). Green, T.H.; Grose, T.H. (eds.). A Treatise of Human Nature : Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects & Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Vol. 2. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Retrieved 30 June 2014. via Archive.org
^Isaiah Berlin, The Age of Enlightenment: The 18th Century Philosophers (New York:
George Braziller, 1956), 163
ATreatiseofHumanNature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects (1739–40) is a book by Scottish philosopher...
effort, Hume's ATreatiseofHumanNature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell...
disruption of the state ofnature which Rousseau sees as true freedom. David Hume offers in ATreatiseofHumanNature (1739) that human beings are naturally...
Atreatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its...
with ATreatiseofHumanNature (1739–40), Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis ofhumannature. Hume...
David Hume's ATreatiseofHumanNature (1738–40); however, unlike Hume's view of the is–ought problem, Moore (and other proponents of ethical non-naturalism)...
the case of two billiard balls: one ball is moving, hits another one and stops, and the second ball is moving. In ATreatiseofHumanNature Hume coined...
is a thesis about necessary connections between distinct entities. Its original formulation can be found in David Hume's ATreatiseofHumanNature: "There...
his introduction to the problem of induction in ATreatiseofHumanNature within his larger discussion on the natureof causes and effects (Book I, Part...
Treatise of HumanNature that people invariably slip between describing that the world is a certain way to saying therefore we ought to conclude on a particular...
are the key opponents of moral rationalism. In Book 3 ofATreatiseofHumanNature and in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (EPM), Hume argues...
article from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Hume, David (1739). Treatise Concerning HumanNature, edited by L.A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Oxford University...
Ed. by L. A. (1987). Atreatiseofhumannature (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon. ISBN 978-0-19-824588-9. Berlyne, D. E (1954). "A Theory ofHuman Curiosity"...
(2001). The Life of David Hume. Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-199-24336-5. Hume, David (2003). Atreatiseofhumannature. Courier Corporation...
after the first Enquiry. Hume first discusses ethics in ATreatiseofHumanNature (in Book 3 - "Of Morals"). He later extracted and expounded upon the ideas...
govern human behaviour, famously proclaiming in ATreatiseofHumanNature that "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions". As part of her...
a kind of imitative poetry that provokes pity and fear. David Hume in his TreatiseofHumanNature argued that "pity is concern for... the misery of others...
Retrieved 23 December 2014. A. Johnson, Oliver (1995). The Mind of David Hume: A Companion to Book I ofATreatiseofHumanNature. The Floating Press. p. 123...
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