Hume's Enlightenment Tract

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.