An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume was published in 1748 and is a shortened revision of his masterwork, A Treatise of Human Nature, which met with a disappointing reception when published anonymously in 1739. In revising he eliminated material from the Treatise and focused on clarifying and emphasizing its most important elements.  The resulting book articulates Hume’s theory of knowledge in a logical sequence of incremental steps.  The first six sections outline the epistemology, and the latter six sections discuss its application to specific topics.  Hume is one of the founding proponents of empiricism, and holds that mental activity falls into two groups, direct impressions of experience that have the strongest effect, and ideas, which are memories and imaginings and somewhat less forceful.  He goes on to treat the association of ideas, the nature of understanding and doubt, and the roles of habit and probability. His arguments take the reader to the edge of what he acknowledges are the limits of knowledge, and in doing so he delves into the difficult subjects of liberty, theology and miracles. The book was highly influential upon release, has served as a key influence on giants such as Immanuel Kant, and is rightly regarded as a classic in modern philosophy. It is especially worth examining at the present time given the attention given to the problems of truth in public affairs.

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