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A Treatise of Human Nature

David Hume, philosophy, 1739-1740·18 hrs in the original·original at Project Gutenberg
The 30‑second version18 hrs → 50 sec
  • Opens by declaring war on inherited philosophy. Hume writes that "principles taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduced from them" have "drawn disgrace upon philosophy itself," and proposes to found all inquiry on "the science of man" instead.
  • Cause and effect turns out to be a habit, not a law. After tracing "constant conjunction" through examples like flame and heat, Hume argues reason cannot prove that unobserved instances resemble observed ones, since "we can at least conceive a change in the course of nature."
  • There is no self to find, only a rotating cast of sensations. Searching inward, Hume writes "I never can catch myself at any time without a perception," and concludes people are "nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions...in a perpetual flux and movement."
  • Book I ends with the author in genuine despair. Hume compares himself to a sailor who, having "struck on many shoals," still puts to sea again, and calls himself a "strange uncouth monster" abandoned by "all metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even theologians."
  • Argues reason cannot rank a finger scratch against the world ending. The line "it is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger" backs his claim that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions."
  • Catches moral philosophers smuggling in a word. Watching writers slide from "is" statements to "ought" statements without explanation, Hume flags the jump as needing its own defense, a move later dubbed the is-ought problem.
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•Why it earns a slot

Why it earns a slot: it is the text that first drew the line between what is and what ought to be, and every argument about facts versus values since has had to answer to it.

Hume tries to build a complete science of the mind on experience alone, and ends up proving that reason cannot justify cause, self, or morality without help from feeling.

This distillation is written from the freely available original, which is always the better read when you have the time: Project Gutenberg.

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