PHIL 718 Hume's Enquiries

A consideration of Hume s attempt to recast significant portions of his A Treatise of Human Nature in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. The course will not attempt an extended comparison between his first work and these (partial) revisions of it; nor is familarity with A Treatise prerequisite for enrollment. The course will, however, pay particular attention to the literary character of the two Enquiries, and of the ways it seeks to be both subordinate to and a corroboration of the principles of human nature that Hume had first elaborated in A Treatise. Appeal may occasionally be made to select essays from the Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary.