ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ‘account of mind’ David Hume developed in the first Enquiry. It also shows that that account reflects a shift away from the theoretical reduction of the Treatise to merely a lawful description of the operations of the mind. As a proponent of the accurate and abstruse method for doing moral philosophy, Hume’s task in the Enquiries was to ‘find those principles, which regulate understanding, excite sentiments, and make approve or blame any particular object, action, or behaviour’. So far have seen that there is seems to be a shift in Hume’s philosophical objectives in going from the Treatise to the Enquiries. While the Hume of the Treatise attempted to infer the nature of the mind from observational and explanatory claims, the Hume of the Enquiries attempted to provide nothing more than a lawful description of the mind.
